18 degrees

Hmm - I dropped my laptop on the tiled floor today and now it jiggles when I type (uneven)....

Anyway - Played with Maraschino today as I intend to go to Waimarie tomorrow again.

We started with backing up from chest - he still seems to need me to hold the lead rope for him to get this... we will work a bit more on that...


Then yo yo back to the end of the 22ft, and wait, lick and chew - good, circle to your easy side please. Off he went at walk - that was a good start. We tried the other side after one circle, and then I did weave and figure 8 at walk, at about 12ft I guess. (L1). He was really responsive. We did a little bit of Touch it, the spools, the cones.


The we went back to circle game. He kept coming in behind me on half a circle (phew pressure is off) so I had to do a slightly stronger send. This got him a little worried but we got there in the end. When I asked him in he would come in and hide his head a little, Garbo used to do that too - now I know it's introversion. At one point I leaned down to pick up the CS and he jumped so he had gone a little far!

I really concentrated on asking quietly and waiting till he looked at me or asked a question before upping the phases or asking again - this worked really well. (Do's and Don'ts chart)...

I tried a couple more sends and a couple he got the direction wrong and over-reacted when I blocked him with the carrot stick up in the air (little rear and baby strike with one leg) so we did some more slapping the ground (we seem to have to do this every time lol)... and then I asked him to send over the pole and turn face and wait. He got that good today - calm. Waited a bit.

Then I asked for circle over the pole but thinking back (and judging by his RB reaction to it) I think he was a little scared because up until now if he tried to go past me once over the pole I had shaken the rope to stop him, so obviously my send for circle and send for over the pole are not different enough to be clear. Clear as mud at the moment it seems!!

I asked for send over the pole at walk to finish it at the pole then I decided (after a wee think break) that we needed to do some driving from Zone 3, close range with the carrot stick - to get him used to it being in his vision and on his back. After about 5 minutes I had him doing 360's with the front end with driving from the CS so that was pretty cool. We did it from both sides. Hmmm - did I??? Can't recall now. He does tend to 'keep' me on his near side. Note to self.

So we finished up the session with weave pattern throught the cones driving from Z3 short range. He did it superbly.

Rather than take the halter off straight away we headed back to the wash bay and I put his cover on and gave him a date - which was the right thing to do, as when I took the halter off today, he didn't shake his head and let out his breath!

Phew.

Garbo ate grass in the yard the entire time (his treat)... and Coco helped me as you can see. The garss is really growing like crazy now. It was do warm today and still is now. (10pm)