September 24, 2012

Goodbye Freilance

Last Thursday and Friday I had my last lessons at Freilance dog sports. What sad days! I have been taking lessons from Sharon regularly for a little over a year now, and it made all the difference in my life! It was THE thing I waited for every week! Having this community and these special people to train with really helped me adapt to my new life that is so very different from what I'm used to. I think, in part, the dog training made the connection between past and present life. For a long time, you see, I felt like I had life A in Finland being person A, and then I moved to life B being a person B. It's actually hard to explain why I felt so disconnected with my past at first. Now on the other hand, my life feels like my life and I feel like me. Like I said, partly thanks to agility training! That is the one thing I've done both in Finland and here, with the same dog, using the same language. And it's been wonderful! Sharon filled all my expectations! She is accurate, technical, knowledgeable and just all in all an amazing trainer!

During the past week Vanilla has really made good progress. It really makes a difference when you train twice a week plus weekend competition! Also, we had no problems with the teeter.. Sharon said it's most likely just difference in the equipment. I'm sure that also if  I'm less nervous and remember to tell her to slow down in time we'll get over our little teeter problem. Next thing we need to practice with her is staying on the contact even when I run way past. I've been doing the running past a little bit, but obviously not far enough. When I go further than 15 feet she gets off! (Note to self: when running by and she stays, throw the toy past her/close to her and then release, throwing itself is not the release!) I need to start practicing those contacts somehow. It's going to be a little tricky while cruising, but Sharon and I talked about using the ramps that go down on the docks in different marinas or basicly anything that would resemble a sloping down contact. I've tried it in Benicia, but since we also walk the same ramps constantly for other reasons it's hard to get Vanilla to do it only occasionally. But while cruising I guess we are going to change locations frequently so maybe I can just practice that in every marina, every time I take her in/out. I also need to practice more lateral distance with all obstacles. Obstacle discrimination seems to have gotten better and better and my handling at difficult courses with lots of turns; I can actually keep up with the dog! Rear crosses are getting better, but I need more practice on an individual obstacle while turning left. That's definitely Vanilla's 'bad side'.

Having to leave this place and these people makes me sad. But I feel very fortunate and happy to have had the opportunity to get to know everyone and be a part of this "dog-community". I will keep my lessons in mind when training Vanilla and I will definitely continue agility after our cruise (or even during if at all possible). So this is not the last you've seen about our agility career! I'm actually really excited to try to figure out how to do dog training while sailing or at achor or on some desolate beach somewhere south... Hmm.


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