Facing Dare's Fears

  I had a  couple of lessons to give today  which worked in my favor.  I was able to work Dare with some other people in the arena with us.  He really hates that apparently.  I  had Donna set out the ducks in the ring and lift it on his outrun. He was brilliant.  Hmmm so I sent him again and again he was perfect. I screwed up and forgot to tell Donna to lift but when I did he had overflanked so he came back and picked up the ducks and brought them to me.  I quit then and decided to do it again later.
       We worked Donna and Bob's dogs and then I worked Dually.  Ducks are our nemesis.  He just loves to dive in on them and often bites ---Hard--- He was pretty good. Not great.  We worked on the fenceline on the drive and holding the ducks on the fence but using our flanks to make the corners and then immediately flanking back out to hold the line again.  He was better going one direction than the other. He took his short away flank much better than his short bye.   He didn't seem to take his short bye at all, but I had a line on him and made him take it.  Then I did a little balance work with him. He fetches ducks beautifully. Keeps them on a line and straight to me.  It was nice.
        I had Donna and Bob hold the ducks between them with their body pressure and Dare couldn't to the outrun. He left my side , but stopped halfway and came back.  Too much pressure apparently.   I sent him again and urged him on and he went but he ended up circling in between me and the ducks and not using his brain, much like I saw him do at the trials in Fla.  I let him get the ducks without my interferring.  He had pushed them back to the fence and so he had to work hard to get them off but he did it.  I sent him a 3rd time and he was better, but I had to help him lift the ducks by stopping him and walking him up.  If I had left him alone he would have split them and made another mess.  After that I decided to just do balance work around Donna and Bob and he had a hard time with it.  We worked thru it and it's something I definitely want to do much  more of.