Our Day at the Geelong Fun Day

We, like you, are going through some very cold weather at this time and have had some good rains so far but hope for a lot more. Not for our training ground as it is muddy enough but to fill reservoirs, dams and our Lake Wendouree.

We have had a broken training regime this month due to club events and tracking however the good news is we have four new members attending the branch this Sunday to train and we welcome each and every one of them and hope they enjoy training their dogs and learning about the GSD.

Our Tracking Group have been out again in Victoria Park & have had good attendances even though it has been cold so early in the morning. All dogs are progressing well & we all take an interest in how each others' dog tracks sometimes following behind or watching from a vantage point. Hopefully we will all be ready to enter.

Some of our members attended the June Tracking Trial at Haddon & had a great time either laying tracks or helping out with catering both days. Never realised this discipline could be so much fun.

Obedience training is going well - we had our first member do well at the Geelong Funday. We will all be at branch to congratulate him on our next training day.

Lifestyle training is going well too - dogs & handlers meet & greet then we take our dogs through a group of members, who do not have dogs, who mill & move around , we also have a wheel chair that we put someone in  & we take it out  & walk past the dogs whilst they are in a sit & there are many other ideas that will be put into practice in the future, that it is hoped will make our dogs better socialised & accepting of many things that happen in our community daily.

When the weather is not conducive to training we  are going to introduce watching a video  - it is not the dogs that mind the training but the handlers seem to have a problem with getting wet  & nice, muddy dogs jumping up on them.
Cannot see the problem myself as I help out in other areas and do not wear good clothes!

Far too wet at the moment for agility training, too slippery.
During winter soccer matches & dog training do not go well together, so unless the ground dries out a lot, we will have to forego this training due to safetly of handlers & dogs.

We have a couple of members looking at tracking training areas for us & once organised we will utilise these areas and report back how our training went.

We wish Buddy & Kane speedy recoveries  from their recent 'snip & tucks' & hope to see them back at training quickly.
Whilst on the subject of speedy recoveries,  we wish our youngest member Noah Outten improves very quickly from a bout of bronchitis and we are all very glad he is home from his stay in hospital.

Until next time

"Ballarat's Roving Reporter"