Saturday, May 14, 2011

Game On ...

I'm tempted to put in print just how far I think Sally will go in game land before she ever earns a standard q. I hope life makes a liar of me but I can easily imagine her running masters gamblers and jumpers classes before I even try another aac standard class. Snookers might take a little longer but once she gets her act together (OK, I jest - WE get OUR act together) I think they might come quite quickly too. The differentiation between starters, advanced and masters snooker does not seem as great to me as in the other classes. I am SURE Sally will be happily earning level 3 CPE Qs before I try another standard with her in that venue - unless I see an aframeless class :)

Just for comparisons sake, and believe me I do NOT compare these two wonder dogs;  it's like comparing apples and socks or something, Brody earned his first game q at his first trial .. his ADC in August and his starters games title in November. Once he got a little speed he was incredibly consistent in both types of class. I knew the standard titles would come first with him as it was fewer classes.

Sally's lawn aframes are getting pretty consistent. She can run down into a 2o2o as long as I'm somewhere along side the frame. She hasn't generalized into doing a recall over the frame yet - and I'm not sure that's a skill I'll need often - though I suppose if a frame was a second obstacle it could be useful. She has bounced off the end of the frame twice but she has only missed the yellow entirely once. (We've done about 35 frames so far).

We worked on pinwheels and start lines today. Brody has a decent start line stay on the lawn.. out of a stand he moves faster than out of a sit or down. I wonder if he'd have it at a trial? Used a toy to wind Sally up and then work stay. She was rock solid which was lovely.  Did a cool three jump pinwheel with threadles ..really tons of fun to play with these dogs!

2 comments:

Sam said...

I wish I was able to practice as much as you.

I didn't know Sally had an A-Frame problem but it sounds like you're well on your way to fixing it, bet those Standard Q's will come sooner than you think :)

andrea said...

awww Sam - it will come ... literally 5 minutes is all I grab to share between 2-3 dogs .. before I even had my 3 jumps I had some little bamboo poles I laid out on the ground and did handling with - Brody thought I was insane but played along very happily - I also used wrapping paper tubes stuck in plastic glasses with a rock to weight them down as weave poles in the living room ...obsessed much?