Technical problems yesterday I couldn’t get this post to work. But here it is a day late! Today is September 2nd. That means only 16 days until the FCI world championships begin and only 11 days until Encore and I start our trip to Austria. At this point you have to pretty much rely on the training you have already got. No sense attempt to teach anything new now better to just rehearse the things you both are comfortable with in order to build confidence and teamwork.  

A week ago I started to train Encore exclusively on the carpet in the building. Running on carpet presents a different challenge for dogs compared to running outdoors on grass. A dog that likes to run low to the ground will struggle more on carpet than a dog that runs upright. The upright dog can turn more effectively. I have noticed that with practice on the carpet Encore does work more upright when inside than outside.

Last week I started with just having her work jump grids. In these grids I included the long and higher broad jump, the European wall jump and the bigger spread jump. I have also been reminding her of her up contact responsibilities since an up contact call was what kept us from a silver medal in the individuals last year:(.

For myself I have stepped up my own workouts and push myself a bit harder to be sure I hurt just a little bit more the day after a workout. My plan is to have stiff and sore muscles over the next two weeks so I won’t have them when running in Austria!

Tiffany, Adrian and myself head to opening ceremonies in 2008. All 3 of us are back on the team this year!

Tiffany, Adrian and myself head to opening ceremonies in 2008. All 3 of us are back on the team this year!

 

Yesterday Lynda came by and we ran couple courses from two of the men that will be judging  over in Austria. Each judge has a different ‘flavor’ to their courses so I will try to work 5 or more courses each judge before I leave.  I will keep you updated as we work towards our travel date of September 13th. However I still have a 5 day camp starting here tomorrow plus (sadly) still more decisions & discussions about the new house (no, we still have not moved in:() so it can’t be all fun and games around here!

Today I am grateful for Encore. She is such an awesome dog. Regardless of what we are doing, teaching, hiking, training she is just happy to be a part of the SOMETHING with me.