Thursday, March 11, 2010

Breeze has a great class and looks GREAT-who needs any other news? LOL

Liz's agility class was cancelled on Tuesday due to gale force winds.... I was not looking forward to the biting wind, so I was not that disappointed.

Wednesday still had a nasty wind, but Breeze's class went on as scheduled. Knowing the cold might be a big factor in Breeze and her current physical problems.....I put on her Back on Track jacket http://wizardofpaws.net/pages/store_back_on_track.htm. I have been using the jacket on Breeze all night, every night and I put it on her for about an hour before class and then put it on as soon as she finished an exercise. I also made sure to pull her out of the crate and run her around to warm her up. I have to say warming her up was a bit embarrassing, Deanna was talking and I felt rude just walking off and moving around-I stayed close so I could hear what she was saying but....I was probably not looking like I was listening a lot, but I apologized after the lesson and I did feel like things are to the point where I have to put my doggie first for sure no matter how embarrassing it is-people are going to have to understand....or not. The courses were the type we like a little tighter and no weaves! BREEZE WAS AWESOME, and more importantly looked great through the whole class, no limping. The class theme was contacts and even with the contact work Breeze looked great. I did not run her in the whole class, I used moderation-which I am horrible at and skipped the last run of the day even though I wanted to do the last run soooo bad, it was so much fun.

The interesting thing about the class was that I had given up on my 2o2o on the dog walk, and just went back to the 4 on the floor, so you can all guess what type of contact Breeze did-YEP, a gorgeous 2o2o-all three times she was on the dog walk. Ughghghg, I can tell she is not sure of what she should be doing although she is driving to the end, and with all our going back and forth with the type of contact we are doing that was not surprising there was confusion, it was surprising she was still driving to the end. We got some really good distance work, way more then I have ever trusted her to do before, I just felt like going for it and Baby Breeze just did awesome. I had just read the article about what we inadvertantly train in this months Clean Run that arrived yesterday...I thought it was great and it reminded me of a lot of things that I made sure to work on in class.

I so wish I had a tape of Breeze running, she was so awesome and she looked good. Maybe the weaves and the Back on Track jacket did the trick???? I have noticed an improvement since I have been doing her exercises more diligently and used the jacket.

I have some pictures from Cricket playing at the Contact Point Agility yard and at the beach from the other day

ARE YOU WATCHING ME?


HERE I COME-now that I made sure you are watching!


WHERE TO NOW?


I LOVE TUNNELS!


THE BEACH AFTER HERDING-the wind was really strong and the waves were high so not much swimming





6 comments:

Jules said...

woo-hoo Breeze! What more do I need to say. :-)

Diana said...

Wow, Im so glad everything went well. Those waves look huge. Diana

Sara said...

OK, I have to say I am intrigued by that jacket. I've been on that website, but never saw that jacket. I'm going to go back and read all about it.

I'm glad Breeze was able to have a good class, without any limping. I'm sure that made both of you happy.

I've been wondering how I'm going to keep Oreo warmed up between turns during class time, without looking rude! So, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I did read the article in clean run about preventing reinjury. It had a lot of useful information, and perfect timing for me!

AC said...

It's good to hear class went so well and breeze is holding up. I often feel weird in training classes as I try to shuffle attention between the instructor and keeping Kona focused/not anxious.

Love love that first picture of Cricket peaking out of the tunnel!

Chris and Ricky said...

It was good to hear that Breeze did so well in class and had no limping - YAY! I don't think you should be embarrassed when you are just trying to put the welfare of your dog first! Hopefully any agility instructor would understand.

Cricket is so cute playing with the tunnel!

Sam said...

I was really happy to come to your blog this afternoon to read the good news about Breeze. I hope her sore and limpy days are behind her for a while.

Those waves DO look huge - I don't think I've ever seen waves like that.