Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Abby and Ryan strut their stuff

For Abby, that would be in agility and flyball. We had an agility trial a week ago and a flyball tournament this past weekend. We've got another agility trial coming up and soon after that it's Regionals! This will be our first Regionals and I'm more than a little nervous. I have trouble enough remembering courses at a regular trial! Abby will happily scream her way through whatever is in front of her, I'm sure.

She got a Gamblers Q at the trial but I messed up all of our Standard runs. At flyball she was great and got her FDCH-S. She looked over at the other lane a couple of times but didn't cross over. I take a lot of what she does really well for granted - she never fumbles the ball or misses jumps, no matter where I send her from. She did, however, turn around and attempt to nip my leg twice out of frustration while waiting her turn. What a little bitch :)

Ryan went sheep herding last week and we go again tomorrow! It was so much fun. He went in three times for about 10 minutes each time and I worked with him the second and third times. Sometimes he was a little silly and would rush up to the sheep with his tail up barking, but mostly he did really well! He definitely wanted to work and would have happily circled all day. I got him walking behind the sheep in a somewhat calm manner. He wasn't sure about how to get the sheep out of a corner and would block their way out instead of bringing them out. He lay down whenever I asked him to - very important since my beginner brain took awhile to process everything I was supposed to be doing (watch dog, walk backwards, make sure sheep don't run me over, watch dog! run backwards, keep moving, sheep about to trample me!, dog coming in to bite sheep, run backwards! - phew).

The trainer took these nice photos:


He was tired by the end of it.