Monday, March 9, 2009

Rally with Bug

Saturday morning Bug attended Rally-O class. Ike had been sick since Thursday but seemed much better on Friday. However, he started vomiting Friday night and by Saturday his vomiting had inflamed his stomach to the point that there was blood in the bile. Poor pumpkin. (I need to do a major Ike Homeopathically update – he has been doing really well in general. His return to normal after the vomiting has been SUPER fast.)

I e-mailed Jenny first thing Saturday morning and explained that Ike was really ill and wouldn’t be able to attend class, but that I wanted to. Our first Rally trial is Sunday and I am nervous. The whole spiral business throws me for a loop! And Ike’s Down-Stay-Walk Around dog still sucks. I explained that I would have Bug with me since we were attending a seminar later that afternoon. She suggested I work the Bug. Very exciting since I wanted to ask if that would be okay, but thought it was a bit presumptuous to ask!

Bug was a good boy. He was pretty distracted, and I am starting to think we are either going through a distracted phase or we need to work harder on our foundation stuff (I suspect it is the latter). Left turns were particularly difficult for us. No walk off a cliff heeling was visible Saturday! :-)

I give Bug a lot of credit. He has done minimal basic obedience “stuff” (bad handler, I know), but he REALLY tries to work with me and is a quick learner. In this particular course, the Halt-Down-Stay-Walk Around dog was right beside the moveable wall and the playgroup was on the other side. Bug was DISTRACTED!! First run-thru he did nail it, second at the end of the class – eh… not so much.

Bug also had the opportunity to meet Kody (Marlene’s GR). I think a play date is absolutely in order! He really wanted to play with Kody – they would probably be evenly matched.

Having Bug attend Ike’s class REALLY makes me want to get him in an obedience class. I know that Obedience and Rally-O classes switch to weekday evening classes when agility moves outdoors. Depending on which day it is I might try to keep Ike in the Rally class and put Bug in the obedience class. I find it so much more helpful to be working on basic skills in a class setting. It helps to keep you honest!

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