Are you ready Star? Well, are you? Only 3 more practice days before the Sonoma Sheepdog Trial, and we surely took advantage of this one. There is no training going on now at the practice field, only fine tuning and confidence building. With Star, I am keeping things short, sweet, light and happy.
This week's lessons:
- Make it snappy
- Mixing it up
- Are we having fun yet?
Here's an excerpt:
Star man is handling easy for me at this point. He reminds me of a rally car with good speed, great steering, and very precise braking. I schooled him on responsiveness in preparation for the upcoming trial, and mixed up the whistles and flanks adding a shush as needed to keep him keen. I gave him clear whistles in rapid succession, and what I was doing was keeping his confidence up while making things snappy. I carefully kept all my whistles soft, because to do otherwise would likely scare him, but I was flanking and stopping him, changing his direction, speeding him up and slowing him down with whistles that came in rapid succession.
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