So sorry little fairies but I just am not coordinated...

Well, the holiday season marches on. Our house is really small and with all the crates, the big xpen for Cricket, and everyone being home for a few weeks, I was trying to figure out a way to have a Christmas tree that was safe and did not take up too much room. I got a 4 1/2 foot tree and put it on the kitchen table! Seemed like a great compromise, I rigged up some pvc to thread the plug through so it seemed pretty safe from the puppy, the wild wrestling border collies and the kids running through the house. Of course as I am patting myself on the back and thinking I had thought of everything and I was soooo smart, I turn around and not five minutes after the tree went up I found Kimmie the cat trying to climb up the tree, ahhhhhh....well, it is close to a perfect solution, LOL.

I have very SAD news to report, LOL, I took little Miss Cricket to Breeze's class yesterday, and as we went into the agility field I think the fairies were dropping like flies. It was a sad few minutes for the fairies. hahahahahahah. (I had seen a blog where they said to think every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash a fairy dies, well, bad time for the fairies). I thought I could walk with Cricket on a leash walking in, carrying her crate and clicking and getting out treats. Well, I am not as coordinated as I thought, and so I just could not find the right hands, and everything was falling and Cricket was just so excited to get in and say hello, that there was a lot of tight leash going on. OOOH well, she was on her harness, so it was not a total loss and when we left the yard and when I took her and walked around the yard we were safe guarding the fairies then, and she did marvelously. The great news is that I was able to let Cricket run around a lot more this week, it was more relaxed and she did get to meet a poodle mix, an aussie, a papillon and a spaniel mix and she was eager to see them all. Actually Cricket was way bouncey and in their face and I am pretty surprised no one told her to back off a little bit. The aussie she met had not seen puppies before and Cricket was really wanting him to play and he just stood still trying to figure out what the deal was, LOL, we had some nice doggies to say Hi to yesterday. I was so proud of my little ball of fluff, she was sure everyone in that class was her best buddie-she still is showing no shyness or fear. Cricket spent some time exploring all the equipment then ran through the big long tunnel before I could get her, but she was fine and ready to do it again. I am not sure if she had been through tunnels at Hillcrest, but I have not had her through any here, so I was pretty impressed with that. I put little Cricket in her crate while I ran Breeze and covered the crate, gave her a peanut butter kong and she did fine. I was also working on Look at That when the big dogs would run by her because the movement does get her pretty excited, and she loves that game.

Yesterday was the bonus class for Breeze's Handlers 2 class. When people come and set up the class equipment for Deanna's classes you get a token and if you have six tokens at the end of classes you are able to come to a bonus class. The bonus class usually is a fun course and we just get to run a nice full course that incorporates some of the things we have learned in the previous class.

WHAT CAN I SAY? Last week we had the hardest course....and we aced it. This week I walked this course and thought it looked sooo easy, I was not too worried about it. Of course you know that means we mucked the whole thing up, LOL.

I was very happy with my opening and tried to stand basically by the tunnel entrance and then sent Breeze over one and two (like a pinwheel sort of), then rear crossed the tunnel and thought if I was way far back like that, and just moved up I could change Breezes line to nicely go into the tunnel. Well, as Breeze SHOT out the tunnel she just knew she would do the aframe and sort of barely glanced at me. The second time I tried that I tried basically an RFP to get her to move back and pulled her way too far back, and was way late, ahhhhh...and it looked so easy when I walked it.

Going to the double before the dogwalk, I usually am very quiet when I run but decided to give a GO OVER and the rear cross to get her out and turning for the dog walk. Well, I usually don't talk and Breeze was headed for that jump and doing marvelously until I used my verbals, she totally thought something must be wrong and almost stopped. Then I had to get her going again and over the jump, hummm, good thing to take note of in the future.

My dogwalk contact has been not looking so good again, so I stuck a toy at the end on the ground and Breeze was going to whiz by the contact and saw the toy at the last minute and almost went tail over tea kettle trying to stop. Poor dog with her hips dysplasia she just does not have the rear end strength for some things. I will have to be baiting the contact a little more often I think.

Weave entries have been a problem and this was training so I took out the middle poles, so there was two sets of four poles. If Breeze caught the entry I wanted to be able to reward it and not take a chance on her making any other mistakes so I could not reward...anyway, she caught both entries, YIPPIE.

Breeze jumped on the table and skidded off, there are some good clean run exercises to proof the table and help dogs figure out how to stick it, so we are going to work on those this vacation.

The last part we had a problem was a part that another dog had the same issues with and that was the tunnel to the second to last jump YIKES. Another part I did not expect a problem and what happened is that Breeze time and again BLASTED out of the tunnel and looks for the next thing, by the time she checked in with me she was way beyond the jump, she went around it every time until the last time. Breeze has this blastie thing coming out of tunnels that I was not aware of, but this course really brought it out at the start of the course and the end, so another good awareness for me.

So a lot of good things to work on and a lot of challenges for a course that I just thought was a no brainer when I walked it, .......Anyway, a lot of fun-Deanna always has the best classes and the best courses!