7 months

Scandal will be 7 months on Sunday. I keep saying it but time is just going so fast.



Scandal's training

I have taught Scandal left and right, but decided I was going to teach her a right wrap (cik) and left wrap (brake... lol). I did wonder if she'd be able to pick the cik and brake up but she now seems to have got it sussed, what a clever cookie.



Her running contacts are going really well, she is on a low dog walk now, still going from the top plank only... she was going from the top of her cage (28") however i didn't have any way of increasing the height any more, so we're on the actual dog walk now, it's probably just over 3 foot. However within the next month I will be introducing phase 2 of the dog walk, however the behaviour isn't strong enough away from the equipment at present, so I have that to work on first. Once I start doing this, it'll most likely slow our progress of running contacts down anyway, so I don't expect her to be running the full length (still low) until 11-12mths old.



I have also factored in that it will be winter when she is a year old = wet and windy, and as I am not planning on training her when it is wet/windy, I am very aware that this will limit our training time. We are training twice-three times a week at the moment, so not very much compared to most with running contacts.



Last night I roadwalked her and the other 2 to a new field, the ones out the back of our house are very grass seedy, and I'm paranoid about the dogs getting them. Scandal was very well behaved on her gencon, she walks like such an angel, pity that as soon as I take the nose piece of she pulls hard enough to give staffies a run for their money! We then walked through a field and I noticed the young cattle were coming towards us, they weren't running but they have a habit of walking with their heads quite low and it looks like they are about to charge, so we climbed over the wall, well, I had to lift all 3 heffalumps over it, as the other side was concrete and I didnt want them jumping on to that. Then I got Rix to sit on the wall as he's always been fascinated by the cows, he is so funny as they were trying to lick him and he wasn't at all sure what to do. I put Scandal up next to him and she didn't at all know what to make of them, she went from being fascinated, to scared (when they breathed all over her and tried to lick her with their longggg tongues), to fascinated, to wanting to bite them, to being quite chilled. So I guess that went quite well actually. As we were walking home she saw a water ornament type feature, a giant marble ball with water coming out - completely freaked her out she didn't have a clue what it was! Funny little dog, she was fine within a minute, but you could just see her thinking "omgggggggg what the hell is that". At least her recovery time is a lot quicker than T, who remains permanently traumatised!



Only got a couple of days left of work then I'm all finished - yahoooo!