I fleetingly mentioned in my last post that Da Boys and I competed at the North Central Regional a few weeks ago. It's taken me a bit to come back to it simply because I wanted to savor it just a bit more before I shared it with all of bloggerdom.
It was such a magical experience in its own right.
I got to see some friends I haven't seen in ages.
I got to hold and get peed on by probably the cutest little Border Collie baby ever.
I was able to meet some truly fabulous people in person for the first time.
I got to run both Viper and Blade for the first time in months.
Hands down it was our best Regional to-date.
I know I've said it countless times before that Viper is capable of showing me "moments of brilliance."
Not this weekend.
He didn't show me "moments" he was just simply brilliant.
I've never asked Viper to compete on a Team AND run all of the other classes before.
I've always thought that he was physically and mentally immature to handle the task of doing such a thing.
Boy was I wrong.
I'm not saying that we did everything perfectly.
No, we had a fall (leap if you will) off the dogwalk in Team Standard and just some small things pop up in a couple of other runs.
That didn't stop him from running like a well-oiled machine though. I will be the first to admit, I'm not particularly partial to that phrase even if it IS the only one that comes to mind that touches on how good our teamwork felt.
And let me be the first to say, that counts for something.
A whole hell of a lot of something.
The courses were challenging in their own right and gave me a lot of food for thought. The biggest realization that I came to over the entire weekend was that somewhere over the past few years I really have gotten away from verbals with my dogs and rely heavily on body cues alone to get them around the course. Blade has a fantastic understanding of "left" and "right" commands; that I have simply stopped using.
Now, he only ran in two rounds of Steeplechase at the Regional but I know if I would have entered him in some of the other runs I would have been able to handle him through some areas of the course (with the help of his verbals) that I had to get in Viper's path (and waste time) to get through the tough spots because I have never trained verbal "left" and "right" commands with him. Chalk that up to one BIG thing to put on our training to-do list.
Another thing on the training to-do list? Teaching the dog's to flick away from me after completing their contacts. There was a course or two that were a bit more challenging than they needed to be simply because I haven't fine-tuned the dogs exiting the contact and immediately flicking away from me to rocket into a tunnel or the like. I promised myself that would go down on the list. In BIG BOLD letters ;)
We came away from the Regional with several things to improve in the training department, as well as seeing some major improvement in areas that we have diligently been working on since the Central Regional last year. It feels good to be moving in a new direction with both the boys and I'm excited to see what comes of the August Regional.
That being said, as hard as I tried to keep the bragging to a minimum with this particular post I just couldn't help but add these two beauties below.
In my excitement just to be running Blade again I completely forgot to check scores for the Local Steeplechase until Saturday morning. Boy was a pleasantly surprised when Blade not only Q'd but ended up taking 3rd place as well!
I know I've said it countless times before that Viper is capable of showing me "moments of brilliance."
Not this weekend.
He didn't show me "moments" he was just simply brilliant.
I've never asked Viper to compete on a Team AND run all of the other classes before.
I've always thought that he was physically and mentally immature to handle the task of doing such a thing.
Boy was I wrong.
I'm not saying that we did everything perfectly.
No, we had a fall (leap if you will) off the dogwalk in Team Standard and just some small things pop up in a couple of other runs.
That didn't stop him from running like a well-oiled machine though. I will be the first to admit, I'm not particularly partial to that phrase even if it IS the only one that comes to mind that touches on how good our teamwork felt.
And let me be the first to say, that counts for something.
A whole hell of a lot of something.
The courses were challenging in their own right and gave me a lot of food for thought. The biggest realization that I came to over the entire weekend was that somewhere over the past few years I really have gotten away from verbals with my dogs and rely heavily on body cues alone to get them around the course. Blade has a fantastic understanding of "left" and "right" commands; that I have simply stopped using.
Now, he only ran in two rounds of Steeplechase at the Regional but I know if I would have entered him in some of the other runs I would have been able to handle him through some areas of the course (with the help of his verbals) that I had to get in Viper's path (and waste time) to get through the tough spots because I have never trained verbal "left" and "right" commands with him. Chalk that up to one BIG thing to put on our training to-do list.
Another thing on the training to-do list? Teaching the dog's to flick away from me after completing their contacts. There was a course or two that were a bit more challenging than they needed to be simply because I haven't fine-tuned the dogs exiting the contact and immediately flicking away from me to rocket into a tunnel or the like. I promised myself that would go down on the list. In BIG BOLD letters ;)
We came away from the Regional with several things to improve in the training department, as well as seeing some major improvement in areas that we have diligently been working on since the Central Regional last year. It feels good to be moving in a new direction with both the boys and I'm excited to see what comes of the August Regional.
That being said, as hard as I tried to keep the bragging to a minimum with this particular post I just couldn't help but add these two beauties below.
In my excitement just to be running Blade again I completely forgot to check scores for the Local Steeplechase until Saturday morning. Boy was a pleasantly surprised when Blade not only Q'd but ended up taking 3rd place as well!
I can't forget Viper either and in his weekend of complete brilliance, he and his two favorite teamies; Shiver and Rio managed to take home the title of North Central Regional DAM Team Champions. Being as that is quite the mouthful, Vipe requested that we just stick to referring to them as Cobra Starship and the Disco Queens ;)
