Plans for 2012

I have the standard types of resolutions for the New Year.  Don’t bring any junk food home from the grocery store, vacuum more often, learn a couple new languages, mediate peace in the Middle East, etc. 

What I don’t have are Obedience resolutions.  With the standard (i.e., non-Obedience) resolution, I have some smidgeon of control over the outcome.  Making resolutions about Obedience requires putting one’s self-esteem at the mercy of a creature that gets more excited about finding mud-covered, week-old, coyote-rejected deer vertebrae in the field than straight fronts.

When it comes to Obedience, one can only make plans and hope that diligent execution of those plans might someday lead to a few more 50 cent ribbons.

Plans for Alder, who has 2 Open legs and 1 RAE leg:

·        Spend the winter retraining the out-of-sight sits.  Whisper repeatedly into his ear: Do this right ONE MORE TIME and you will never, ever have to do a 3-minute sit again.

·        Work on lots of jumping drills, ala Chris Zink, to improve his marginal jumping. 

·        Harden my heart to his insistent reminders that he is starving and take a few pounds off the boy.

·        Take a few pounds off myself.

·        Don’t enter him in Open more than one day in a weekend. If he doesn’t Q the first day, he won’t Q the second.  Enter him in Rally only on days he’s not entered in Open.

·        Continue training the new Rally exercises and keep plugging away at teaching Utility.

·        Have faith that he will get that final Open Q one of these days.

Plans for Maple, who has a CD and one RE leg:

·        Relax and smile at her during runs.  Forget the score and work on keeping that connection between me and her in the ring. 

·        Work on jumping skills and get her more relaxed about working on my right side.

·        Work on at least one foundation agility skill each month (flatwork, one-jump stuff, etc.)

·        Somehow, fit in a couple of hunt training sessions each week.

·        Speed up those finishes.

Plans for improving myself.  Guess I can call these resolutions, since they depend on me and not the four-footed fiends.

·        Give clearer signals.  Less flailing, more crispness.

·        Learn to walk a straight line.

·        Don’t step into my dog on the halt.

·        Have the right arm band on when I enter the ring.

·        Don’t enter 7 different events with 2 dogs on the same day.

On to 2012 and whatever it brings.