Goals

I've been thinking a lot about my future goals for myself and my dogs.  I'm doing a lot of things with them right now (well, seems like a lot to me) and I want to make sure we're accomplishing things and improving, not just doing the same old thing all the time.  So I'm going to list some goals for the year here and how I hope to accomplish them.  I'll throw some long term goals in there too.

Gidget:
-Qualify in Exc STD.  Just thinking one Q at a time here.  I'm trying to get Gidget on a teeter just about every day.  Whether it's the one at school or the little practice one here at home.  I need to find some open ring time at other locations too so Gidget can get rewards on these new teeters that seem too freak her out.  It's good that she loves the familiar teeters so much, but that makes it difficult to figure out what exactly her issue is.  Trying new teeters with treats I'd hope would help with that.  At school yesterday I was trying to work on tunnel/dog walk discriminations but Gidget kept sneaking away to take the teeter! 

-Get her MXJ!  Gidget needs 6 more Mas JWW Q's for her MXJ.  This is very doable, especially since she loves JWW!  Our two JWW runs so far this year have had 1 or 2 little things wrong.  I really need to focus and support Gidget so that we can run clean, in STD, JWW, and in class!

-Earn Gidget's first obedience title and then really get to work on the Open skills.  I've got a good list of trials we can sign up for so I just need to plan ahead money wise.  Then we need to attend open ring time whenever we can right before the trial.  I want Gidget to have lots of fun in the ring so that when I'm more nervous and don't have treats, Gidget will have that history of fun to keep her going!  Also want to check out CDSP Obedience so Gidget can get treats in the ring while competing.  Retrieving is where we're having the most trouble as far as the open skills go.  Gidget was doing great for awhile but now pretty much refuses to retrieve.  We may need to start over again. 

-Tricks- I want to make use of the tricks class we took.  I got a lot of new ideas and revamped some old ones.  I'd like to finish (or at least clean up) the tricks we've learned so far and learn more!  I'm fine not going too crazy with tricks.  I'm quite happy just having learned a few more and how to better work with Gidget.  I'll eventually make a video of what we learned in the tricks class.

-Long term- I'd love to go to Nationals with Gidget some day!  Have to accomplish the first goal above first.

Gracie:
-Get Gracie into Exc in both STD and JWW, maybe even Mas JWW.  This means getting Gracie comfortable trialing no matter where we go.  She did great at our last trial so I hope that continues.  Just gotta get that weaving in trials thing down which I think will come along with the comfort.

-Start trialing in Rally.  There are a couple APDT trials on my radar which I think would be a good place for us to start since she can get treats in the ring!  I still have to check out the location for these trials since I've never been there and not all entry ways work well for Gracie.  Then I have an AKC Rally trial in mind in the fall to start trialling there!

-Continue doing well around other dogs no matter where we are or what we're doing.  I am so proud of the progress we've made.  Gracie almost never has outbursts at other dogs at home now, and home is still the hardest place for her to see other dogs.  We saw 6 dogs when we were outside this morning (we usually see no more than 1 or 2).  That was rough on both of us, but we managed.  Gracie was even able to do her JWW run at our last trial reasonably well after a curious sheltie got too far into her bubble (maybe a foot away).  So we just need to keep this up!

-Tricks- More new tricks!  Nothing specific here, just keep trying new things.  Maybe finally get that bow figured out.

-Long term- MACH10!  Or whatever number is realistic for how much trialing I can do.  Something big!

Ok, that's all I've got for now.  I'll let you know how these go!  Happy training!