Big Week Ahead

hmmmmm, looks like I never quite got around to updating after class last time... or the time after that....

At the moment, we are working on two things: getting Iggy ready for his first Novice obedience trials Thursday and Friday at the Labrador Retriever Club of Greater Boston's specialty shows and Bethena ready for Novice B rally obedience at the same trials.

Iggy can be so on, it's crazy, but he's also a very distractable boy. If there's a butterfly or bird or stick or twig or spot where another dog urinated three weeks ago, it's pretty easy to lose his attention. If they allowed food in the ring and I could tape a piece of string cheese to my forehead (I am a cheesehead, remember?), we'd be all set. As it is, his attention is kinda hit-or-miss. There are a lot of things in this world that are more interesting than me.

The second issue we'll have at the trials will be the heat and humidity. Even though it's not supposed to be wicked hot, Iggy melts pretty easily and he gets very laggy and slow when it's hot. The trials are outside, tho last year the set-up had the obedience going on underneath a permanent shelter. That was the best of all possible worlds -- lots of breeze and shade (no sides to the shelter) but lots of room for everyone and not as noisy as the indoor shows. Still, 80 degrees is 80 degrees (I know, I know, in Joplin it'll probably be 100 and we're cry babies, but so be it).

For Bethena, she got the first two legs on her Rally Novice title as the Labrador Retriever Club of the Pioneer Valley specialty last month so if she qualifies on Thursday, she'll get her RN and we can do a "move-up" on Friday to try for her first leg on her Rally Advanced title. That's a lot of ifs. Still, if it works and she qualified, Friday should be pretty entertaining and RA work is all off-leash.

This morning we did a little practicing, but Iggy was hot (not a good sign, it was only about 75 degrees) and Bethena was jealous that Iggy got so much attention (actually, that probably IS a good sign for her). I'm on my way now to run some errands including getting string cheese for my forehead and picking up some film (so maybe I'll add photos as well as links to the shows to his post later on this evening or tomorrow). More later.....