Update on Ribbon

In May Ribbon got her CD at the Swansea trial in Etobicoke.  She passed 4/4.  Her scores were okay.  She had one 198, which was quite nice.  She had a minor blip in her first trial on the heel free she noticed the judge move her clipboard and she paused for a second and then caught up immediately.  But I could feel she wasn't totally focused and her heeling got a little loose.  But overall I was pleased with her work ethic.  She was pestered by a fly a couple of times on her stays and had another dog come over to visit on another set of stays, so other than my high blood pressure during all of that, Ribbon was just fine!
I had also entered Ribbon in 2 more trials the two weeks following Swansea.  I looked over my videos from Swansea and worked on a few things I wanted to clean up. Namely her fast pace and about turns. Both of these element got loose during the trials.  I realized that when I play with Ribbon I tend to run around and play with her, she jumps up and chases me.  It occurred to me that she looked almost the same when I did my fast pace in the ring.  I decided that I needed to give her a better picture so that she would know how to respond by continue heeling and not seeing it as play.  I decided to lengthen my stride and keep my left arm quiet against my body.  It worked really well in training.  For about turns I decided to try a longer head cue and look more to my right, instead of just to the outside of my right foot like I have done with all my other dogs.  She immediately responded to that and it felt really good.  We had fun training together and I was really looking forward to the trials.  The day arrived and Ribbon warmed up really well, she was relaxed and focused.  We walked into the ring and she was fabulous- her figure 8 was to die for!! (although all of her figure 8's were really good).  All the things we worked on were rock solid!! It felt really, really good.  There were only a few dogs left in the class and then stays.  She was great and when we walked out of the ring, they were waiting for us in the next ring.  I did a quick warm up and played with her for a second and off we went.  I was so proud of her, because in a span of 20 minutes she did two runs and both sets of stays and came out a 198 and 197.5 and both HITS!!!

Yeah Ribbon!!!

We are working hard on our CDX and I have mailed in my entries for 4 trials December 01/02.  Ribbon is REALLY enjoying open.  I have been working on proofing drills and continue to work on making our heeling perfect and fun!