A Great day of Distance!

Trapper and I travelled up to Olds, Alberta early yesterday morning for a distance seminar with our friend Lynda.  It was such a huge success in so many ways!  First of all - all of the paticipants were great, nice "dog people".  It was a great group to train with.
I've been to quite of few seminars in my brief time of doing agility - some were great, some ok - but I have the attitude that if I learn 1 thing (yes - only one thing) that is an "a ha!!" moment and I'll put that in my training "tool box" and use it in the future for training - then the seminar was a success for me.  Well in that case - this seminar was awesome for me as I had many "a ha" moments through out the day!
One of my goals for 2010 was MUCH more distance with Trapper.  So I couldn't wait for this seminar!  Another goal that is huge for Trap and I is motivation!  I got both a plenty on Saturday!!  He showed tremendous drive when I tugged with him and then sent him to do his excercises.  We sent the dogs to drive forward through the chute and then over a jump with and then without driving up with them.  It was awesome to be able to send Trap through the chute and yell "GO JUMP" and he blasted through the jump without looking back to me!
We also worked the dogwalk - getting the dogs to drive down to the contact position with the handlers hanging back.  Then sending them straight to take the jump from our position behind them.  Trapper did a grrreat job!!!
We worked a serpentine from a distance and all of the dogs did great at this - including Trapper!!  I was actually surprised that I have as much distace as I do with him!  When you don't really work a lot of distance except for a Gamblers course in an actual trial - it's hard to judge what kind of distance you have with your dog.  Oh - I have a long way to go with Trap - and we have lots of work to do - but his distance is really coming along!!
One of my FAVORITE exercises was learning the "flip" from a contact.  It's when the dog reaches the bottom of the contact point and you then have to "flip" them away from you into the tunnel.  It was great and I can't wait to practice that!
The last part of the day was that a Gamblers course from last years Regionals was set up!  At the regionals Trapper and I tried the serpentine "Mini" gamble - we didn't get it.  Well - we got it this time!!  Trap was amazing.  Now - this was the last run for him during a VERY active day - and even though I got so much out of the "distance" part of the seminar - a big accomplishment for Trapper and I was that he was still so motivated at the end of the day.  I've really been tugging, tugging, tugging with him and he loves it so much that it has so helped with his motivation.  Needless to say he was fried last night and was snoring up a storm on the couch all night!

Another bit of good news though - I got my confirmation last night for the Calgary Agility Trail being held in 2 weeks.  Trials have been filling up so fast and sometime you can't get into the local trials!
Can't believe that tomorow is already February 1st!!!!  Wow - time really does fly by so fast!!!