As a number of people at the Peoria agility trial pointed out, I've been a real slacker of late regarding Blast updates. Blast continues to be a delight. His passions are the frisbee, tennis ball, and playing "Go!" over the eight inch jump. Blast was also introduced to sheep for the first time this month. We drove to Peoria for a herding aptitude assessment by Bill Berhow, who is a biggie in the world of herding. We got to see a bunch of Blast's relatives including mom, dad, three littermates, a half-sister and a number of other relatives including Blast's grandpa (Pete) who I am told finished eighth at the nationals this year. Blast even got to work sheep with Pete. It was a lot of fun! Blast took to the herding right away and Bill was very complimentary regarding Blast's drive, enthusiasm, tractability and distance at which he worked the sheep.

The video link below shows his first time in the pen with the sheep. Blast went into the pen with them three times during the afternoon. The second time he was more settled and showed more of the classic postures and quite a bit of eye. Upon entering the ring for the third time Bill removed Blast's long line since Blast was tractable and focused throughout the second run. After his third time with the sheep that day Bill told me I have something special with the potential to be exceptional. As an owner you gotta love that!

I certainly came to appreciate the value of videotaping herding training. Maybe I'll drag Marybeth with me as my videographer for our next sheepy experience.

The last few months have flown by. Blast earned his CGC in November and will be in both sub-novice obedience and flyball classes in January. He has started boxwork and runbacks in flyball and has begun tracking. He is successfully working his way through tracks with the wind as well as against the wind. Winter Break will hopefully allow us to track with regularity. The pictures above show Blast tracking in the early evening and resting after his first day of working tracks with crosswinds.

Tracking has become our big focus, with flyball taking second place at this point. We'll take a hiatus from obedience and replace it with baby agility. Blast has been tracking well and we entered our first tracking certification match. Whether we certify or not, we continue along the same tracking plan.Pictures above show Ringer and Blast in the snow. The university was shut down for two days due to the snow, which meant lots of play time for me!

The tracking match went well. There was quite a bit of snow cover around the clusters of plants in the fields at Middlefork Forest Preserve. Much had started to melt, so I had to do my best not to look at the snow surface during the track since so many of the melt patches looked like footprints. Blast popped up a rabbit on the second leg of the certification track but managed to settle within a minute or two and fortunately we hadn't veered sufficently for him not to be able to find the track again. The rest of the track was pretty fast. I sure was happy to see that glove! His indication was excellent.

We entered two tracking tests in March. We were first alternate in the Springfield test at the start of Spring Break and were picked fifth for the DTCCU test. That was nice since I got to spend the beautiful Spring Break tracking and visiting colleges. The tracking was pretty moist though it was warm throughout the week. Blast ran a nice track. The track and a description of the event can be found at http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/~stone2/BlastTD.html .

We've been dabbling in conformation and have been enjoying the CIKC class taught by Robin Haggard. On Saturday, June 10, 2007 Blast and I attended Bill Berhow's beginning herding dog clinic in Metamora, IL. This was Blast's third exposure to sheep. Unlike the prior opportunities, I was the one doing the handling - if you call what I did handling! Based on past observations of Blast, Bill suggested that I work Blast without a lead or long line because of his tractability and potential quick response to down while working sheep. I wasn't at all confident of that, but again I learned that Bill is pretty much always right. It was an astounding experience. Blast was quick and sheep-focused. At 17 months, unlike our earlier exposures, Blast's stays, downs while I moved relative to him and sheep, and willingness to detach from the sheep and leave the ring with me (that'll do - remember that from Babe?) were superb. More detail and more pictures can be found at http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/~stone2/berhow_clinic.html .

Dock diving has also become an area of passion. I try to get Ringer and Blast out at least three times a week.

It's been a nice summer of playing with the dogs. Our big form of play has been dockdiving this summer. Blast now has a solid stay on the dock for the lead out. My job is to make it as much fun as possible. More pictures at http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/~stone2/dockdiving.html . We entered our first dock dog competition in August, 2007. Blast was initially tentative but became more confident with each try. We took more warm up jumps than most of the other people, which gave us nice early jumps. Blast was the first of the first wave dogs (and the only non-lab) to be jumping much distance, which was great in terms of crowd enthusiasm and support. He jumped 12'?" on his best jump of the first wave. More detail can be found at http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/~stone2/Dockdiving_OsageBeach2007.html .

The start of the school year marked the end of regular dockdiving, though we have managed to get out a few times since the start of the school year. CERF results look great. Agility is now becoming part of our lives. We've started Agility 1 and are immensely enjoying every aspect of the class. Blast has picked up very quickly and is VERY enthusiastic about everything agility-related. Contacts are pretty nice and he is quite comfortable doing the teeter and A frame at full height. He's enthusiastic and reliable on the full height dogwalk, but I'm more comfortable keeping it low for the time being.

I've tired semi-successfully to get us out tracking at least once a week. Today we ran a 5 hour, 45 minute old track, missing article #2, though Blast indicated the other five with a down, a paw touch and look back, or a toss of the object over his head (tennis ball!). Changes of cover, roads, ravines, paths, and little streams haven't caused any difficulties for us up to this point. If we can get the cross-track thing down, which we haven't begun yet, and get a little more experience under our collective belts we may be looking toward TDX tests late this fall. Still lots to learn though! Tracking and agility will be our major area of play focus for the next few months.

My best set plans regarding tracking have unraveled in their entirety this fall with our recent focus on college trips, college applications, and my coaching of eight different science teams. Because I am not in charge of schedule, Blast's tracks have been extraordinarily variable in length of time between tracklaying and running. Some of my early evening tracks end up being run the next day, which seems to be just fine with Blast. We have some nice TDX pieces at this point, but we need more experience running TDX-style tracks and we need to become more solid on crosstracks. Thanks to Cathy Greenfield for guruing me in the fine art of TDXmanship last weekend.

Agility is going well, I think. Like Ringer at that age, Blast does get overstimulated in some situations, though its really predictabe and easily avoidable. Weaves, tunnels and teeter are his favorites. Thanks to Heather Bradham and Deb Sauberli for instructing us this session!

The video below shows a few mini-exercises I set up Thanksgiving morning at the club. I'm finding video really useful. I need to give better signals and need to throw the toy further ahead of Blast as he completes the weaves. The video is pretty choppy relative to past videos. iMovie doesn't allow transitions and subtitles in combination if clips are less than 8 seconds in length, so I decided to go with the subtitles and drop the transitions.