Wow its been a long time since I have made an entry. I went to the Black Sheep Trial near Spokane, WA and although we did pretty well, except on cattle, it was not smooth or pretty. My friend took a few video's of our runs for me. What a great learning tool. But ouch. You sure see where you are messing up. At least while watching the video. Not sure I will see it from the Bird's Eye view of the trial field!

So what did I learn? I yammer, and yammer. I give commands late. My voice is tense. I am in the wrong place. And this one, I didn't learn, I already knew. I really don't help at all at the center. I am sure my poor dog is saying "just get out of the way if you aren't going to help!"

But the dear, sweet girl, forgave me every night and climbed up on my cot to snuggle in for the night. It was a fun trial with lots of great people and dogs.

We our holding our Fall Trial at my house this year. As our traditional date was so close to Nationals we figured we would have a low entry. So the only way we could afford to put the trial on was to reduce costs somewhere. Well one of the major costs was the rental of the fairgrounds where we usually hold our trial. So I figured why not have it at my place. What I didn't anticipate was how much time would go into setting it up. So it is almost finished now. Just a few details to complete. But I have not trained as I would have wished. Now I am not sure that that isn't a good thing. I had been putting a lot of pressure on Rave trying to get a stop. To much, to fast. So it is good that I was forced to back off a bit. So this weekend is our trial. And then on Thurs. I leave for Greeley and our Nationals adventure. Yikes!

Accomplishments, plans and goals

• Stop yammering. Speak softly
• Trust
• Don't worry about the trial, train for tomorrow
• Continue to work on stop, but reduce the pressure
• Don't let Nationals rattle me, have fun, keep a sense of humor