Much has happened, but I am not in the muchness of the mood to get into most of that. I will say that Chaos's rehab for a bilateral iliopsoas strain is going better than anyone expected or predicted and he is surprising everyone with his quick recovery. This is of course good news for both my and his sanity. It means we can go on longer runs, he can swim, we can go on 'normal' off lead walks, controlled walks, not 'running around like a headless chicken on LSD' walks. He is definitely less grumpy now, thank goodness. And if all goes well we will be back to Agility courses very soon too.
Volt is excelling at the challenges I have been setting. Me and him have very much immersed ourselves in 'our world' and 'our goals'. I am very happy with the results so far. We are very much working on very specific skills through the use of foundation work. Despite this (more likely because of it), his performance on full courses in competition has been very good. The two of us are off to PE this weekend to present some workshops, I will be playing the part of trainer and Volt that of demo dog. I am really looking forward to it, a great group of students attending.
What I WOULD like to talk about tonight is the Psycho Child. This puppy is just so friggin cool. Challenging, VERY challenging, but 100% compatible to me. I fall more in love with her with every minute that passes ( I say this while she is targetting my shin with her back foot... a very cute trick that has turned into her call for attention).
Conformation-wise she has turned out as close as damn-it to my 'dream dog'. I wouldn't mind a slight bit more height (although at 49cm she is already rather tall for a BC female). And too boot she is pretty too. Who would have thought my farm mutt would be quite the beauty queen. Her work ethic is to die for, she is all about getting it right and having fun while doing it. This has created an issue or two, her almost unhealthy desire to understand her job (she is a perfectionist) combined with her toughness makes for her being rather hard on herself. That might sound bizarre, but when I abandon an exercise because we are 'not getting it right' (I don't even have a neutral or negative verbal marker), she will go and reset herself for the next try. It is so bad that I started attempting to release her onto a toy at this point, but she wouldn't even take the reward. She is not negative about it at all, she doesn't show signs of stress, she doesn't lose enthusiasm, she doesn't even worry.... she just wants to go do it again... Her detection of my body language is thus better than my OWN detection of my OWN body language... this is as close as a dog has ever come to reading my mind. Disturbing if you ask me. I would rather not have her knowing my homicidal thoughts when the neighbours kids scream around the yard at 07h00 on a Saturday morning.
This pup has more eye than most people have seen. I have had sheep trialling okes tell me that they have never seen so much eye??? Let's be honest, this is NOT actually the number 1 quality we want in our Agility dogs. Her insanely strong herding instinct also prompted her to try and 'conserve' herself as much as possible. It took quite some convincing to let her know I wanted her to sprint with her whole little heart. We are not on a sheep farm, she does not have to last for ten hours non-stop. Her movement however is to die for. She is a real sweetheart too. And blissfully quiet, I have only heard her bark once.
She is rather non-stop. If she is not trying to balance a toy (or what she defines as a toy) on my knee, she is targetting me with one or all of her feet, or playing with a cat, or trying to get my attention by climbing trees like a monkey. She is not destructive, she never steals shoes, or chews anything she is not supposed to. She is clever and innovative.
All in all, the pros and the cons, the good and the bad, the funny and the serious... everything in this little dog is just fine by me! I adore her.
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