New Year

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years Eve. We sure did. I’m so tired of snow right now, it’s pouring down outside. I plan on going by train to Gothenburg tomorrow for this year’s first agility trial, but who knows if we’ll get there in this weather. We thought last winter was extreme, with snow from December to the beginning of April. This year we got snow already in November. And December has been really cold. There are more and more indoor arenas built for dog sports in Sweden, which is wonderful. Being able to train in a heated facility with nice footing is not something we are used to here. For us, it’s a 40 minute drive to the closest one and it’s not cheap, but it’s worth it!

This year, I’m trying to get even more structure to my dog training. I have always found goals based on results hard to focus on, so this year I have a long list of skills that I want my dogs to master by the end of the year. Trying to figure out what you want to teach your dog in a year is not easy, but probably better than just training without knowing where you’re going. Working with these goals also require breaking them down into smaller goals and keeping track of progress often. I have decided to write down goals for one month at a time, and then combining that with a plan for each week and each day. Does it sound complicated? I guess it is, but training three dogs in at least three different sports takes time. I need to make sure that every training session is taking me closer to my goals. I believe that good planning and god evaluation is the key to good, efficient training. I’m excited to see how this works out and I’ll let you know.