Things that are not as fun for me as agility...

... But that I do because they're still pretty enjoyable and Izzie seems to enjoy them too.

Rally and Obedience. 

I like them don't get me wrong, but if I could only do one sport for the rest of my life it would be agility. It's my passion.

However, I do appreciate a well trained obedience dog who's happy to work with and loves their handler. That's a whole 'nother post that I doubt I'll ever write... But I digress. 

Izzie and I travelled out to Cowley today with Sarah to go to the fun match at the Southern Alberta Working Herding Dog Association (wow that's a mouthful! SAWHDA for short). There was two rings set up, one for rally and one for obedience. Izzie and I ran through a novice rally course a couple times, once on leash and once off. As usual our off lead heeling is a million times better than off leash (I can feel you giving me that "that's why I make you work on leash in class" look Amanda...) and the distraction of working at the same time as Sarah and Gyp in the obedience ring was a huuuuge challenge for Izzie as she loves her aunty Sarah and idolizes her cousin Gyp. She worked through it though with encouragement, what a good girly. 

She really liked Gyp's pointy nose dumbbell even though it squished up her cheeks.

In our training for obedience, besides duration in heeling with no verbal lovin's from me, her issue is her long sits and downs. Long sits are hard physically for dogs, if they're going to stay in one place for a longer amount of time they're going to lay down vs. sit. So this means endurance has to be built in the muscles to hold that position, especially when you're mentally and physically tired from the rest of the obedience routine before the sits. Practise practise practise though and we have been and I'm happy to say that she did not down on a THREE MINUTE sit. Very good girly! Her down? well that was another story, she started licking the floor like a weirdo and ended up getting up, twice. Oh well, practise and finding out these things are the purpose of fun matches. 

Nailed it!

After Cowley we headed home (in partially snowy weather) to go for lunch. Thanks for buying me lunch Sar, I owe you big time! Then we headed off to Perfect Pooches for another match. I wasn't entering Izzie but it's good for her to be in those places to get used to new environments anyway. 

We watched novice obedience and then it came time for the sits and downs for that and Izzie and I were encouraged to use it as practise, so we did. Izzie nailed the one minute sit AND the long down, despite a very resistant Border Collie next to her. Again, good girly!

After watching Sarah and Gyp do their open routine, we headed back to the city and to our respective homes to have naps. I am very proud of Izzie, she's come a long way from being paranoid of me stepping on her during heeling and freaked out by me being too far away from her. She's getting more and more confident the more activities we do! Can't wait for our rally advanced debut next month and hopefully a novice obedience debut in the new year!