Goals

It's a whole new year and time to look at our goals.

This is what we wanted to accomplish in December:
1.  Attend a trial without competing
2.  Get our new teeter set up
3.  Get Jonah happily and confidently  navigating our teeter and sticking the contact, even if not at full height and even if padded to muffle the 'bang'  (Goal for January:  full height, full noise teeter)
4.  Proof staying the contact position--letting me walk away and have him stay until released
5.  Rear cross at full speed.  Hopefully we can get outside to do this or work on it in class.

Let's see how we did:
1.  Attend a trial-YES!  I still have some questions about how things will be set up at All Dogs Gym, since we went to Riverside, but I have a much better sense of what a trial feels like.  That doesn't mean there aren't tons of unknowns ahead, but I'm very glad we went.  Overall, my take away is that, even if Jonah has a bad day, chances are likely that he won't be the worst dog there.

2.  Set up teeter-YES!  It looks fantastic!

3.  Using the teeter-YES!  I do still have towels under each end, but it's more to protect the board than to muffle the sound (it still bangs pretty good).  It's full height, and Jonah looks actually excited to get on it.  He'll do it without me even telling him to.  AND, he happily did the teeter at All Dogs in class last week.  What a great success!

4.  Proofing the contacts-There's always more I can do, and now our dog walk is inside for the winter, but I think his contacts are pretty solid.

5.  Full speed rear cross-The snow has hampered this a lot, but we worked on rear crosses today and he was very good.  The whole 'full speed' thing just isn't possible in our current weather conditions.


I'd say that was a pretty good month!  Here are my hopes for January:
1.  Keep performance of teeter, weaves, chute, and table sharp.
2.  Attend our first and second trials, where we have safe and happy experiences.  I hope to pick up some Q's, but most of all I just want to be able to assess where we are and get some good feedback about what we need to work on.
3.  Get Jonah happily using his crate.  We're working on this at home so that, at a trial, I can leave him to go walk the course, etc.
4.  Work on playing leash tug so we have a motivating game before our runs and an immediate treat after our runs.
5.  When weather permits, work on distance handling.  I think Jackpot may be the hardest game for us right now, especially since Jonah becomes more of a velcro-dog when he's nervous.

11 days until our first trial.  This is going to be a big month!