Wed., June 22, 2011 - Hardee's first water practice of 2011

After last Thursday's first swim of the season for Hardee in the pool, I got the courage to take Hardee to water practice in So. Cal.  The dirty lake water scares me, but Hardee is on antibiotics currently so I'm hoping the antibiotics were protecting him.  A friend and her dog drove the 5 hours down with Hardee and I, so the 300 mile drive seemed to go much quicker than normal.  This water practice was 2 days in a row, so worth the drive down.  Plus, we spent the night so I didn't even have to drive another 300 miles back home in the same day.

Hardee was so excited to be at the lake again, and he really wanted to work.  I was surprised by how much he remembered from last summer, and by how quickly he settled into doing his tasks.  Hardee missed quite a bit of water practice last summer because of his cancer diagnosis and radiation.  Hardee loves the lake, and where he really gets excited is working from the back of the boat.  His excited barking in my ear gets annoying very fast, but at the same time, it brings me such joy to see him so happy and so excited to work.

Practice went well both days.  Most of both days we worked just from swimming depth and not from the back of the boat.  Hardee is working on the courier level for water work.  He knows his buoy ball go out, but I need to work on his drop it command so he is quicker dropping the buoy ball in position.  I did notice that I need to start working him from both directions instead of sending him out the same way each time.

There is another practice this Saturday but because of an agility trial, we will probably only make it for about an hour of practice.  An hour is better than nothing though.

We here it is Friday, July 8th now.  I've been very slack about keeping up with the blog lately.  There have been some things going on with Hardee that I'll write about later.  It is still all about joy and all about Hardee.