It has been a busy couple of days for us. On Saturday we went to the Springfield, MA show. Sadie had never been to an indoor show. She did incredibly well. It was a lot noisier than an outdoor show and it was crowded. It didn't bother her at all. She had a lot fun meeting people and having them tell her how cute she is. She does very well being around other dogs and it seems the bigger the dog, the less afraid she is. This girl LOVES going places and is wonderful traveling in the car. When she knows she is going somewhere she bounds down the stairs, it looks like three at a time!
With only approximately three weeks until Sadie turns six months and could technically be entered in a six to nine month group in a show, I thought maybe it was time to pick up the pace. As I had said in earlier posts, Handling class has had many dogs recently. While it is good for her, we have a lot of idle time while the instructor works with another dog. I felt we needed some one on one instruction. I am so glad we went. It is a different place and building, which is great, so she doesn't always expect the same environment. We were able to discuss questions, concerns and work on things that I felt we needed to improve on. One concern I had was there are always only females at the classes and I wanted to see how she would be with a male judge. The instructor's husband was there and he played the part of judge and I was delighted to find that she did great. Another thing I wanted to discuss was conditioning Sadie. She had wonderful ideas and helpful hints. We will be working on conditioning Sadie little bits at a time so we don't overdue it with her for the rest of the week and then reevaluate on Monday.
Tuesday night took us to group Handling class. Last week and this week there was a different instructor. At first I wasn't so crazy about the idea because the other woman knew what we were about and where we were at with our training. But I found it very helpful to be instructed in different ways and the class be held differently. She is tougher on us as handlers than the other person. At first I cringed, but as the class went on last week and this week, it has helped me to be more thick skinned and take the criticism and turn that into improving on what I did wrong. I am glad that she tells me when I am not doing something right or suggests to do it a different way. I have found it very helpful. Sadie stacks fine on the table but as soon as the "judge" comes over she is all wiggly and just wants to be talked to and pet and played with. She is such a happy girl and loves everyone! The instructor gave me some tips and we tried them and it worked like a charm. And she wasn't even on the "happy legs!" With how tough she has been, it really meant a lot when it came our turn for the second time and she told us to do a diagonal down and back and when we were done she looked at me and said, "that rear movement down was drop dead gorgeous" and "I don't do this breed but even with not knowing the cocker standard I can say she has a beautiful head and front". Wonderful encouraging words!
So in the words of Greg Strong, we continue to......condition, prepare and then hopefully present!
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