I dare say, it is starting to feel like we live in Seattle, WA instead of Sparta, WI. RAIN!!! And MORE RAIN!! As you see from the picture above, we had to walk in the rain again today. At least I remembered my rain coat this time, but my feet are soaked. The dogs don't care.
We worked between rain showers and in the midst of them this weekend. Saturday actually didn't have "real" rain until the evening hours, but the air was so heavily saturated that I got gross and nasty every time we went out to play.
Secret had TWO big breakthroughs this weekend -- She caught discs out of the air on long tosses AND she is catching on to the rear cross. Woot! Woot! There is hope for the girl after all. ;o)
I never sat down and formed any goals when it comes to frisbee. It was one of those things that I figured if she got it, great -- if not, it really wouldn't be the end of the world. I only kept working on it because she does seem to really enjoy going after the rollers.
I've thrown a couple of long & low tosses for her and generally, Secret would just lollygag after them and pick them up when they landed. Imagine my surprise on Saturday, then, when she went after the flying disc with about the same level of enthusiasm as the rollers and -- GASP -- snatched it out of the air! I about fell over.
Always one to tempt fate, I tried again -- and she did it again! Three times she did this. I was befuddled and blown away. Good girl! Despite my craptastic method of throwing, Secret has actually learned to follow the trajectory and -- bonus -- cares enough to put in the effort to catch a disc. :o)
Granted, she nor I are pros at this game, so we continue to muddle through with faults. Yesterday I think she only caught one disc and was not so much into the game. As usual, her likes & dislikes change like the weather.
Because she has been driving towards jumps better lately, I decided to go back to working on the rear cross. She has been spinning on the landing side, and with each spin she seems to get more demotivated, so our sessions have been short. This weekend the light bulb seems to have gone on and she successfully completed several rear crosses! She is, by no means, 100% successful at them, but she is getting much better and is also not getting quite so turned off when she chooses wrong and spins. In fact, she's in such a hurry to get it right that she's taken to barking at me to do it again.
I got in a fairly long (by her standards) training session using a TOY yesterday. I grabbed the Kong Wubba off the shelf in the garage and decided to see what she thought of that. I had a jumping exercise set up that was in the June issue of Clean Run. The drills were a bit over her head, but the set-up allowed for several various exercises that worked for Secret. When she started to peeter out on the toy, I switched briefly to food to end the session on a positive note.
So in general, Secret had a really good weekend with two really bright spots. :o) They say the rain will take a break on Wednesday, but otherwise it is in our forecast all week long again. Sigh. Good thing the dogs don't mind working in the rain.
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