Goals and Hard Work

I don't usually talk about goals in August. I tend to do a review of the past year in late December, and set goals for the upcoming year at the same time. Here are the goals I set for Sonic and me in late December:


Sonic – 16 months old

• Get to do water in the Derby at the April National, which means doing land well enough to move on to water. In my dreams, we place. But being realistic, getting to water would be a grand achievement. I just have to hope that there are enough entries to hold it - the Derby was canceled in 2012 due to entries being too low. (There were 5 dogs who started the test. Three of us got to run the water, Sonic and me included, all dogs failed the water test. Still, I did accomplish my goal of getting to try it. It was WAY over our heads in terms of difficulty.) 
• Finish her JH. (Done in May)
• Get her running cold blinds, land (March) and water (May)
• Earn her WCX - 4/21/13
• Run Senior with her in the fall. While I'd love to earn her SH, that is a pretty tall order - I think. (pass 1 7/20, pass 2 8/17, pass 3 8/24, 8/25 TITLE!!!)
• Earn her RA (March 15) and RE (4/22)
• I've been completely focused on field work with her lately, and plan to continue that as much as possible this winter, so I don't know if I'll devote the time to obedience titles or not. If I do, we might do Novice in the fall. Or BN (4/22). Or GN. Or none.

In reviewing these, we have achieved all of them. Her field work for Senior came together much faster than I imagined back in December. And this weekend, she finished the title with some solid work. We've had a really rigorous field training schedule, but she seems to be thriving on it, based on her eagerness to hop in the Burb for another day of training.

If I can pull myself in from the great outdoors, I want to start shifting my focus over to obedience this fall. IF. My goal is to do some Grad Novice trials this fall at some local trials to test the waters for how ready or not she is, then to start her in Novice in January, with the final goal to show her in Novice at the FCRSA National in June. I don't want to stop field training, but simply reduce the number of field sessions a week and shift those to obedience training. Time will tell how well that plan works :-).