Last training before Olympia

Well, just two sessions of training left before Olympia. Last week at club we set up one of Johanna's courses (well almost, the start isn't quite right.) It is a great course to run, plenty to think about for sure. Johanna is an excellent course designer. The original course is the white circles and we added a second way round, black circles, which was just as testing.


Tonight we're going to the opposite extreme and setting up a really fast contact loop so that we can continue to practise driving into tunnels and fast releases. My plan is to release Niamh as soon as her feet hit the floor and just put in a few proofing contacts where I don't release and expect her to wait regardless of what I'm doing.


On Thursday we have our last night of training at Leah's club. I expect she will make me run around a lot as per usual. She is so cruel to me. I am only joking, she makes me work hard but does remember to give a high rate of reward in the form of verbal praise. I'd prefer Quality Street but there you go, it's better for me that way!

I am going to do a bit more work on my dog walk and tunnel commitment at home this week. I have a nasty habit of pulling Niamh off tunnels if I'm not careful. She is a very honest dog and if she thinks I don't want her to do something then she won't do it for herself. I need to up my volume a bit when I want her to drive to things I don't want to go so close to. I am too quiet and calm. Leah keeps telling me this and I do try to be a bit louder and more enthusiastic but it's hard!

Bernadette has given me very good advice on my contacts for training drills and now I just need to work on my timing to make sure that I don't waste time (as advised by Leah.) It may all go to pot as Niamh may well decide she isn't going to wait on contacts at Olympia anyway ..... but I have to train as if she will perform her normal behaviour. I must be sure to release her clearly as she has been known to wait on a contact when she hasn't heard the release!

Bernadette has given me some healthy snacks to take to Olympia (oh and some jelly beans and chocolate) and for Niamh a new dog towel so that I can dry her off if she gets wet. On the towel it says "Believe". I will try hard to do that, I do believe in Niamh (yes that does rhyme) it's me I have the problem with!

We also received this via email today. How lovely. This is Naughty Niamh's lovely Daddy, Mac. You can see the likeness. Well, it came from Nat really but you have to pretend!

That's it for now. My nerves have kicked in today. I am glad about that as I wasn't feeling anything and that always makes me worry!