I don’t love getting up extra early on a Sunday but I love getting in extra practice time with Beau. So, this morning we arrived at the club well before the puppy kindergarten class I am assisting and worked on some skills. We practiced figure 8 heeling, command discrimination, and drop on recall but I spent extra time working on the CDX exercises with the dumb bell and jumps. Beau was pulling to the right a bit but me holding the phone to video is likely the culprit. He’s certainly coming along and I make sure he has lots of fun and never does too many repetitions of any one exercise to keep him interested.

I entered a show for Dec 2 and 3 but just withdrew on my instructor’s advice and have now entered a show for the end of December. Her reasoning was that it is unfair to ask Beau to try his CDX skills for the first time in a multi-ringed show. Having seen the chaos of Catoctin a few weeks again (the wild Golden, no room to turn around), I agree with her. 

I am still pushing my arbitrary Spring 2024 date but feel like we are maybe possibly sort of ready…or not. Any of you who compete with your dog in anything know that you practice a lot and then…..it comes down to the day.

Once you enter the ring, all bets are off. I know for us we’ll lose most points on heeling – the one damned thing we practice most! The rest of it comes down to Beau’s thoughts:

• “Oh, here’s a smell from 3 years ago.”
• “Look, a rogue leaf!”
• ”That judge looks fun, let me wiggle on over.”
• ”Mama, who?”
• “Hey now, that bitch that just walked by is my kinda girl”

At least that is what I imagine runs through his doggie brain. 😎