Spring!

Friday night mom and I drove down to Saint John, and visited with my mom's friend, then we were up and at 'er bright and early on Saturday for the Jess Martin seminar, for Mach and I. It was really great! I wore my in-between-winter-and-spring pants for the first time instead of my snow pants! We focused a lot on threadles, which I am so thankful for, because I really need to work on those!! Let's just say I'm not much of a fan of threadles and I neglected to actually teach them to Mach. So we struggled a little with that, but otherwise, he was a rockstar!

So things to work on from the seminar:

- THREADLES
- Straight line/varying distance jump grid (he's still struggling with striding and judging the distances between jumps)
- Tighter turns out of the tunnel (or maybe me working on calling his name sooner!)

Of course there's tons more to work on, but those are the ones that really stuck out to me during the day.

After lunch, Jess talked a bit about mental management, and even though she told us she'd never actually taken a course on any of that, a great deal of her success - and to any other successful athlete - is thanks to mental management. A point she made was that you had to be in it to win it. She said that you may win, or your may not. So what? She said that you had to go into that ring owning the place. And that whatever happens will happen. She talked about getting yourself into that space where you are focused on what you need to do to get it done and to not think about all the negatives that could happen while you're preparing to go into your run, but instead to think that you are going to go out and do it. She made a really good point, and I'm guilty of this sometimes, that most people are worrying about things that haven't even happened. They are hoping that their dog doesn't take that off course, or knock that bar, or miss that contact. I know, from experience, that if you send positive energy to your body and to your dog, excellent things will happen.

Today we woke early again and headed off to the barn.

Things to work on with Mach that weren't seminar related:

-Aframe contacts!!!
- Onside weave entry proofing
- Dogwalk contacts (of course)
- Post turns

I'm really pleased with Mach, and I don't have much to complain about with him or with Toffee or with life in general. I really am blessed with a lot of stuff. :)

Today went up to 17 degrees!! (Sadly, I was inside for most of the day:(). With the barn, then cleaning the house, then a club meeting, then homework, I was inside until 6:30!! My parents and I did, however, take all the dogs for a good long walk this evening. It was still nice out after dark!

Ahh, spring is in the air! This weeks weather forcast is looking splendid!



I finished The Order of the Phoenix last night. Sigh. I don't think I want the series to end! Two more books isn't enough! Sadly, I have to read another book for english class - but it's about "how good people turn evil". I've only been able to get through 14 pages. It's kinda disgusting and terrifying and I really don't want to read it. Oh well, such as life. I'm grateful that I only have to read it and not have to experience the things it talks about!