Somebody call 911...

... because I might actually die of sheer awesomeness. :D

As you know, Dianne let me work Moss myself at our lesson today. He was beyond great. Man, I can't tell you how much fun it was to actually get in there with him and try him out. I'm so proud of my boy! I think that his only major issue will be dealing with ME and my short bus tendencies.



I put him in a few situations/ "oh shit!" moments (got too far away from the sheep or some other stupid thing) that I thought would end badly, but I guess I really didn't need to worry because he picked up my slack pretty well. I'm pretty blown away. It's one thing to watch someone else work your puppy, it's a whole 'nother thing to be in there with him. We circled a little bit and them did some fetching in the big arena. He pushed on me a little bit but I think I did an all right job of backing him off. Probably not enough, though. Oh well, something to work on, right? He was rating himself really nicely, and Dianne says he's a natural outrunner.



I know it's pretty "small potatoes" stuff, but to a newb like me, it was really fun. Moss is so relaxing to work because he's so natural and doesn't seem to have the tendency to get pushy, fast, or slicey like Cedar does. With him I was able to actually enjoy myself a bit.



I know I will get to that point with Cedar eventually, but right now it just seems like we are playing catch up a bit. Mainly, I'm having to re-teach her that she actually CAN do stuff without me babysitting or setting things up for her like I have in the past. I think we got some good stuff done today.



I really had to get after her hard for shutting down and running off today (grr, she hasn't done that in awhile!), but when we came back, it was like a lightbulb had turned on for her and, after some maneuvering, was able to get her to do what I asked. It doesn't seem like she has much faith tin her ability to do the harder stuff I'm asking.



Thinking about it a little more, it seems like now that I know enough to have raised the bar for our work together, Cedar really doesn't know what to do or how to react because I haven't expected her to be so precise in the past. I guess all I can do is just keep working with her (Dianne isn't letting me quit with Cedar after Moss gets going more... dang! hehe) and doing our best.

I do think our partnership is getting more towards the place that it should be, now that I'm being more proactive. Her driving was, I thought, pretty excellent today and she is getting more comfortable with being further away from me. This is kind of a big deal for her since she tends to seek out my bubble as a security thing. Maybe there's hope for us yet!