# Training goals for the new year



## Shep (May 16, 2013)

One of my goals is to train more often (damn weather!) and in more new places. If I can do that, I think I can have Scot ready for Beginner Novice obedience at our local trials in March. And hopefully Novice B in the fall or even earlier. I have had to cut back on trialing with my older dogs in the last year, for financial and (dog) health reasons, and I really miss it. But I'm also paranoid about showing any dog before he's ready (I've done that before), so if my young guy isn't ready, we'll wait. That's another of my goals -- to read my dogs better.


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## Tashapaws (Nov 13, 2013)

I would like to start training Natasha in Agility, something that is going to be possible soon, hopefully even this month.


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## Kyllobernese (Feb 5, 2008)

One of my goals is to start Kris in the Foundation Agility Classes. Whether I ever compete with her will depend on my soundness. May try a few more times to get Remmy's elusive last two Advanced Snooker classes so I can retire him with all his Advanced degrees but will depend on his health.

May try for some Rally Competition with Kris.


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## agility collie mom (Jan 26, 2008)

Goals for Rio C-ATCH and retire him from agility. Try nosework with him. Savannah is herd instinct test, finish Level 3 and possibly Level 4. Squeak and Hercules to just have fun. Possibly a tricks class with one or more dog. We will see what happens after my husband's sx this year.


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## BlackHaus (Nov 11, 2013)

I have a lot of goals lined up, thankfully we have the whole year to work on them! 

Odin and I should be finishing up the last leg of his RN this Sunday, and then my goal for the rest of the winter is to get his RA completed and then look into working on the CD.

Springtime we will finally get the schutzhund/IPO BH out of the way, and depending on how his back is doing (he injured it in October) I'd like to go for the endurance title (AD) and the French ring brevet. If he continues to have back issues I'll retire him from sport and maybe look into herding for a "job" to keep him busy. 

Shade will most likely continue to enjoy being an active companion with attitude.

For "new pup" born 12/28/13, lots of good socialization, hopefully a good foundation for sport work, and lots of fun being a puppy.  


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## quatro (Aug 14, 2013)

Our goals,
1. Several more IPO3 titles for older dog
2. BH, IPO1 and IPO2 for the younger dog


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## littlesoprano (Sep 21, 2013)

Our goals:
1. I really want to get Cosmo involved in Obedience as it seems like something he would thrive in. He really loves to not only learn, but he will respond to commands pretty much instantly. He is so intelligent, and I feel like it would be a good thing for both of us to get involved in. 
2. By the end of the year Cosmo will be 1-1/2 years old, and I think it might be a good time to start the basics of ability (obedience type stuff and getting him used to the atmosphere as well).


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## RabbleFox (Jan 23, 2013)

Get CGC Title on Merlin
Get Novice Obedience Title on Merlin
Start agility with Merlin

Finish kicksled and restart running/sledding with my aunt's lab


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

I'm definitely getting my dogs into the ring this year. I registered them a year ago to be able to trial them, but then felt like they weren't ring ready and kept putting it off, and a year later here we are. I kept thinking they need to be perfect before we even try trialling, but I have since realised you can't wait for things to be perfect or you will fall behind and never get anywhere. We now aim for "roughly right", and I will get them into the rally ring when the weather cools down a bit, and I'd like to trial in agility too, but that will be later in the year.

As far as actual training goes, I'm pretty happy with it, but we could stand to go back to basics a bit more often and work on the foundation.


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

I would really love to start trialing in Rally this year, but I'm not sure how likely that is. At this point I'm just going with the flow and Watson's maturity level and trying not to put a timeline on anything. He's at the point where he can do the individual signs, but doesn't have the focus to make it through a course.

We will continue to attend agility classes and work on foundations (we're in advanced beginners now) but with no goal to trial any time specifically.

Keep doing nosework. We're going to try for our ORT this Sunday and then a trial in April near my house. This is one sport he excels at.

Finish his championship. I don't really love training for the conformation ring, but I need to focus on it a little bit more so that he is more well behaved in the ring and shows better.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

I'm not sure it counts for this thread but I'm pretty pumped for this year... (training for me, not a dog)

I'm going to be getting certified for pet first aid in March. Also the volunteer trainer at the shelter I work with has mentioned about doing some beginner obedience training for us so I'm very excited about participating in that if it's available!

Looking forward to attending the Animal Wellness Conference this year in May (I didn't go last year and totally regretted it).

But my big goal this year is to get a job working with dogs/animals once my bf graduates in the spring and starts working full time. The place I really want to work at was hiring recently and it KILLED ME that I wasn't able to apply just yet. (would mean taking a pay cut and we can't afford for me to do that right now) Ideally I still want to work there so that's the goal for this summer.

(Also if circumstances permit we MAY be in a position to get a dog later this year but nothing is set in stone and I'm not getting my hopes up but MAYBE pending financial situation and living circumstances)


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## BernerMax (Mar 15, 2013)

Just getting it so I can safely walk the 2 grown dogs by myself (thats 210lbs of dog, one is shy and will bark when scared but he is so big its scary to the other party) and work on puppy (85 lbs at 7 months) jumping up-- he is a real hazard as he goes up and licks your face, as well as his leash walking-- I have a date with my neighbor starting next week to spend the 3 weeks getting these goals going....


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## Laurelin (Nov 2, 2006)

Well I just signed up for two more classes which officially puts me at the 'insane' level of things. And 3 of the 5 classes I'm now in are on the same day. lmao

Honestly, I just want to have fun and enjoy my dogs. I'd like to trial Summer some but don't want to put any real pressure on us. Mostly I'm just happy that my 9 1/2 year old dog is still sound and energetic enough to run agility like a madwoman with me every week. If we never title, we never title. No biggie. I secretly would like to finish her USDAA jumpers and gamblers titles, start doing AKC and/or TDAA. We'll see. Right now there's no pressure. Probably won't trial Mia for a while but will get her to as many fun runs as possible to try to overcome her fear. If we can't then we'll just have fun in class since she loves class.

I'd like to get our ORT and NW1 with both girls (especially Mia) but there's not any opportunity here. They're ready but I'm just not going to travel 11+ hours to trial in nosework. Some of my other classmates are going to an ORT soon but it's just too far and too expensive for just a nosework trial. :/ We tried one barn hunt in 2013 and might try another. I was going to enter the workshop this month but I think I just blew well past my 'dog training' budget signing up for two more saturday classes. 

My nosework instructor and I had briefly discussed doing some rally stuff (I need help and there's no classes here). But that may wait until after this round of stuff.

As far as tricks, right now we're working on perching on random objects. Always a useful skill. They're too small to do a footstall or anything like that. May try for a knee stall eventually? Not as cool but they're tiny. 

So yeah.... who knows! We'll have fun!


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## DJEtzel (Dec 28, 2009)

I really don't know! XD

Recon should be through a few levels of Agility and started in AKC out of novice and into open, IF I decide to compete in AKC with him for agility. I'd like to get his first lure coursing title and a dock diving title, or two.

Would like to get Frag's second lure coursing title (excellent) if I have him long enough and maybe trial once in rally.

No goals for Sir except to work on settling in the house better. 

Patton will be up in the air. He's too young to tell what we're really going to try and excel at.


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## kadylady (Sep 23, 2010)

Luke: Continue in Rally, he just received his Rally Novice title, it would be nice to finish Advanced and be in Excellent, just depends on how many trials we can get to. Maybe look into the Obedience world?? That one may be a little ambitious lol I would like to try and continue nosework with him as he seemed to enjoy it, don't know whether or not we will compete at this point. I would also like to take him to dock diving and possibly lure coursing, just to see how he likes it.

Zoey: Continue competing in CPE agility and I would like to enter AKC Novice agility this year, which means really working on our weaves. I also want to at least decrease her fear of being measured. Would like to enter her in a rally trial and work towards her RN. I took her to one dock diving last year but we didn't make it to the dock, I really think she would love once she figured it out so that's a goal this year, also trying lure coursing with her as well.


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## kadylady (Sep 23, 2010)

Bumping...How did everyone do on their goals for the year?!



kadylady said:


> Luke: Continue in Rally, he just received his Rally Novice title, it would be nice to finish Advanced and be in Excellent, just depends on how many trials we can get to. Maybe look into the Obedience world?? That one may be a little ambitious lol I would like to try and continue nosework with him as he seemed to enjoy it, don't know whether or not we will compete at this point. I would also like to take him to dock diving and possibly lure coursing, just to see how he likes it.


Luke finished his Rally Excellent title the first weekend of December and also qualified for the AKC Rally Nationals in the advanced level! We have been training towards Obedience next. Didn't get to any dock diving or lure coursing this year and we just play around with nose work every now and then, usually when the weather is bad, it was our saving grace last winter. 



kadylady said:


> Zoey: Continue competing in CPE agility and I would like to enter AKC Novice agility this year, which means really working on our weaves. I also want to at least decrease her fear of being measured. Would like to enter her in a rally trial and work towards her RN. I took her to one dock diving last year but we didn't make it to the dock, I really think she would love once she figured it out so that's a goal this year, also trying lure coursing with her as well.


Zoey has almost finished Level 2 in CPE (1 Q away) and has finished both Novice Standard and Novice JWW in AKC (and 1 Open Q in each)! She also has her Rally Advanced title. Again, no dock diving or lure coursing, agility kind of consumed us instead  

Both dogs and I had a fabulous year!


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## elrohwen (Nov 10, 2011)

Glad you brought back this thread!



elrohwen said:


> I would really love to start trialing in Rally this year, but I'm not sure how likely that is. At this point I'm just going with the flow and Watson's maturity level and trying not to put a timeline on anything. He's at the point where he can do the individual signs, but doesn't have the focus to make it through a course.


Still no trialing in Rally, but I think we're much much closer. His heeling has come a long way since last year, and while we're still working on getting through courses with focus and reducing reinforcement, I think we're going to get into the ring in April.



> We will continue to attend agility classes and work on foundations (we're in advanced beginners now) but with no goal to trial any time specifically.


We had to quit agility in May when my job situation changed. Watson had some issues with various things (jumps, teeters, and disctraction mostly) and I think we made some progress there on our own. I'd like to start over with a new beginner class this spring and just play around.



> Keep doing nosework. We're going to try for our ORT this Sunday and then a trial in April near my house. This is one sport he excels at.


We tried for NW1 title twice this year and failed both. I'm a bit bummed about this one. He loves nosework, but he just doesn't have the stamina to work through an 8 hour trial day. In both trials he fell apart right at the end. The trials are expensive and exhausting (and really boring), so I'm not sure when we will try again. 



> Finish his championship. I don't really love training for the conformation ring, but I need to focus on it a little bit more so that he is more well behaved in the ring and shows better.


I did finish his championship in May and I'm very proud of it! He's still not a highly trained conformation dog by any means, but he's happy and confident in the ring and shows well. We haven't shown since he finished, because of work, but I'd like to attend Nationals in April for his first time in the BOB ring.


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