Friday, October 17, 2008

Practicing the down for trials...

As you all know, having a good down on your dog at at trial or even doing sheep chores is essential. Sometimes I let my dog's downs slip a little and then at a trial, I get nailed for that. With Tess, I have a little room for error but with Nan...let's just say, she is so fast and pushy, I pay the price at the trial. It has cost me placings in the top 20% this summer!!

The last two trials the girls did quite well. Nan placed 4th at the last trial, a mere 5 points from first place. The trial before that she got 3rd out of 32 dogs.

So we have a major trial this weekend and I wanted to sharpen up on the girls downs.


The two Major Players. My top Open dogs.



DeltaBluez Tess (10.5 yr old)



L & M Nana (6 yrs old)
So we worked on the downs today. We really had to work hard to get a crisp and clean down. As you can tell, we succeeded.

First of all we had to find a quiet place so I could not have them get distracted. The bedroom was a great fit. They hopped on the bed to practice.

Nan got the down on the first try. Part way through the exercise she fell asleep.

Tess fell alseep right away. Her down was in micro seconds.

Disclaimer: No animals were hurt in this production

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I see I've been going about this "lie down" thing all wrong. Looks like the girls have it licked. ;) Beautiful photos.