Changin' It Up - Gonna See What Happens

We have taken a bit of a break from working on running contacts lately. We are starting a retrain process and are going to work on a few different things and see how it goes and what we get. Reese really does remember the 2o2o contacts quite well, much better than I thought she would.

She is one of those dogs that once she learns something she doesn't forget it. So we will give it a few more weeks and then see what is going to work best for us. We may end up using the 2o2o method with a quick release instead of the running contacts. I am not ready to give up on them yet, I am too stubborn. But Reese is my first working dog and at some point we need to get out there and trial. At the same time I have waited this long and I set on trialing only when we are ready. I don't want to change our choice of contacts based on when we would be ready to trial. But I will choose the contacts that I think will work best for us.

As we get further into our training I think I will get a better idea of what will work best for us. Last week at our lesson we did handling and I walked away with a much better understanding of what it will be like when we are running full courses. I know Reese can really move and as my handling improves and her understanding of my handling improves she will be much faster on the course. I just may want a bit of a stop on the contacts so that I can

a.) catch up to her

  b.) catch my breath

                                    c.) get a head start on the next part of the course

 d.) all of the above

Here is a video of what we worked on tonight. Trying a little backchaining to see what we get.