Meet Max!

I'd like everyone to meet Max! It sounds like he will be coming to live with us for a short while until he finds his forever home. It will be Secret's job to teach him to be a dog and learn to play well with others.

Max currently lives in an elderly assisted-living type community and lived in an in-home daycare in his previous life. He isn't getting enough activity in his new home, so I said I would help to find him something more appropriate. I can't say no to a cute Border Collie!

Max is awesomely well behaved and has super manners, but he is sorely lacking in dog skills. Apparently he was raised with a Shepherd/Collie mix in his last home, but I have a feeling this is the only dog he has ever known. We did a dog meet yesterday with all of my dogs (one-on-one) and Max was very scared & reactive to them. It is because of this that Max didn't come home with us last night -- We have a busy weekend coming up and I didn't think it was the right time. By the sounds of it, he will be coming home on Sunday.

Secret did her very best to try to make friends with him, but she was very unsure of the energy he was throwing off. She spent a lot of time in her submissive belly-up position (occasionally "singing" to him, which I don't think helped!), and by the end of our visit Max did approach to sniff her briefly. I think he'll come around fairly quickly. If things go well, I already have his next home lined up. If that doesn't pan out for whatever reason, I figure I'll post him on the MN and WI/IL agility lists to try to find him a home. If anyone reading this is interested in Max, please let me know!

Secret has been doing just super in her training. On Monday I had the jump arc set up as well as a set of 12 poles thrown in for fun. This allowed us to play with entries, and of course, work on weaving all 12 poles. She did awesome! All of her work was done for the increasingly ripped-up Jolly Ball. Man, I love that thing!

Last night, Bethany & Rascal came over for our last night of practice before the big event -- Rascal will be in his first agility trial this weekend!! They are coming to Zumbro Falls, MN with us for a fun-filled day of NADAC. I am so excited for them.

We set an Open Regular course to work on last night and all dogs (except Kaiser!) jumped 20". I ran Luke first, and then it was Secret's turn -- I made sure to run her BEFORE she saw one scrap of food, in the hopes that she would work for her ball. She did!! She did a whole course for her Jolly Ball, and she was AWESOME. Now, the handler needed a good smack in the face because I completely threw all of my criteria out the window (stop on contacts? what is that?). But after realizing what a moron I had just been, I did go back and we did it properly, STILL using the Jolly Ball! Sweet!!!

When we reversed the course, Secret had her eye on Kaiser's treats that she had been watching get doled out in front of her. Because of this, I didn't even attempt to bring out the Jolly Ball, although she might have surprised me. She still did very well with this run, but was definitely slower and required me to assist her a bit more. I should note that her distance work with the ball was *phenomenal.*

But we'll get there -- She's doing just great and I'm so happy with her progress of late. I definitely slack off on the contact practice. For what it's worth, we'll likely work on that tonight, if nothing else because Kaiser desperately needs his running dog walk re-schooled before Saturday.