Thanks for your patience everyone as we had some maintenance done here on the blog. I don’t know or pretend to understand the geekdom behind the scenes world, I am just grateful for Jason taking care of us all.

And speaking of technicalities we just finished a three day workshop with an FCI judge from Holland. I met Will-Alexander Kelders when I was teaching in Italy and he was judging their EO team tryouts. We corresponded and I invited him here to set up 3 days of European courses and not necessarily help us with our handling but observe our dogs’ responses to our handling.

Feature, Encore & I posing for our CKC ATC Team Picture.

The first day was a bit tense as he tried to get me to do pre-cued spinning blind crosses to tighten turns:) But after we all got to know each other a bit better the workshop went just as I had hoped. We ran 23 courses in 3 days! All except 4 were courses from the Judges we will be seeing at the FCI World Championships in September.

The big take away point for everyone I think was that the handlers here do not stay as focused and connected with their dogs as we should be. Now this seems a bit strange coming from a man that loves to blind cross but it certainly was great advise! I wish there was a pill both to give to students and to take myself for the times when my own focus drifts!

Try it the next time you take your agility dog for a handling spin. Run a sequence knowing exactly where your dog’s eyes are looking throughout the entire run.

Today as Lynda Orton-Hill sits across from me working on the membership course I am so grateful for the amazing team I have working behind the scenes to make this course brilliant for all!