Friday, August 17, 2007

Where to start?????

So much has happened since my last post.....I pulled out of our driveway for Minnesota on Monday, July 23rd at 6 am. Got to Bill & Sue’s about 4 pm or so. Thank God for Rescue Remedy. I gave Keegan two drops on his tongue about 45 minutes before leaving and he settled himself into his crate propped against the side of it with one eye on me. Said eye started to droop about an hour later and he sagged into a prone position. A few minutes later all I heard was some light snoring. Blissful silence all the way to MN! Yay!

During our 10 days there, the dogs got in some roadwork, rally practice and a little jility, but no dock diving since the lake was too rough. I did catch enough walleye that I needed to borrow Bill’s license to transport them back to Nebraska.

While I was in Minnesota our daughter made some major decisions in her life that impacted ours. She and the bf of four years broke up, she gave up her apartment and asked to move home for a year or so. Of course the answer was "Yes", however she also has a CAT! It has worked out well since Isis moved in while the dogs and I were gone and was able to become accustomed to the house without having to contend with the normal four footed residents. One little rub was that I was bringing Bill & Sue's 12 year old Shih Tzu, Dolly, home with me while they were on an Alaskan cruise and neither Dolly nor my dogs had ever been around a cat, much less lived with one. I am happy to say that all of them get along famously. Dolly and Keegan walked in, looked at Isis, and walked right by her as if she weren't there. Cash, on the other hand, wanted to play. RIGHT NOW!!!

Cash and I started our next session of agility on Wednesday, August 15. We're still in Obstacles, but since we have some *issues* to work on, that's okay. Here is our instructors' recap of our first week:

8/15/07: Skills worked: aframe/stairs, weaves, set point jump, 4 jump bounce grid, chute, tire, small sequenceCash: Weaves: great, independent of Julie. Focus on entries this week in training. Aframe: refused to run full low aframe, end performance was solid (2 on/off, nose touch minimal, stayed in position well) Suggested getting to club to build his confidence on running full aframe. Chute, cannot do independently, did ok with me holding all length open at the end. Tire was good, Set ups were good. Sequence was fine with me holding the chute open, but dropped after dog committed and dog stayed in it. Rewards good.

I think his A frame reluctance was due to not seeing one in awhile and the way it was set up he didn't have enough room to build speed to climb it. I love the fact that these instructors send an email recap the day after class so we can refer to it while trying to remember what to work on for next week. I've got a brand new chute in the garage, so I'd best get it unpacked, put together and in use, pronto.

1 comment:

Avalon said...

Yikes,

You were right.....a lot has happened. As you know, i am very happy for you and your Princess about the BF situation, even if your house and garage are a bit crowded!

I might suggest the follow up e-mail to our instructors. i can always use the reference to keep on track.