PWD National Specialty Water Trials!!!

I'm really not much of a blogger, am I...

We had lots of fun this summer working towards getting Apprentice & Working Water Dog with Dessie. But somehow - it wasn't quite as fun as last summer - we got all serious or something. And after two unsuccessful attempts at the Working level I found myself disappointed instead of just enjoying the time outside with Mark & Dessie. I'm going to have to change that as we go forward with water training, and if we get into Agility it'll be even more important since that is competitive.

But Dessie really did do beautifully - and it was great watching her learn to jump - and to jump - and to jump. She really really loves to jump. What she doesn't love is to stay, and that's why we didn't end up with a pretty new ribbon.

So here are are our videos from Lopez Lake. I wish I had taken pictures too - but my phone battery was dead. There were some really great things about the trial. We camped, along with Ali Vorhies & Dixie at the Lopez Lake campground. The coolest thing about that was the tree in our site was what is called a "granary" tree for acorn woodpeckers. The birds stuff acorns into every available nook and cranny of the tree. It was amazing. No pictures though :(

Here are our videos from the trial.

First - bag drag - really silly exercise I think.



Next - dummy toss. I swear Dessie clears half the swimming distance in her jump.


And an absolutely lovely three article retrieve. We came a long way with this one - back in August Dessie just wanted to get back on the boat between each item. And Mark was a little concerned because in the practice before the trial it was really windy and Dessie very purposefully took one article, then swam back to the second article and took the rope, and then went under for the buoy ball and brought all three items back in one swoop. Made sense - it was windy, they were going to drift! But not exactly what the trial calls for. When it came down to it she did it perfectly.



By the way - Mark's position on the boat cracks me up...

And then - the dummy toss between two boats. This is the exercise that Dessie has reinvented. She thinks the game is to jump from boat to boat to boat to boat. When I watch the video I see a few obvious things to fix. I think Mark's leg on the boat to steady it is somewhat of an invitation for Dessie to bridge the gap. But it is really just about getting her to stay. She doesn't like leaving Mark on the other boat. And she just does her own thing -and she has fun doing it! And eventually she jumped, because she just loves to jump...



And I turned off the video camera because I was disappointed and stupid. How lame is that!!! Dessie did a perfect blind line retrieve.

So next summer - WWD and CWD? we've already started working on a super solid DROP IT. And we'll come up with new ways to proof her Stay... And I'm looking into agility classes again.