January 1, 2013

I bet this is the most popular day to make a blog post. What, with all the New Year's resolutions still going strong in the first few hours of the morning. I want to set a few goals for myself to work on throughout the year. Some of these are just continuations of what I already do, other will be completely new.

1. Fitness- continue with my gym habit, hopefully improve on my running, continue with yoga, make some gains in the lifting department. I tried a bulk at the end of the year, so I need to cut that weight and see what, if anything, I gained.
      1B- Dog Fitness- Oh yeah. Roadworking the dogs more needs to be top of the list. I'd really like to get a treadmill since the number of loose dogs we have around our house is ridiculous. Zen did the treadmill at Brenda's house a while back, but the last time I tried him on it he was all "ZOMG, IT'S KILLING ME!" Sp, It'd be a lot of work, training him and Rumor and Gus all to use the treadmill. Biking is SO much easier, damn those loose dogs! Also under the dog fitness category is the exercise ball work and whatnot. I want to get one of those peanut balls because I think it will be easier than the big round ball I have now. I was also thinking of building a weight pull/drag contraption and have the dogs pull small weights around in the yard. We will see.

2. Photography- My skills need help. hah. My goal is to try shooting in manual/RAW all year. This could get interesting. I feel so overwhelmed with this that I have yet to pick up my camera in the couple of weeks I made this decision.

3. Training/Trialing- I really want to set some concrete goals this year. Get a routine for our trialing, go to the ring connected and focused. This is harder than it sounds for us. Zen gets very keyed up watching dogs run. I've tried tugging with him, which at this point only his attention marginally. This is interesting to me because he is a toy NUT at home, and often at trials he is a toy nut until he sees the dog in the ring. I've tried having him lay down, which only results in him barking relentlessly (annoying to me and others). My other strategy is tricks and heeling using food. This is currently working, but my goal is to reward for that calm focused behavior in the presence of running dogs and hopefully, eventually, it will result in us being connected and focused on each other before the run.

I want to do more training at home. Motivate myself to get out there and work with the dogs. I need to improve each dog's mat behavior so I can work with all three of them in the room at the same time.

4. Hiking- DO MORE HIKING. More outdoor time is needed! :) Oh, I think I'll stop here. I have more goals, but this seems like a lot already. :)