Disclaimer

This is a personal weblog based on my life with Bernese Mountain Dogs. The opinions expressed here represent my own and and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of any clubs, organizations or committees that I may be associated with. Please feel free to comment on any post, but profane, abusive or rude comments will not be tolerated - please be polite, even if you disagree.
All photos and posts in this blog are the property of the blog author and may not be used without direct consent.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Catching Up

It has been a very long time since I updated my blog. What a bad blogger I am. A few things have happened since my last post.

It has snowed a lot. Here is Bosley sitting on a park bench that is nearly covered in a snow drift.


In November, Maggie earned her Masters Snooker Dog title at the CAA trial. This is her very first Masters title :) What a great way to finish off agility for the year.


This past weekend, Bosley made his debut in Open Obedience. One of my goals for this year was to get him in the Open ring - and we did. Not only did we get in the ring, but Bosley was great! I really didn't know how it would go, but he exceeded all my expectations of him. I still smile and get tears in my eyes when I think about how he was in the ring. He was happy, happy, happy for the entire 2 runs that we did. His heeling was great. His drop on recalls, which we have been working so hard on, were perfect. He was such a good boy. Teaching him the retrieve was by far the hardest thing that I have trained him to do. It took an entire year of training to get him to retrieve his dumbbell. In the ring, he RAN, he actually RAN out to get his dumbbell and RAN back to me. It would have been perfect if he had actually waited for me to send him :) He anticipated the retrieve over high jump in both trials. I didn't even care just because he was so enthusiastic to go get his dumbbell in a place that he had never been before. And in Bosley's defense, we have only practiced the retrieve over high jump maybe twice in the past 2 months. I will need to work on this, as I don't want it to become a habit, but for now, I will take enthusiasm over perfection.

I was also happy that I kept my ring nerves so well under control. I was a little nervous before our first trial, but once I got in the ring I was fine. The second trial, I barely had any nerves at all. Oh, but I do need to practice throwing the dumbbell. Haha! I had to do 3 throws to get it far enough over the high jump.

Now I am so excited to get back in the obedience ring. I know that Bosley can get his CDX. Too bad there are not anymore obedience trials until March. Oh well, that just gives us a few months to work out all the little kinks.




8 comments:

  1. i was about to nominate you for the worlds worst blogger...

    bosley rocked. and you should be so proud of what you've taught him. I think that how well he did really shows what a great trainer you are!

    Can't wait to see him try again in March!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ^^^^^^ya what she said ^^^^^^^

    ReplyDelete
  3. Congrats, thats awesome!! Diana

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bosley was soooo good!, I can still see his face peaking up at you while he pranced along beside you :)
    He was so happy, you couldn't tell you had any nerves at all!, probably due the "no nerves magic" I passed on to you before you went in ;)
    Congrats !!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jolene, I am sure that your "magic" really did help. I have never been so relaxed in the obedience ring.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Glad to have you back, Kim! What great dogs you have, and what a GREAT human they have! Hey, how does Bosley like those booties?
    Rick

    ReplyDelete
  7. I really want to get Aspen into agility and obedience but I don't know where to even start... very cute dogs :-) If you lived closer we could have a berner play date. How do they like those shoes?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bosley is so gorgeous! I just brought home my first berner pup on Saturday. :)

    ReplyDelete