Zola and I had the opportunity to attend a Stacy Goudy seminar last week, and it was so much fun.
We had orginally wanted to do the beginner seminar but due to me procrastinating as to when I was going to spay Zola that class filled up .... which was very lucky for me as we totally fitted into the more advanced Novice/Open group. Learnt a few new things - a slighly new hand signal for the serpentine, the correct way to do the back side of a jump though we probably did it correctly all along but I was never certain what we were supposed to be doing and some tips on 270's. I was very grateful that I had introduced Zola to all the moves 1-3 weeks before this, so we were not brand new at any of it. There were some amazing dogs there and it was fun to be in a class with all these people you never train with but see at trials.
At this point I am honestly very happy with Zola's progress, this 7 weeks since she turned 1 years old have been huge in her agility career, she has gone from a dog who had barely started stringing things together to a highly intense very decent agility dog who can do most of the moves.
I did try one of the international moves this morning in the backyard, yip one of those blind crosses, and I totally understand why they need to be done sometimes, it may not speed the dog up, but it certainly helps the handler get on the correct footing to speed up. So all those You-tube watching and the seminar has motivated me to get back into shape again. I don't have a border collie, so even though Zola is driven it is not the same as a BC ...... so I am going to have to be fast to pull every little extra bit of speed out of her and I am going to have to work very hard to get get tight turns out of her. But as Stacy said, tight turns are not always the best things if it slows them down dramatically, you have to know where you need them.
This coming Friday 06/29/2012 is "Spay Day" for Zola. My heart says she is going to be just fine, but I still scared for her and me, very scared. I just don't want to loose another best friend and a great agility dog. :-) and even to this day I will have a quiet little cry for Jik because she was just a sweet sweet dog. Weird thing is, I think she picked Zola for me, and I am very grateful I stood my ground with the breeder and picked the sassiest smallest puppy in the litter ..... because something kept telling me she is the one and I must not let the breeder pick.
