Training day and photos!

We got our photos back from Cat at Dog Rad Design and they are just fabulous!! I particularly love the one of all three lying down so I've had to make it my header :)

I also love these two of Brooke's dog walk, I love her expression of total concentration! Her dog walk is still a work in progress and will def be a winter project. She is doing dog walks in different venues ok but still is a bit inconsistent with her focus and drive over it (despite still getting the contact but a bit high), due to lack of confidence.

Brooke and her handsome merle friend Rommy and his owner Jenni went to a training day with Toni Dawkins at the weekend. I was so proud of how the two dogs coped as some of the exercises were quite tricky and they worked through them well. Brooke managed a fair few sets of weaves and didn't go wrong at all - clever little bean! Matthew on the other hand could not get to grips with some of the European style turns. Jenni and Rommy managed these really well and for the first time I could see a point in doing them. I have always been quite dismissive of European turns as most of them involve blind crosses and no-one has ever explained where to use them or why they are useful. Toni is excellent at explaining things and I like the fact she is not very tall and still gets places on a course to help her very fast dogs out. I still can't see Matthew being a convert as he is pre-programmed to only front cross/rear cross/pivot! I like to take ideas and put them in my 'tool kit' as its something that is worth knowing and understanding. I can't wait to see the runs from the FCI World Champs this weekend as they'll all be blind crossing and doing 'funny' turns all over the place!!

This is Matthew doing a 'German' turn (finally!) 

This was a course set to work on tightening turns, watch Matthew's feet cueing Brooke early that a turn is coming up - it worked beautifully and made her turns less like a lorry!

Although Matthew doesn't get the turn right, I love this video of Brooke doing her weaves!