An Arena!

Winter Break is winding down, it was much needed. Though despite my valiant efforts, I did not actually get through all the content I really thought I’d be able to watch/read during the break from all the books/videos/online classes that I have purchased and then never actually read/watched. So there are STILL all sorts of things waiting for me to have time to watch them. I really did thoroughly enjoy going through them though, I love seeing different perspectives.

We ended up doing a nice mix of obedience and herding throughout the month. I’m glad we had the nasty weather as it was fun to do our ‘cram for obedience’ with Asher, and Navarre has enjoyed his revival and playing with Carol. As to whether our efforts will actually amount to anything at the trial in April, well, that’s debatable, but the process has been fun, which is the important thing.

I’m actually fairly pleased with Asher’s progress in obedience, he wasn’t EXACTLY going ‘zero to CD’, but it was definitely starting near the beginning with heeling and fronts and finishes at least. I’m not saying he’s now a GOOD heeling dog, but I do think he has the idea and would probably actually make a good obedience dog had I actually wanted to spend the time to train in correctly. We have until April, but I’m sure that will sneak right up on us once we get back into agility. We went out to Jill’s facility, another new location and he didn’t need all the acclimation he did before. He could fudge through a heeling pattern, he understands how to come somewhat to front now. He can mostly do a stand for exam without moving, his figure eight is much improved, he can do a group stay. Mostly he’s just happy, he enjoys the interaction on a level that Navarre just never did. Navarre likes the TRAINING, Asher likes the interaction and one on one time.

Navarre and Carol did a cold ‘run through’ at Jill’s, their first go through the whole routine with minimal rewards and without acclimation. It went okay, he stayed with her and working, but definitely more distracted. He didn’t seem sad though, even when they had to go back and re-do the retrieve over the high jump because he ran around the jump on the return again, and when he acted like he’d never seen a broad jump before (dork!). We’ll work on those, I’m cautiously optimistic they might finish that CDX. Less optimistic he would actually want do all that thinking in utility. Which is fine, and if he doesn’t finish the CDX that’s fine too – but it’s been fun to work on.

We went to one more proofing practice as well, and just going to this sort of training environment has been a really great opportunity for all the dogs. Asher and Bryn have never been exposed to it and I was happy to see them so much more relaxed and focused on our final training excursion. Now, admittedly I brought out a toy for Bryn, but she was actually happy and pushing to have her turn and do things with some energy and zip, even with food. Once again, I have zero interest in doing obedience with her (at least right now), but just getting her out and about was obviously something she needed. And it was hilarious how hard it was to stop her for going for other dogs’ dumbbells and gloves.

Asher once again could fumble through the exercises, it would help if I didn’t laugh when he attempted to heel and I would actually teach him to heel at a fast, he is always so bewildered. His fronts are so much better and so much more confident. And, yes, he’s not running into me on the recall – it was just lame when he wasn’t. Held his stand for exam for a new person today (admittedly, we have never done one with a man), and was generally such a good boy that really just enjoys the interaction.

Navarre continues to look good with Carol, but also I can see the eye rolls – he still thinks obedience is just stupid, no matter who is doing it. He is definitely doing it for the paycheck, and is more than happy to check out if there is anything more interesting going on. He’s an interesting dog to train, I have to wonder if Carol did put more pressure on him if he would actually like it more. He’s so weird like that. But we’ll keep cleaning up his behaviors and see what happens in April. I’d like to think he can do it, even if it’s not a spectacular performance. When it comes to obedience, we go for mediocre around here!

Went up to Fidos to practice on the good baby dog sheep, for whatever reason Bryn was all pushy and slicey on these sheep – go figure! So not sure where that came from, maybe my perfect baby herding dog actually DOES require training. She did get better and we had a chance to work multiple times to focus on the skills I wanted to progress with. Unfortunately, she’s also eying up on her outruns even with the much more sedate Fidos sheep, so it’s an issue. But one that is much easier to address on those sheep, so we did. Going to work on getting her a ‘get out’ cue to help break that behavior when she does it. Worked on getting her hold her fetch lines, that was hard, she still wants to squirt outwards in ways that are totally off balance, not helpful. She had some nice stuff too. Definitely made some progress with her baby drives, she still doesn’t really understand the exercise, but she’s starting to get the idea. Taking sheep through gates freaks her out, so we had some riling up when fetching through panels, I didn’t expect that. A very productive day.

Asher was also surprisingly pushy with the Fidos sheep, I kept having to get after him on his lifts again. Come on, buddy, SLOW DOWN – we’ve worked on this (a lot!). We worked driving in and out of different panel configurations with really heavy dogbroke sheep and I was super happy with his confidence. This used to be his hardest thing! Small flanks and quick downs with his whistles continue to elude us, and without those our work goes to pot at a distance. Hmmm. I’ve tried elongating his current whistles, but he has no clue what they are at that point. Definitely need to do things differently with Bryn, and maybe change Asher’s whistles too. Sigh. Live and learn.

Our lesson with Ron was about shedding, I wanted to feel more confident about what we should actually be doing with that. Asher is happy to shed, but I get easily flummoxed with it all. It was interesting, this time when Ron explained how he did shedding it seemed completely different than before. Funny how we all hear different things. Basically he thinks all sheds are ‘international sheds’, which instead of thinking of calling the dog through it’s letting the sheep you don’t want walk away, and keeping the ones you want. At least in Clover field we were able to make that happen, and Asher really liked it! We then went and worked on it with the super heavy dogbroke sheep, which was less successful – but Ron couldn’t do it with his dog either, so, hey. We did get it on another group of sheep though, still heavy, so still harder – and Asher still thinks it’s fun. Something to work on.

We also met Carol up at Brigand’s, so Navarre got to play with her again. Bryn was pushy, but not sticky on her outruns, so, hey good and bad. She continues to slowly progress with driving, getting a little more comfortable every time we look at it. Asher continues to try, Navarre continues to do well with Carol – I’m happy with everyone’s progress in herding these days.

Bryn’s brother Brad was sold over the weekend. It was fun as I finally got to see him really work when they had him working non dogbroke cattle for the demonstration before the auction, he was the first dog to go. I LIKE these dogs! He was super sensible, very responsive, fast and just really mature. I saw a lot of traits that Bryn has, and so level headed. He ended up selling for $5200, I think, I’m not sure who he sold to, probably will never know. I was really happy to see what he could do though, gives me hope for little Bryn.

I have an arena – holy crap! The ‘Quiet Room’ is still yet to be done, but the concrete viewing area is in and there is EQUIPMENT in the arena! Just some jumps and a tunnel, but we’ve actually been able to go out and play for the first time. SO MUCH FUN! The surface is a little loose, which is to be expected, especially with it being so dry. The boys didn’t have an issue, it looks really comfortable for them – Bryn has struggled with keeping her bars up. Though that may just be general lack of not doing any agility for six weeks! What she DOES remember is her weavepoles, she picked up right back up where she left them. Still need work to be solid, but she’s trying really hard and looks good. Such a funny little nugget she is! And, OMG, I’m so ridiculously out of shape. I really hope having the arena I can practice actually RUNNING again, which I obviously do not do, ever, unless there is agility involved (and there has been no agility involved!).

Very excited and so many things I want to work on. Step number one is actually jumping, I joined a jumping class with Nina Gregl with Asher. While I had planned to do my own jumping retrain, I’m really curious what she has to say – especially with a dog like Asher, he’s a bit of a mystery to me still. So hopefully that will give us some structure, and I’ll look at it with Bryn too. Navarre is almost 7, we’ve now hit the ‘run the dog you have’ stage, which actually has been surprisingly smooth recently.

But, yeah, the whole arena thing is more than a little unreal, I never expected it to actually HAPPEN. There were so many steps that had happen between those first glimmers of an idea however many years ago and where I am now. Testament to just keeping putting one foot in front of the other. I can’t believe I found this place, I can’t believe they gave ME a mortgage (ha!), I can’t believe there is now an arena. And if I haven’t said it recently, I continue to absolutely ADORE this property – when I think of all those other places I looked at, which had so many downsides and issues (but I was open and willing, just didn’t happen!). Somehow, the property that has everything I wanted ended up falling right into my lap. And then with Heidi I was able to actually build the arena now instead of sometime in the future, and it’s just so nice to have that security and ownership to do whatever I want. Of course, because I hadn’t really planned to have the arena so soon I don’t really KNOW what I want to do with it, but there is not any rush. And, obviously just on a personal level, having an arena simply to play when the weather is nasty is amazing – much less be able to actually train my dogs!

Anyway, as I was doing my taxes and continue to deal with the, well, adult things that are now involved with this sort of thing – yeah, feeling a bit like a fake adult, but one that is apparently passing. I’m really tired of doing Big Responsible Things though (heck, I even did my will a couple weeks ago!), I’d like to just relax for a bit. What a year it’s been, which has just been one of many crazy years. Less crazy in 2022? I’d like that for a campaign slogan, I think.

I do start teaching at my arena part time the end of March, so working on getting it ready for the public, at least a little. Trying to ease into it, I’m sure there will be bumps along the way. One foot in front of the other …