Practice this week and other stuff!

Been another fun, busy week here at the May Ranch.

Since Trainer has been at Cynosport the past two weeks, we haven't had a formal practice. But we did get in that nice practice at the Halloween party last week.

And we were fortunate enough to get in two practices this week. The first was at Trainer's house; where we rented the ring for an hour or so.

Mum worked my dog walk, which is coming along but still needs work. I missed a couple of contacts, but generally made most of them. Guess I need one of those magnetic bracelets to get me to stick those contacts!

Then we worked on my frame. After two weekends ago at Ohio and the bobble we had after the frame, we needed to figure out better ways to handle me on turns after the frame, so Mum worked on several things - post turn, rear cross and blind cross. They worked great. We also worked on a bit of a deceivingly difficult weave entrance, and some tighter turns. Mum was happy with all the work I did.

Gracie got to play too. She made all of her dogwalk and frame contacts. And did pretty well on her weaves. She wasn't the most focused out in the middle of country nowhere with big trucks driving by and stirring up lots of dust from the gravel road, but she did pretty good.

Here's the vid from Tuesday - has some of our dogwalks, frames and weaves for both of us:


On Thursday night we went to the Lafayette Kennel Club and rented the ring for an hour with a friend. Mum wanted to get me on their fairly new matted flooring to decide if she wanted to enter me in the AKC trial there in a few weeks. And she wanted to get in some nice practice for both me and Gracie.

Mum practiced many of the same things with me - dog walk contact, frame turning, tight jumping and weaves. She also worked on getting my speed to the fullest running on the flooring once she knew I was comfy with it; so that I would best understand I can run full out there. Worked great.

Gracie had a rough start to the night. Mum took her out of the car. It was dark and she had never been there before. Lots of traffic from the road. She did her business (which we think now was from stress) and when Mum gave her a treat for pottying, she wouldn't take it. She was over the top stressed out.

So Mum took her inside and led her around for a nice walk around the building, letting her sniff. Then she worked on her target games, which she loves, did some tugging, and Gracie seemed pretty good. Mum ran her and Gracie immediately ran off. So Mum put her leash on, took her out of the ring on leash and walked her around again, while our friend ran. She played more games with her. Then took her out again to run.

Gracie became the most amazing agility dog ever! Well, in our family anyway :) She was running her dogwalks full out, frame too, making all her contacts. She was handling at a lateral distance very nicely, incredibly focused and did some nice front and rear crosses. On one run of jumps she voluntarily took the weaves thinking that's where Mum was leading her (she was, btw). She made that entrance all on her own from about six feet away. Now that's showing some confidence. Mum gave her loads of good girls for that!

So Mum decided since Gracie was feeling so confident she would test her weaves even more - not helping her with the entrance and handling her at more of a distance. She did so great! We were both super proud of her.

Gracie is really starting to get more and more confidence every time she runs, which is just awesome to see. Can't wait to see how she does in her two trials in December.

In other stuff...

Our car has been acting up a bit. Mum tried to get it into the shop and guess what, can't take the car in for three business days and they may have the car for at least three days. Sheesh! Whatever happened to the good ole days when you could take your car in, get a ride home or to work, and then get a ride back to pick up your car the same day. Guess they are long gone.

The nice thing is that Mum thought the car was acting like we got some bad gas - no, not that kind of gas - the kind you put in your car, silly! We filled up last night and all the car trouble symptoms are gone. Guess time will tell.

Last week Mum ordered us some more vitamins and treats. During our first year with Mum, Gracie and I both had a vitamin a day to supplement our diet (recent rescues need that). After about a year she took us off, because our food, treats and the supplementing of cooked foods that Mum provides, gives us all the nutrition we need.

But Mum decided to change her mind. We've been incredibly active this year with all the agility, walks, hiking, zooming, herding birds, agility and more. So Mum decided to put us both back on vitamins and she's seen a good difference in both of us. We just have more energy and we seem healthier and happier, so Mum has decided to keep us on them.

We love the vitamins, but we love the treats even more! Freeze dried raw Green Tripe, and Lakse Kronch salmon treats our favorites. All three we got from our favorite online store, OnlyNaturalPet.com, which is one of the companies that we are an affiliate of on JohannTheDog.com.

Hope you all had a good week and have the best weekend!