Greg and Laura Derrett Seminar

Ivy had her first working session at a seminar a couple of weeks back - double box work with Laura Derrett.  I was very happy with her focus and enthusiasm.  At the end of the day she was one of the few dogs still fronting up wanting to go and still tugging like a maniac as well.  (Which certainly scores you 'points' with the Derretts, LOL)  The joy of a dog that you don't have to convince to tug !  And to top off her tugging frenzy, I was fortunate enough to win the raffle and as a consequence a big parcel of new toys will soon be winging its way down here for the flying feral's enjoyment. 

Summer seminars should always be followed by a good hosing, according to Ivy

The seminar was as awesome as always and I learnt heaps.  I audited the rest of the days - even though I was pretty sure she would be keen to keep working.   I have seen a lot of dogs disconnect in a seminar environment, there are certainly a lot of very quick transitions to working and resting over the day, way more than at a trial, and I can't say I was 100% sure she would handle this.   Now I have no doubts for next time.
Anyway, I like to get in at least one or two audit sessions as sometimes I think that I take more in when I am not fussing around with warming up my dog, cooling down dog, checking on her crated, etc. etc.

Did I mention how  much I like the hose ?

The timing of this was perfect for me, following on the heels of their e-course that I just completed.  Now that I have some more personalised feedback, I intend to go back to the beginning and work through the lessons again so I can pinpoint particular things that I need to work on.

The big one for us would be deceleration - she's great on the flat but once jumps come into the equation then she sees absolutely no need whatsover to do anything at less than a hundred miles an hour.... and as for adding extra strides, why do that when you can jump BIG !   I don't call her my 'Boots n' All' dog for nothing.   In the words of Tania Kernaghan :
'If you're gonna do it, throw your heart into it, No holding back at all....' This sums her personality up perfectly and definitely carries over into her agility runs as well. 

Gotta love a boots n' all dog !  Don't be fooled by the calm exterior.

So we have some decel exercises to work on over the next few months, along with some other things about my handling that I would like to tidy up a bit.  Greg also had some very thought provoking things to say about bar knocking in young, fast dogs ...... another benefit of auditing is that you get to ask questions and also just have a chat at times.   So to balance my decel training I also have an acceleration exercise that he suggested to work on and a couple of very specific things to look for when I review her jumping videos.

Hot, Hot, Hot followed by Wet, Wet, Wet here at the moment, which is not very good for training.  First of all the dogs were collapsed on the floor inside due to the heat, then the rain set in which turned the dust outside into mud. 

A brief period of 'cleanliness' in between the rain, mud and dust

We have our first trial of the season on the weekend. (Which will most likely be last weekend by the time I get this published)   I have entered one day only (it's a double) and just jumping.  I was so looking forward to getting back to agility again now that our 'weesaw' is sorted out.  But the Derretts inspired me to really look long and hard at my contacts so weighed, measured and the A Frame has come up wanting ! I like her end behaviour on the A Frame but I don't love it and I want to love it so time to bite the bullet and retrain a running A Frame. I have started on the groundwork for Rachel Sander's box method as I have already trained it with Cruz and I am pretty happy with the results.  I figure if a big striding 600 kelpie can do it, so can a more compact 500 BC - that's what I'm hoping anyway !  It probably would have been a lot more convenient to make the decision in December and train it over the break rather than start now.  But who wants to do things the easy way, not us obviously.  So no agility for us for a bit, at least until we get the box onto a full sized A Frame anyway.  My goal is to get the box onto a lowered A Frame by the end of the month (fingers crossed) and then we will see what we have and it takes however long it takes.