Back to work

The dogs that is. They get half the week off while I am away working, but today they were all back at it. Legend did a great open routine and then on to work some agility. She's getting much better at moving out away from me both in a straight line and moving away laterally. But we still struggle with discrimination. I can usually use a false turn to get her to take the closer obstacle, but often I can't get her to go "out" and take the far one if her mind is already made up to take the close one. But we will keep at it.

Lyric is working on maintaining her obstacle commitment while I move away or ahead of her. I kept pulling her off the jumps at the trial so I know that we need to keep working on that. I am also working on making her do the weave poles without help. She needs to learn to find the entrance while on the run and go through without me guiding her. She did pretty good today. I had to stay close by, but I tried really hard not to move my arm and give her any hints. It slowed her down but I'm sure she'll speed up as she gains confidence again. After all, there is a treat at the end.

Zodiac worked on tracking but he seemed to be doing a lot of wandering. I think I need to go back to short straight lines for a while with lots of food on the track, just really enforce the basics. And I need to do it more often. I've been a little lax on the tracking with all the agility coming up and trying to get Lyric ready to trial.

And Squirt is really lame again. I talked with the horse vet. She thinks he may have just broke another bone chip off in his joint. Poor guy. He's on rest and bute now so we will see how he does over the next week.

Oh, and here are some trial pics.