Monday, March 28, 2011

Giving cable the boot!

No trials this past weekend, so my big news is we finally gave cable the boot.....well mostly. We're keeping cable internet, and that would end up costing two dollars more if we didn't keep basic cable, but still we're saving about 90. a month. It was just silly to pay that much to watch so little, plus we can still watch the things we like through hulu and netflix.

Other than that we took Kittie, Abby & Indy on a 6.4 mile hike this weekend. It was just perfect weather, cool and sunny. Indy still didn't seem tired afterward and wanted to play when we got home. On sunday I decided last minute to stop in at my friend's training facility for little dog open practice. This week's focus was on weaves. It was a lot of fun, lots of short little courses with a nice variety of weave challenges. Indy has very nice weaving skills and likes them, but it's one of those things that I do need to continually reinforce with her, otherwise the desire to just run as fast she can and pop out of the weaves wins out. She did good, stayed in every time, only missed one entry at the very end of the 1 1/2 hour practice. What a good girl!

Friday, March 25, 2011

It's so easy with a little dog

This is a pet peeve of mine, that somehow agility is "easy" with a small dog. This is the same attitude as it's easy with a border collie, everyone has it easier than these people. These comments usually come from someone with a slow big dog. Agility is different with a small dog, on a course the options can be different. Small dogs will put in many more strides, so it's possible to change their line in less yardage than a big dog, but it's a lot easier to pull them off the correct obstacle too.

This started after hearing how many points Indy got on a single run.....as if all small dogs bring in those points. I know lots of nice running small dogs that need points to finish MAChs.

It takes the right dog and handler combination and the right kind of training to bring out the best in any dog of any height, to act as though it's just handed to you because your dog happens to be small is insulting to everyone who puts in the work with the tiniest of dogs!

Monday, March 21, 2011

New title

Indy earned her AXJ title this weekend, so she's now on her way! She also got her 3rd MX leg, and another 62 points. Was really hoping to get her first double Q, but it wasn't in the cards. I pulled her off a jump in jumpers and she slipped in the weaves in the standard, but nice runs!

We have two weeks off, and then we start a pretty regular trial schedule for the next couple of months. I feel like she's really ready at this point. We're having a lot of fun!