Goals!

If you don't write down your goals, or tell anyone of them, are they really goals? We once had a student who said they had a goal to earn a big title by a certain time, but never told anyone about it until after they finally got that title. It seems to me that to be accountable first to yourself, you have to write down your goals, and then if you let others know about them, even if it's just a select few others, then you may get some assistance and motivation in achieving them.

At FAAD, we submit goals to Katrina in January each year. Since we have to write them down, come the next January, you can measure how you did. With Skye, I can go back a couple years and find we had issues that we still sometimes see still!

So, with that said, I am going to post my goals for Skye and Rip for this coming year. Maybe it makes them more real this way...

For Skye:

Short-term goals:

1. Continue practicing with toys and not food, keeping Skye very motivated during practice sessions..
2. Work on various distance skills, like turns from a tunnel and better push outs.
3. Keep working on the startline in practice – this has been paying off as he’s been much better during competition..
4. Need to proof frontcrossing the AFrame – these tend to push him off the side. Get him to keep driving down even if I am in front of the frame.
5. Work on being able to really peel off the weaves without causing popouts.

Long-term goals:

1. In 2011, I would like to earn Skye’s USDAA PDCH-Bronze. This will take getting 9 more Pairs Qs, 7 Gamble Qs, 3 Jumpers Qs, and 6 Standard Qs. This will not be an easy task.
2. Qualify for USDAA Nationals and attend the event in October in Kentucky.
3. Qualify for AKC Nationals for 2012, as we have done the last 2 years.
4. Earn at least two more placements in AKC. We managed to get a 2nd and 3rd in 2010, so I would like to meet and improve on that. This can be challenging as we never compete against less than 25 dogs. More typically, its 50 - 75 dogs in the 20" class.

For Rip:


Short-term goals:

1. More practicing on the contact retraining. Continue to use the target to get him driving into position – don’t try to fade it so fast in practice.
2. Keep working his bar issues by varying jumpheights, including lots of crossing on jumpers type courses, doing figure-8 jumps, and other jumping exercises.
3. Continue to push for more speed in the weaves. Periodically open the channels to get him moving faster and faster. Once a month, film the weave performance and time it to measure any improvements.
4. Be more consistent with practice outside of classtime. I’d like to practice at least 2 times a week outside of class, and would prefer 3 or 4 times a week.
5. Enforce contact performance in competition – at the very least, mark an intentionally jumped contact with a down.

Long-term goals:

1. For AKC, I would like to earn Rip’s first Double Q, which will require us to get out of Open Standard, and Exc. A Jumpers.
2. Qualify for USDAA Nationals and attend the event in October in Kentucky. We are already qualified in Team, and have 1 Q in Steeplechase.
3. Improve our speed enough to be within 2 or 3 seconds of 1st place in a big AKC or USDAA competition.
4. Advance to the Masters level in USDAA and earn Rip’s MAD. We need 3 Adv. Standard Qs to get to Masters in everything, and then will need 3 Master Standard Qs and 1 Q in each of the games (we already have Pairs and Gamblers)