furtech | Canine Freestyle seminar (Reply)

One of the reasons for my trip to San Jose the other week (and part of the reason I missed MFF) was to attend a seminar on Canine Freestyle taught by the amazing Mary Ray. Here's a link to one of her routines: she's incredible! You can't tell from the video, but this entire routine was done off-leash. I especially want

iisaw to watch this! Tay is half-way there already!

Freestyle hasn't caught on in this half of the country. I was thrilled to hear that Mary was coming out here to teach a four day hands-on seminar! The sessions were fun : dogs and people everywhere. One of the nice things about Freestyle is that the people and dogs involved are friendly and a lot more relaxed than those in, say, agility (who are very high-strung-- their dogs, too!).

Rondo was an agent of entropy: he saw this as one big play-session with boring chunks in-between. At one point during a training session, Rondo started a chase-circle where several dogs were more than happy to join in. This earned both of us a stern correction from Ms. Ray (ergh!).

There was a *beautiful* rough collie there! He was a spectacular performer, too. I can't wait to see him in competition! Though this collie was a tall animal, he would slink and twist under his owner's legs when they did the walking weave! This was like watching a spirit performing because he seemed to float through the moves.

The star-collie did share one notable collie trait: he was very food oriented! At one point he maneuvered close to the communal treat-station (for the trainers to use):

foodoriented