Recent training and Tess update

So we were back at flyball training on Monday. Quite a small group as not everyone can do Monday nights but it was nice as each dog could have a bit longer. Worked alot on the box. Was pleased with how consistent Lacy and Jemma's turns have become, Jemma's particularly is perfect, just a shame we can't sort the rest of her out lol! Elliot is getting faster, he is gonna be one speedy doggy, he had a few dodgy turns as he is readjusting to his change in speed but his turn will end up fab! With diefer, sonny, smartie and asher we worked on box as diefer's had gone down hill recently, went back to basics and just had him jumping on and off the box which seemed to help. Sonny has always been a challenge on the box as he is so ball obsessed he doesn't think about what he's doing when the ball is in the box. So we worked with a 9" jump infront of the box instead of 6" which really made him think and he was doing lovely full runs with the ball in and a 4footed turn :-). With Asher I really wanted to reinforce his turn as it had been perfect at training but in the excitement of competition he had been messing it up. Did lots of full runs, really winding him up to get him to go the speed of a competition and left the jump in. He was a bit lazy the first couple and was knocking the jump but after that he was fab. We ran them as a team but only from about 10-20ft so they weren't quite at full speed. My project is now Luna as she has so much potential and I want to get her doing perfect turns. She will do a nice 4-foot turn with no ball but when the ball is there she is just doing 2-foot so we just need to build it up.

Went to agility training last night, hadn't been for a couple of weeks as I was so focused on flyball. He was really good but we did only do pretty easy stuff. Did some more stuff today, lots of 1 jump exercises to help him understand my body language and stop him jumping so long all the time. Found that he doesn't value jumps enough, sort of explains his tunnel obsession and that he doesn't pay enough attention to my body movement when I am behind him. He's good at changing direction when I change my arm but only when i'm level or infront of him. This needs to improve so that we can do rear crosses successfully which at the moment usually results in a twizzle. Also worked on getting him to wrap the jump wing which although destroyed his jumping to start with did get better and by the end he was really curving his body.

Finally, my little girly Tess is doing really well. She's still a bit wobbly on her back legs and has the odd fall over but generally she can still run around and play and do her circles which makes her happy :-)! She comes on all the walks again now and can manage about an hr and a half as long as she trots most of the way rather than trying to run or bounce the whole time! She's not on any medication at the moment as it just seems to make her worse but just starting her on joint aid so hopefully that will help. She will be 12 next week. This photo is of her and Asher out on a walk the other day.