Today, I attended a day long handling seminar with Gemma. It was basic but I still learned quite a bit! The mystique around accumulating points was clearly explained (and understood!) and I took away some very good tenets: I'm always an ambassador for the Collie so I should know/understand the breed standard to be able to explain why this breed is so great and, when I'm in the ring, I'm a salesman for my dog. Which means, for me, to be more confident and assertive, especially when dogs are lined up for the judge's final look.
Gemma didn't embarrass me with her ring behavior--actually, she was great--but I made a couple of silly mistakes. That was another lesson from today--practice visually everyday how I will present a dog in the ring, because, when I'm physically in the ring, my mind can go blank (how well I know that feeling!) and then my body will just do what it needs to do to present the dog to its best to the judge.
I've been working with the dogs the last few weeks, concentrating on the little things, not sweating about some less common things and Gemma has responded the fastest. She's turning into a show dog before my eyes! We think we want to take a break from showing until the fall while I concentrate on training the dogs (and myself) but with Gemma's newfound talents, I'm not so sure...
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