Catching Up

Second post and already I'm playing catch up. I suspected this would happen. In my defense, it has been a couple of very busy weeks. September is the return of all things extracurricular for the two legged kids so with all the running around and enforced organizing, I've fallen behind on my own activities.

Clancy did as well I expected at his first class. In my excitement to not be late we arrived 40 minutes early. Ah well, gave us lots of time to walk around and make sure he left what should be outside, outside. Ours if a fairly large class made up mostly of small dogs. A young black lab and a springer spaniel but the rest are smaller than Clancy. There's a delightful little bi-black sheltie that Clancy couldn't take his eyes off of during the class. It's hard to make a good impression of heeling when he was tying himself in knots to watch his 'girlfriend' walking behind him. Maybe we'll move up that whole neutering appointment after all.

The class moves slowly. Like I said, it's a fairly large class. About nine of us all together, and as it's a beginners class most of them are more beginner than us. I remembered part way through that I had a couple of 'tricks' that I taught Mikki so that we could practice them during the pauses in the class . Clancy is much like her in that he needs to stay focused or else it's ten times as hard to get his attention back when it's time to work. I had taught him 'touch' so we worked on that a bit but I kept my clicker in my pocket. Although there's a steady hum of noise I was worried about distracting other dogs or really, just making an idiot of myself by using it.

All in all, the class went well. He didn't blow anyone socks off but he behaved himself and mostly remembered his sits. His heeling was so-so. Not the perfect attention that he gives me on our early morning walks but then, I didn't expect that in a hall with 40+ strange dogs running around him.

Between our first and second class, my attention definitely flagged. The week sped by and all of a suddent we're back to Thursday and haven't done any practising. Um...Ooops? Still arrived early, but not quite as bad. I didn't even have the energy to do some heeling before going into the hall. We just sat and watched the classes ahead of ours. So many gorgeous dogs, so little time!

His heeling was about the same this time, perhaps a little worse. But the distraction meter was higher. There were two garage type doors in our ring that we're open about a foot at the bottom. Every time we walked that side of the ring, every dog was trying to stick their nose underneath to catch the outdoor smells. Can you blame them?

Clancy's sits were good. He knows the automatic sit. Unfortunately he usually ends up about a foot behind me. And when he does sit even with my leg, he tends to lean away until he's about an arm's length away. Well, we're work on accuracy at a later date.

Now if I would only stop coveting the lovely blue merle collie working a couple of rings over. ...

And so it begins

I have grand aspirations. And I'm hoping to hold on to those aspirations by keeping track of them in a blog. Clancy and I have recently started obedience training. He had his first lesson last Thursday. Oh he's a clever little git, but will he be able to survive my training and make a respectable showing when we enter our first obedience trial?

Years ago I trained and trialled with my collies. My first collie, Dreamer, was a laid back fellow - too laid back for trialling. He saw no reason to heel at my side when he knew I'd come back for him eventually. We did finally manage to get all three legs of his CD in one weekend (I refuse to say how many trials we had entered prior to that weekend...it's lost in the mists of time in any case). Dreamer was promptly retired from trialling (much to his relief) and my attentions turned to his daughter, Mikki.

Mikki was to be my obedience star - she had drive, she had enthusiasm, ...and she had neuroses. She was fantastic at the individual exercises. I still remember our first trial! She had focus, she had attention, she heeled like a champion and made every sit. Then came the group exercises. She held the long sit without breaking. Standing across the ring during the long down, I could already feel the ribbon in my hand! Wait, what's this...? Whose dog is that creeping across the floor? Ah crap, that's my dog!

And so it went...she never overcame her hatred of the group exercises. By my side, she was fine...side by side with other dogs and her nerves failed. We called it quits when she was eight but she is and will always be my star dog.

So now comes Clancy. Eighteen months old and a bundle of energy, personality and enthusiasm. What is it with these shelties? Will we be able to work together, what with my haphazard approach to clicker training and love of goofing off? I don't know but I'm excited and he's willing so we'll start our journey together and hopefully continue this blog to track our successes, bemoan our failures and generally have a tool for future improvement.

Wish us luck!