FCI Training

One of the things I had been looking forward to (and obviously hoped Kiah was fighting fit for) was the FCI training to be held with Nancy last weekend. I really enjoy the way that Nancy trains people, as she is just so constructive and positive with her comments, puts so much of her own personal time in to helping us out which I really appreciate, and every time we are finished I really feel that we have been tested, yet learned so much. The training was centred around full FCI courses and then breaking them down into smaller parts to practice and improve on certain bits where we had made errors or made things more difficult than needed.

Kiah worked great in the full courses, getting me out of trouble more than a fair few times, and not getting eliminated in two out of the three rounds, but there were also lots of things to improve on which was the best bit about the training, these were able to be identified so we can get better at them. Things like weave entries, early cueing of equipment, tunnels under the dog walk, layering, body language, all sorts to take away. One of the most simple things I think a lot of people can take on board, is to never give up and this training session really helped me to believe that even more. There are three more FCI training sessions with Nancy that will follow on from this one; there's one coming up very soon and a couple more in the new year too, we can't wait!!

So on to this weekend, we were at training this afternoon - fortunately it was indoors as the gales, storms, rain and hail were a little extreme - but Kiah was just awesome!! There were a lot of fast straight line exercises at different spacings so she really had to think about it and was just perfect, as well as doing full recall weaves!! Another change that I am starting to try and re-teach (myself not her) in our training is that I want her to start going on from contacts without me - as unfortunately up til now I have always got her to do her nose touches then release when I am up level with her. This just wastes so much time as I'm always miles behind so though I still want her nose touch and stop 2 on 2 off, I want her to be able to go on too, its going to be really fun to train, as its me not Kiah that needs to improve and change my timings.

We have another busy and full day planned out tomorrow as we are taking a trip up to London along with Rusty and Tia, to take part in the Discover Dogs exhibition - for the Malinois breed stand. All three of them love the attention from the visitors there, and its great to be able to tell the public about this awesome breed too. There may even be a little smidgeon of time to do a bit of Christmas shopping too!