I'd love to hear other's thoughts on the August CU Continued Workshop.
Despite our rather leisurely pace, we were able to cover the most material that we're ever done.
- Box work
- Mat work
- (something I'm forgetting - LAT perhaps)
- There's a Dog in Your Face (always an excellent game)
- The Car Crash game (sans dogs), Kienan put up to four people into the pattern just to make us all dizzy
- and some great Parallel Walking
My only wish is that we need to manufacture ways to create Sudden
Environmental Changes (SECs) - something like having a dog suddenly
appearing in the doorway and then say "Wow there's a big scary dog in
the doorway, have some cheese." - this continues to be Yoshi's bugaboo
in both workshops (and he was just mostly watching in the Intro).
Oh and the Aug Intro Workshop has been sent invitations and I expect
those interested will trickle in in the next few days, and hopefully
they will comment on how it was for them (so far all I've heard is the
anticipated: "Oh my brain is full!"
Some of them are already here - feel free to post about your experience.
The Aug Intro Workshop probably had the largest variation in behavior
during the Evaluation period when they were let loose in the box with
no feedback from the handler. Apropos of precisely nothing, a couple
of the dogs worked themselves up into a thorough frenzy, but in both
cases as soon as they were given something to do, they settled down.
Fascinating.
Ellen and Yoshi
I took Trek to Splashdogs practice at noon (at the Somoma County
Fairgrounds) to check it out and see how she'd do.
She is a water fiend, but is hesitant to swim off the exit ramp (did it
once out of 4 or 5 sessions and she had multiple attempts each
session.) Clearly she needs more time swimming which is surprisingly
hard to find around here. I live on a silly island for heaven's sake,
but they don't like dog's on the beach which is so totally unfair (can't
they have just a little sand?). But Trek has gone after birds before so
I can't whine too much. So we'll have to go looking for boat ramps,
ways through the rocks, and lakes instead.
As far as the atmosphere - it is a fair that's going at nearly full
force even on a Friday. There is a ride that is very close to the dock
that has a rotating platform that looms high in the air and gives some
of the dogs pause. Non-reactive Trek didn't notice, but Yoshi would have
thought that the aliens that haunt him were invading. (Ok, that's a
touch over-stated - I do not think he's schizophrenic and slightly
paranoid alarmist that his is, has a good grasp of reality), but he
still would have objected and I decided that it wasn't an environment
he'd enjoy, and not an ideal one to learn a new skill.
Wendy assures me that the weekend is going to be much much busier so if
you have a CU dog that you want get some Spashdogs practice with, if you
can get there today or Monday it would be better.
We got to see Splashstar Renagade jump an amazing 20+ feet apparently
he is nearly qualified for the National.
If you do go to practice or compete. First find where gate 5 is (you
can leave stuff just inside the gate if you like. Then go park, and
then walk back to that gate with your dog. You will not have to pay to
get into the fair, though you have to stay in the splash dogs area.
The place looks so different it took me quite a while to realize that I
was standing in a place that I've spent a fair bit of time in as Bay
Team often has trials there.
The Splash Dogs site is:
http://www.splashdogs.com/ and if you watch the
photos rotating on the banner you'll see a cute photo of Wendy and Ren
doing a high 5.