Training and Making Plans

We have started our winter training now, we have been very lucky with the weather so far so we have been going out and training as often as we can as I know it wont last. I decided to focus on the dogs weakest areas first so that we get more time to train them. For Heidi and Chaos it has been contacts, for Kody it is weaves.

Heidi and Chaos have been doing very well, I wanted to work on Heidi's running A Frame, she runs it well in competition but she doesn't listen to what I want after (left or right turns for example) so we are working on this at the moment. Once she realises she needs to listen and not do her own thing she does well.  Below is her AF training from last week.

I wanted to speed Chaos up on his contacts and improve his confidence. He has only been doing the AF for a couple of months but he is so much more confident on this. He has started to speed up across the DW but has slipped off a couple of times so I'm trying to find a balance in between so that he doesnt lose confidence. His see saw has improved but still needs more work.

Kody's weaves are much improved, we had some issues at first but I can now run ahead, hang back, cross behind, run along next to him and move away and he stays in them. He now needs to work on entries as he does seem to get them wrong a fair bit. We have also been doing a bit of obedience training (although not enough) as I have entered a competition with him next Sunday. It will be our first open show, I'm excited but a bit nervous, the main thing though is that he has fun.

We are going to Dog Vegas next weekend too, im sure Heidi will be super excited. My main goal with her is to have a wait at the start. We have been training it as it was pretty much non existent towards the end of last year.

Chaos will be 18 months old in 2 weeks time, I cant actually believe where the time has gone. He is such a lovely dog to train and he has been quite easy really, he just gets it. He very rarely makes mistakes unless its something I am doing wrong (or I forget he is a baby). I still need to teach him pull throughs but that's it really. He would be ready to start competing straight away but my plan was always Easter next year so he will be more than ready. I may enter him from the start of the season but i'll see how it goes, im in no rush. I have entered him into some nursery/all-sorts classes in December, he has never ran indoors so I wanted to see what he would be like. I'm not going to have high expectations though or put any pressure on us, I just want him to enjoy it.

I've started to think about shows for next year too, I am going to stick to my favorites but also try some new ones I think. I have accepted 5 judging appointments for next year, the most I have ever done. That's it though, I'm not going to do any more than that as I want to be able to run my own dogs at some point!