Thursday, April 21, 2011

Well, whadaya know.....

Yup!  Jasmine got her third Q in her doggy lifetime, which also happens to be her first in the Advanced level.  It was a last minute decision of my part to enter her in one event at the trial last week, just for the heck of it.  The course was quite straightforward, and I didn't try any fancy moves.  If you watch the video, and if you happen to be a judge, you might be tempted to call a refusal on our move when I lost my way...  Did the judge call it?  If he did, the scribe didn't note it, and Jasmine and I got a lucky break.  On the other hand, we're not in trials every weekend, and when we are, we rarely qualify.  Therefore, I went proudly home with a beautiful ribbon in my pocket.  Both dogs earned pigs' ears for their good behaviour.

Fannie, for her part, was a good little dog, and sucked up all the attention that was given to her.  Both dogs borrowed Noble Walter's crate and were quiet as a clam in there.  They looked quite cute with the great silver ribbons attached to the crate.

Scary moment

We've been having a very wet Spring, with important rainfalls.  The horse arena where the trial was held wasn't spared and several muddy spots could be found on the sand.  Just before the second tunnel, I was so sure that Jasmine would detour to the water puddle (she's been know to do this during our off-leash walks), that I called "tunnel, tunnel, tunnel".  It wasn't even necessary.  She didn't even glance at it.  : )

Fannie's training

Great news!  Fannie figured out the basket exercice, and now, we're reducing the size.  The same goes for the balance disk.  Training a young puppy IS fun. 

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The basket case

One rear-end awareness exercice which Fannie needs to do is the "basket" exercice.  The idea is to shape her into putting all four paws in a basket.  Once that's done, you reduce the size of the basket until she can put all four paws in a itsy bitty basket.  We've been working on it for the past two weeks and no results.  Before getting all depressed, I consulted Jasmine's notes on this same exercice and found this.

"Jasmine finally got it and in one day, went down three sizes with no problem."

That perked me up.  : )