Onward - Soon!

This was a quiet week on the blog.  I was swamped beyond swamped at work.  The last couple of weeks of school are definitely a busy time for a High School teacher.  But now regular classes are over, most of my grading is finished, and we only have exams ahead, so I can get back to some focus on dog things.

We did go to Rally FrEe class on Monday night, and that went very well.  We are working on Intermediate level signs now, and one that was brand new was the 360 pivot in front.  Both dogs did a pretty good job with it.  Tessa really isn't quite ready to be off the platform yet, but she is super close.  One of my goals for this exercise is to be able to execute it with my hands behind my back.  This was a Freestyle move that Speedy could do, but only if I had hands in front of me guiding him.  Both Tessa and Dean can certainly learn it without that kind of help.

I was talking to our instructor after class, and she gave Dean quite a compliment.  She said that he is very talented.  It meant a lot that she said that.  Sometimes I get so caught up in all of the extra challenges that performance with Dean Dog presents that I forget to appreciate the fact that he is quite a talented dog.  And he is really, really starting to like Rally FrEe quite a lot!  I'm seeing some of the excitement and joy that I used to see in his Rally.

No Agility this week since I needed to attend Baccalaureate Mass and Awards for the graduating Senior class on Thursday night.

Today the Heeling Games class begins.  I am going to post some of my work, and reflections in the experience, here.  I won't give away details about Ms. Fenzi's instruction, of course, but I will share some bits about Dean's progress in the class.

I am sharing this as our "baseline" video.  This is actually a couple of years old, but it represents Dean's heelwork pretty decently.  I do have food in my hand, and building his duration - with this level of enthusiasm, precision, and focus, is one of my goals of the class.



So, we shall see where we go from here.  Hopefully someplace good!

And, on the topic of online classes, I am starting up some more of my own in July!  In my very limited spare time this past week, I put together the course descriptions and registration flyers.  I already have a few people signed up for one of them, and interest expressed in the two others.  For information go here:

Online Classes for Summer 

Onward - soon!  School is completely and officially over in one week.  Then our dog training intensive begins!!!