I was going to upload the videos from the match, but have messed up my toolbars, thus don't have the button to download. So while I have them all edited and ready to go, you'll have to wait until I fix that little thing. I'm also missing the button for spell-check, so do be kind.
Its hard to believe we are starting our seventh run of classes already. Gimme continues to be fabulous. I'm sure she is the star of our class, but have to confess a couple other dogs are trying to catch up to her. Grafton (boxer/coonhound and Gimme's boyfriend extraordinaire) has really jumped along in confidence and is getting much more deliberate in his searching. Maddie, a very reactive mixed breed dog, is also getting to be a very good searcher. Tucker (lab) does well, but has missed a lot of classes recently and I think the heat affects him. Tia (Pomeranian) is very new to this sport. Una, a BC mix, is doing nicely - very steady with enthusiasm. And lastly standard poodle Jamie, does well - he's just very laid back.
Class this week was two exterior searches and I'm happy that Gimme didn't mark either time.
In the first search she found both hides pretty well, but seemed challenged by the one in a tube stuck up in a chainlink fence. The breeze swirls around in that area and she just had a difficult time deciding to look up. Normally she excels at looking up. Even with the time it took her to sort that out, she was still well within the three minutes she would have been allotted. The other hide was in a tin with a bit of dirt and a leaf sprinkled on top of it.
In the second search, we had three hides. This is the area where so many of the dogs from classes are potty walked, so I was especially pleased that she didn't mark. She found those hides really quickly. One was in a glove tucked in a metal cabinet, another under a thin piece of concrete in the dirt and the third under the edge of a wading pool. Today the wind in that spot was blowing right across all of them toward where we started, so she took a pretty direct path to each of them.
This week in our classes with Ursula, Gimme has been "emotional". She's easily frustrated and not her usual focused self. I suspect that its the week she has her false pregnancy blip. The first time was very noticable. The second time we didn't happen to be doing anything, so I didn't notice anything. This time, its noticable because we are in classes. I am carefully asking her to work through her frustration and rewarding heavily when she does.
We do have the match this weekend, so I'll see how she does. Its a great chance to do searches in a completely unfamiliar environment. They have a person that will tape your searches, provided you bring your own camera. So I'll have mine freshly charged and ready to go.
Cross your fingers for us.
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