Summer Yet?

This has been the longest week of my life and it is only half over! I have so much to share, but I still have two exams this week and a paper to write so I will summarize.

We went to the the Timonium show last Saturday to get our last Rally leg and entered Open A since we would be there and we are still within the 60 days of earning our title.

He did get his last Rally leg with a 99 and 3rd place. But who actually cares about Rally... this is how our Open run went.

We focused on three problems from York to fix before this show.
1) Left turns
2) Fast transitions
3) Fronts off the Broad jump.

Saturday his left turns were much better. The only thing we changed was my handling since he responded better when I used the training left turn as opposed to the 'ring' left turn. So thats what we did - easy enough!

Fast transition we didn't work on very much at all but it was near perfect. He didn't forge and stayed with me into and out of it (as in...didn't go wide). Perfect!

Broad jump was much better too. He came in straight, just off to the right a little. Improvement. Since we have been working it differently (and not enough for Rugby to get used to it) he was a little less confident in his performance. Even after a much better front, it showed in his finish. Getting his confidence up is super easy to fix though, so we are not going to sweat it.

Overall, he was much much better Saturday which is a huge relief! We do still have some things to work on, but they are going to take a little more time to fix than what we had in the couple weeks between these shows.

He got a 193 and second place. Lower score than in York, but he didn't give me this good of a performance ANY of the days in York so I am not complaining.

NEXT------------------------------

These are some pictures of Rugby at the barn. It has been so long since we have been just because I don't have time with school but Rugby REALLY enjoys it. What dog doesn't like the wide open spaces?!

He did wonderfully here too. It has probably been close to or more than 6 months since the last time he went. This was the first time I didn't tie him, or kennel him while I rode. I was always worried he would get up and get underfoot, or too close to a horse. It isn't so bad with big dogs, but that would very quickly be the end of Rugby and there is not much I can do from on top of a horse! 

 I did still leave him on a 'place' command and he was more than happy just to watch. I was worried I didn't give Rugby the opportunity to become 'horse savy' but apparently you don't need to be horse savy when you are well trained!

NEXT------------------

And the best news of all - Rugby has started leather articles and with some luck will be working FIVE articles tomorrow! WHAT a smart boy!

There is soo much more, but this is all I have time for now.