Welcome to The OBay Shelties blog! Our blog is an honest diary of our life with our dogs along with news from Obay shelties around the world.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Lots of agility

We had a great visit with Johanna this weekend. Johanna came over from Denmark to do an Agility training day for the Sheltie club. Our first international trainer! It is always good to have Johanna over, as she is usually full of good ideas for training! Of course, we don't only love her for her agility! She is a great friend too!

But we put her to work and kept her busy all weekend. On Saturday, we gathered at Sue's sand school. I am going to be teaching a new puppy agility class there in December and this was a good chance to get all the students together. Since Johanna has just recently done a good puppy class in Denmark, I asked her to help my class get started. She gave them some things to work on for the next few weeks and this should help get all the students and dogs on equal footing when the class starts. Luckily all the dogs are around the same age and it seems to be a well matched class. It is hard when the students are all at different levels.

I think (hope) she got across to them about how important it is to have a motivated dog BEFORE they actually get on equipment. Finding out what motivates YOUR dog is key to making training fun for both handler and dog. Anyway, I am looking forward to starting this puppy class in December and watching the dogs progress. I have high hopes for all of them!

In the afternoon, we got a few friends together to run some interesting (evil!) agility courses set up by Johanna. I basically just wanted her to set a good European-type course to test us. We get used to running the same type of courses and it is fun to see a different twist on things. As usual, Johanna thought she was the energizer bunny and wanted to work us until it was dark! We had to drag her away from the agility equipment and take her home to feed her! I was pleased with Hex, she worked well and because she is so motivated, I can concentrate on my handling which, of course, needs work!




Isn't this photo adorable! This is little Dylan (Sarah and Leslie's baby) going for his first "pony" ride on the tolerant golden retriever Archie. Sarah and Leslie are both competing for the first time at Olympia this year. Hmmm, husband and wife competing in the same class.....and they are not competitive at all (hehehe)..... But I am hoping they get 1st and 2nd and any order will do!

Saturday night we made a fantastic (if I say so myself!) roast beef dinner for Johanna, Lisa and Tony. Complete with Roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, red cabbage (homemade following my mom's recipe) AND PUMPKIN PIE! I carefully carried canned pumpkin pie mix and a graham cracker crust all the way from New York on the last visit. YUMMY!

Sunday was the Sheltie agility training. I didn't participate but acted as Johanna's chauffeur and just enjoyed watching. It is funny how shelties can be so different in attitude, size and drive. They are such a difficult breed at times! But Johanna knows shelties and I think that helped. She really got the handlers running and working and again, kept going until we turned the lights out on her! HAHA. She really worked the handlers and they looked exhausted but happy at the end.



2 comments:

Lian said...

I would like to say BIG thank you to Johanna, she is a great motivator!! I've learned a lot from her, well at least all the energy she has!! I hope she will be back soon and to learn more from her.

Anonymous said...

It was the best roast beef i think i have ever had :)