Workshops and Foundation

I didn’t write anything here last week; it was not because I didn’t have anything to say. I, in fact, had quite a few views and thoughts last week but I decided to refrain from writing them down! It may appear in a few months as an impartial view on border collies and breeding on my blog but for now my thoughts shall stay under wrap – (well technically more loosely under a blanket having been shared with several good friends and knowledgeable BC breeders!)

Anyhow back to the SWAG dogs J

We went to a workshop at SWAT at the weekend, with Martin Tait as a guest trainer.

Having watched Martin run dogs at competition I expected to need our running shoes, however, we clearly needed our thinking caps on more than good shoes!

We completed some really interesting exercises that made you really think about what you were doing before, during and after an obstacle.

I have started a bit more foundation with Phaze up at the field. She is a funny dog – we mainly use restrains when training as there is no point testing your waits constantly and it excites the dogs more – however young Miss Phaze will shoot Dan a really dirty look (if she could say ‘how dare you touch my beautiful pink collar’ I think she would!) and promptly lies down in a perfect wait waiting for release. I was concerned by this to begin with as I really didn’t want to be releasing her from a wait into an exercise until I had proofed her ‘wait’ command, but she shows no sign of breaking it and shoots off the start line at 100 miles an hour so for now we are sticking with this. Interestingly her sister is exactly the same!!

I really enjoy teaching our youngsters how to play agility. The boys were always really keen, Cruze has the power and drive that you would kill for in any agility dog, Thai loves to please you so tries really hard at everything you ask. Magic, as a rescue we worked hard on her play drive and her wanting to work with Dan from a very young age. She didn’t have much natural drive or chase instinct as a puppy – but Dan worked really hard with her and now she finds toys so rewarding she is always the last to settle and will always try just once more and drop a toy in your lap in the hope you didn’t really mean ‘please lie down and go to sleep now’.

Phaze on the other hand had enough chase instinct coming out of her to fill the requirements of the whole litter! I feel that she has recently grown up from puppy to young dog – she will drive onto toys, return with toys, chase toys but all with more of a sense of purpose now. You can almost see her click a switch in her head from play to work – and she is very determined to show you that she can work just like the big dogs. I think she is amazing and I am so glad Chel let me have her.

We have been working on lines of jumps, wing wraps, figures of 8 with 2 jumps (when I say jumps I mean 2 wings and no pole at all) and a couple of tunnels.

I think some people find it hard to find a balance between working with your young dog and over doing it. However, I want my dogs to know they will work with me several times a week throughout most of their life. I don’t want to suddenly turn round to Phaze at 12 months old and say this is agility we are going to learn everything right now, don’t be silly I know you have only run around this field for the last 10 months chasing the other dogs – but now I want you to listen to me!!

So she gets her turn to come up by herself to the agility field just like the others and has 5 minutes of training. Which she LOVES J

We have an Advanced Striding workshop with Toni at SWAT this weekend. All the Motley Crew together so that should be fun J Phaze and Maid have booked in a play session as well – so I will try to get some video for next weeks blog.