Mindy's Moments

That 18 months just flew past and now she's competing at real shows!

She was a good girl, she queued nicely, for those that know Mindy will know that was an achievement, let alone get her to sit and wait on the start line!...she was fazed by the "half" people looking at her over the wooden side panel and gave them a growl!....but was fine with the wind howling through the buildings!

....still haven't quite got the start line, "take the lead off sorted", as she really does need to queue with her halti on, but then we fight to get it off and I certainly cant get it on when I've caught her at the end! I thought I'd sussed it by using a double ended lead, halti one end and a slip lead the other, but put that on and she coughs and splutters and I'm always worried she's going hurt her self, so may be I now have to have a clip at the end, which I just put straight on to her collar........

It's all my fault as I trained her in classes with a halti on as it was easier than taking it off, then this would have been sorted before her first show, I hate seeing people messing around on the start line, taking off all their bits and pieces.......Don't know why.

I have been doing bits of clicker training with that issue, but obviously not enough!

Her 2nd run, even though she was OTT, when we finished the course, I managed to walk her over to the corner-out the way, off lead and gave her a load of baked liver and there was "no way" she going to leave me, so may be that's the answer...find out Sunday when the next fun event is, if she's not in season.

Anyway back to her first run, I released her using the "321 okay" and off she went not her usual manic self but still working, down the dog walk, good sniff along the down plank, I was told afterwards that a dog had pooed on it! So I chose to release her early to keep her motivated, through the tunnel, she looked at me coming out, so rather than me "powering!" off down the line I stayed with her, I was going to layer the next bit through the box, then should have made it to the bottom of "A" frame to do a blind turn and send her on over the next jump....but because I went through into the box, I was wrong for the next bit and I actually pushed her off the side of the "A" frame, I now know I need to walk courses just in case she's having a clingy moment and then could have been prepared for the next bit better....any way the rest was lovely and I left her doing the weaves whilst I finished the course.

On to the second run.

That was a jumping round with Bridgette as the judge, who say Mindy at 8 weeks old and has always thought of her as a LAMA! anyway the course was nice with a few turns in it, I wanted to not baby her round it and work her like I would have done at home, I would have not done much of a wait and pulled her to jump 4 and crossed behind jump 5, but I though if she was clingy I wont be able to motivate her by crossing behind so chose the recall, but in actual fact, running with her from the start might have kept her with me rather than her going off to "chase", but she did come back with an "ooh" via a few extra jumps, we did manage to keep the rest of it flowing and the rest was pretty much perfect!

And here it is..........

She was ready to come out and do some shows, at home she was managing to do lots of exercises and we just needed to get out there and do it, in the real world, with nerves and handling courses that I haven't put up here, we have lots of fun events lined up until middle of December , so that should keep us going until 2010....