Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!

Oh my goodness, I haven't blogged for 83 days!  Back on October 11th, 2013 Athena confessed about how busy I've been with work and therefore the blog dropped to the bottom of the agenda.  But, I knew that I needed to get back on here (I'm not making any promises that you'll see me anytime soon after this post) to reflect on the year 2013 and set some goals for 2014.

Christmas 2013

Last year around this time B and I set some goals for Athena to accomplish during 2013.  Here's how things went:

Training:

1. Canine Good Citizen- We plan to have Athena CGC tested around her second birthday in July 2013. WOO!  Athena earned her CGC title on August 10th, 2013!  Check it out here.

1. Obedience- Along with earning her CGC, Athena has some training commands that still need some improvement including drop it, take it, hold, and settle.  Athena is a professional at the "drop it" command now thanks to flyball.  Instead of "take it," Athena learned a solid "tug" and we're still working on "hold" and "settle" =)
2. Reactivity- Athena has some reactivity issues around strange noises, new people (sometimes), skateboards, people wearing funny hats, etc.  We plan to train Athena to be less sensitive in these situations.  In 2013 Athena definitely improved with some of her reactivity.  She is still nervous around certain new people, but she has overcome her reactivity to skateboards which was quite the feat!
3. Jogging- It is our goal that Athena will learn to jog/run with us as a way for us to keep with our exercise goals for the year.  Currently Athena thinks that it's time to sprint whenever we attempt to jog...  Athena is now an awesome jogging buddy and has learned how to run at the same pace as her humans.  She even ran with me in two 5K races this year seen here and here.

1. New Tricks- We would love for Athena to learn some new tricks this year including putting away her toys, roll over, and being a beer maid (B insisted that I include this one because he would like for Athena to deliver him beers...yeeeaaahhhh right).  We attempted to teach Athena how to put away her own toys on multiple occasions, but she just wasn't that into it.  We did however teach her to roll over.  And to B's dismay, Athena did not learn how to deliver him a beer.

Dog Sports:

1. Intro to Flyball Class- We have decided that we will take a break from obedience classes and jump into the world of dog sports.  Although we don't plan to compete with Athena in flyball, we think that taking a class will be a great confidence builder for her and will help her to practice staying calm in the presence of other dogs.  It's funny to think that one year ago we were just getting ready to take our first flyball class and we didn't think we'd ever compete with Athena in the sport.  Well, here we are now almost a year later and Athena has joined a flyball club and has competed in multiple tournaments this year.  She loves flyball so much and I'm SO glad that we found our team.  It's just what Athena and I both needed.  Check out some of our posts about flyball here, here, and here.

1. Rally & Agility- I would love for Athena to also give rally and agility a go sometime during 2013!  Although we haven't officially tried rally and agility to its full extent, Athena did try out both of these dog sports as well as weight pull, nosework, freestyle, and lure coursing in 2013.  Read about it here, here, and here.

As we move into 2014 I have only a couple of goals for Athena which include:

1. Loving- I want Athena to continue doing the things that she absolutely loves which include flyball, trips to the park, long naps in her human's bed, eating, and snuggling.  I'm sure we'll have no problem accomplishing this goal =)
2. Learning- I don't want to set a number of skills or tricks that I'd like Athena to learn in the coming year, but I do want to make it a goal that she actually continues to learn despite her parent's busy lives.  We recently started working on "paw" which Athena is loving and I have my clicker all ready to begin teaching an actual "hold" command.  I also REALLY want to officially take an intro to agility class this year.

Photo via Bobbie Lyons of Pawsitive Performance

With that we wish you a very happy new year!  What are your goals for 2014?