Rugby and I went to a match yesterday to see where we stand as far as Utility is concerned. He did good on everything except signals, where he ignored my sit signal, and came to me reallllllly slowly on the recall signal.
He got both articles correct. His confidence was raised with the first one, and on the leather article he RAN out to the pile to get the right one.
I decided to use brown gloves, so that they would blend in the most with the black flooring. Luckily he more or less followed my direction to the corner, until he could see the glove.
Moving stand was uneventful. I have to practice how many steps to take after leaving him to get me the right distance away.
Thank GOD he did the directed jumping ok. The go-outs are not entirely straight, and his sits are not straight yet either. Those are things to fine tune as soon as I am sure he is confident with the go-outs and comfortable with them.
Our goal was to get into the Utility ring this year, and I think he could be ready by the end of December except for one thing - there are not any shows still open then. There is a show at the beginning of December, but I think it is a little too soon, not to mention we will be stepping foot for the first time in Utility right before finals week! :-O
So next year it is. There are quite a few in late January/early February so we can take a shot at this UD thing then.
Off to do some training!
That looked great!! Except for his flinch on the sit signal.... the go-outs have gotten so much better, and he's not playing favorites with the jumps any more.
ReplyDeleteWe are impressed!
Good luck to you! I think he looks great and at least this way you have a lot of time to be sure that he's solid in all the areas he needs to be!
ReplyDeleteHi there! We saw you over on Chester's blog and we hope Chester will be able to keep his little sister Caroline. You have a very nice blog here!! xoxo Chloe and LadyBug
ReplyDeleteVery nice! You're right about waiting until after your finals!
ReplyDeleteYou guys are looking great! Nice to see such a happy little working god too! You must be ranked amongst Maltese, yes? Going to the invitational by any chance?
ReplyDeleteHaven't gotten around to posting about it, but Brutus got his CD last weekend (miraculously going 3/3 and finishing it very quickly). Time up raise the bar - I have to think it'll be late next summer (at the earliest) before we are ready to try Open.
Michelle