Before our spring adventures we found out about an injury that Griffin has had for a long time. We elected to wait to do treatment until our after planned activities – otherwise he would have had to stay home doing nothing. After seven weeks of travel and learning and extensive Read more…
During my trip I got to see many different dog activities and training. Here are few notes about what we did, learned, and observed Herding: Early on in my trip I was at a herding seminar. The dogs made amazing progress in two days, it was impressive how the training progressed Read more…
We’re home! It’s so hard to believe that yesterday morning we were walking not just in another country, but on another continent than where we ended our day. At the beginning of this year I didn’t even have a passport – and now my dog and I both do! I was Read more…
Yesterday we went to the local elementary school to do a few presentations. These were the youngest kids I’ve presented for and we had three groups, about an hour each time! Griffin did some agility, some tricks, and we talked about different ways to get behaviors. My favorite part was Read more…
Griffin and I are taking a Field Trial Foundations class and we’ve only done about 4 weeks so far. The first two lessons have been exactly what we need for obedience… relaxation and steadiness! There really aren’t many option for people seeking positive reinforcement training for field work, most attempts Read more…
On Saturday we were at a 4-H Dog Judge’s training day. I was there to be learning and I was there to help. I spent part of the day frantically taking notes about how to be even better at judging. And for part of the day I was a dog Read more…
In 2012 I intended to be doing a lot of trials and events with all the dogs. It didn’t happen. Blaze did one day of rally and Griffin did one day of agility. But we did a lot of seminars and my notes say we did at least 26 days Read more…
Griffin and I finally made it to an agility trial. We went to a CPE trial on Saturday and entered 3 classes. I had some specific goals for the event: Try a start line stay. It can be hard for dogs to stay at the beginning of the course, but it’s Read more…
An important part of the seminar for me was that I have to be happy with “good enough” and not be quite as concerned about perfect. Apparently ‘perfect’ is unreasonable. But “good enough” doesn’t mean accepting poor behaviors or having lower standards of performance. We need the best quality of Read more…
Griffin has been on limited activity after being diagnosed with an iliopsoas injury in early June. He had seemed off for a few weeks before that and a trip to his regular veterinarian was unproductive. We saw a vet who specializes in physical rehabilitation and is a Certified Read more…