This past weekend, Phenom and I got to have a private lesson with THE Tori Self of THE Miss Rev. Phenom is just 10 months old and she hasn’t done much with jumping or equipment, so Tori and I spent a lot of the lesson sitting on the field talking through stuff Phenom and I should be working on. Even though it was probably boring for Tori to not set up sequences, she was great about it and patient with us. It was just what we needed. Lots of great info. We also practiced our circle work and got some pointers on that as well. Phenom did great. I was super proud of her. And she LOVED Tori – of course! We had a blast.

Then on Saturday and Sunday we audited Tori’s International / Masters seminar at DogLogic. Wow – it was so fun to watch those amazing dogs and handlers tackle the international courses. It was also really neat to see the different styles of handling with each person on the same course. It felt sort of – creative. Free.

I remember when I got the chance to learn from the legendary Bob Bailey – he would never demo anything. He said he didn’t want to cloud your mind, because maybe you’d think of a better way to do it than he would. Sometimes that’s frustrating when you’re learning because it’s easier to follow a set pattern or example. But then you’ll only ever be as good as that example. What if you want to be better? Maybe if you want to stand out. That’s exactly what you have to do. Stand out. Find your own way. Push further. Anyway – just some things I’m thinking about lately.

Phenom and I also played some along the sidelines while the others were running, and she had fun with that as well. She kind of looked at me like – just what sort of fun do you have planned for us? It was a great weekend.

Then, this week Phenom worked on some homework Tori gave us. My ninja in training. So much fun.

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