Thursday 8 November 2012

goals

Dog-related goals that is.

Piper is 5 months old now, so it's time to set some realistic goals for what I want to accomplish with her.

We are currently enrolled in a Competition Puppy class, working on tuck sits, stands, and learning to love the heel position! So far I'm finding the class a lot of fun - way more fun than the Attention class I took with Ace. Maybe if we start at the bottom, I may actually be motivated to compete in traditional obedience? We'll see.

Anyways, my first goal is to do the Canine Good Neighbour (CGN) test with Piper sometime this winter. Ideally in January or February. It's easy to practice for it in my neighbourhood pet store, so I have no excuse not to do it soon!

Before she hits a year, I would also like to have her complete a Herding Instinct Test, and a Disc Dog Proficiency Test. Both are simple tests, and look at natural abilities more than training. But I think they would both be good things to have under her belt! It looks like there are lots of local Disc Dog events, so it might be a convenient sport to pick up, although I don't have a lot of desire to get really competitive with it.

Finally, I would like Piper to do her Rally Novice, and Ace to do his Rally Advanced sometime in the spring or summer.

Now that I've written it down, we'll see how I can keep up with it! It looks like an awful lot of things to do. We'll all have to work very hard to accomplish it all.