Friday, August 14, 2009

Lizzie's herding lesson this week, not exactly ready for trials????

OOOH Lizzie....another venue where she is not looking like a shining star....LOL. Unfortunately we are running out of dog sports to keep trying, so not sure we are going to find Lizzies little nitch just yet, LOL.

Well, Liz went for another herding lesson and I thought she did ok, and I might not know a lot about herding, but she looks amazing to me. So I was sort of bummed when the instructor said well, I am not really happy with and there is not much I see in this dog that I like, and if you want to do any real herding then would you like me to help you find a new dog? OMG, I sure am not going to find a new dog just for herding, LOL. Anyway, my mother bear bristles immediately stood up, this guy was working Liz and she does not work near as well for him as she does for me and this is only her third try, and she was doing a bit of limping (I am really not sure what that is about...), so not exactly time to write her off yet I would think....especially when she was herding the sheep but she just left twice,she left to check on me. For heavens sake it was her third time on sheep, and she actually is not totally confident yet...but she seems to sort of know what she is doing and seems about a 7 on a 1-10 scale in her excitement over it, so....GIVE HER A BREAK. Liz has her last lesson I have paid for at this current place on Sunday, so I will try to get someone to video for us and I will post it and we can all look and see if she should be written off just yet.

This all brings up something I did not know about myself, LOL, I do have a competitive drive and secretly I really was thinking that Lizzie was really going to do well at herding. She has been evaluated by others and they thought she did amazing, and not sure how much I value the opinion of this particular instructor. The funny thing is that Liz definitely does more then well enough to keep doing what we are doing and it is something that seems good for her...so why did this guys opinion that she would never be good enough to trial bother me? Poor Liz. Guess I am a doggie mom that puts pressure to perform on her puppy and I did not even realize it until this happened.

I tell you I think I will do our last lesson I have paid for with this guy and then I would like to try another instructor that I have heard a lot of great things about...and we will see. I thought about all of this on the way home from herding and one thing is for sure, no matter what anyone else says or how many sports Lizzie washes out of....she is the champion best buddy for me, so not every dog can be my perfect friend so guess she will always be tops in that category.

3 comments:

Karen said...

I haven't had time to work on Robin's herding schedule for September but hope to have time tomorrow. I'll get you scheduled.

Diana said...

I dont know anything about herding but I cant believe you can know already how a dog is going to do. Can you imagine taking three dog agility lessons and the instructor saying your dog doesnt have what it takes. You would think they were crazy. Dont listen to the instructor and I think its a good idea about finding a new one. Diana

Sam said...

Keep at it. I bet if you have confidence in your dog, she'll make you proud. What a big statement for the trainer to make after only three tries.