When I was in school I was really good about posting regular blog updates of our adventures. This gave me a way to look back on our training events and the reflection time spent writing the points was also useful. Now that I’m differently busy, I am not as reliable about posting.
Visitor
Here are a few things we did in 2017 that I meant to post about – but didn’t.
- Visiting WCFO (World Canine Freestyle Organization) national event to watch some training acquaintances particpate
- Details on our trip to Tennessee for the USDAA TitleMania event – including our first on-leash hike with all three dogs.
- Dogs staying with me for training (like the guy below!)
- Viktor visiting a behavior vet for more help with his resource guarding – nothing too surprising but we did some initial testing for a type of dwarfism (though he did gain about 5lbs in the last year – now at 3 years he weighs 41lbs! ). His focus has improved, he sleeps in even later (he has always slept well), and this week he tried to play with Griffin.
- Earlier in the month we hosted a positive reinforcement field training seminar with our training friend Thomas It was so fun to have him here to visit and see him again. It was really, really special to have a room full of people mostly interested in competition (and a few just in practical training) for field events with their sporting dogs.
- New WCRL (rally) rules – and our excitement for them!
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WCFO nationals – skit
Several families I know have added new dogs and puppies to their home – including a few people who were some of my very first training clients 10 years ago!
- We hosted an AKC (American Kennel Club) Agility Course Test in November.
- Snowy October trip to MN which included taking a dog who wasn’t mine!
- Interesting cat-cat interactions as my parents added a new cat to their home
- Changes to our group class beginner agility curriculum after some inspiration from Bad Dog Agility – this has led to a higher number of teams going into intermediate level classes.
- Our training friend and mentor Fanny has published her agility book. We received a copy and it was extra fun to see adorable Griffin in a few pictures and many dogs I’ve met in other pictures. I’m eager to read through it – and it will be my reward for finishing some projects this week.
- We had some not so good trial experiences in late summer//early fall for Griffin. We’ve taken a break from trials other than what we host. We’ve started getting back into training and hopefully will be doing some trials in the next month again. We’re especially excited about the AKC obedience rule changes for later in the spring!
Baby warthog at an event.
Theoretically I’ll have time to catch up and share much more about all of those things – but each week we have even more, new things I could and should be sharing and recording.