Obedience is HARD WORK!

We have our last Obedience trial of the year coming up, and I hope to finish Moto's Graduate Novice (GN) title, and Pinch's Beginner Novice (BN) title.  These are, I hope, precursers of the "real" classes we hope to enter next year.  Since Laurie's visit I've been much more committed to training, and it seems the more I train, the more holes I expose in my training. 
I do understand to have a Champion title at ANY level takes tons of work, commitment of time, and training.  I do believe (and this is just my opinion of course), that the OTCH (Obedience Trial Champion) title is one of the hardest to attain, simply for the fact you need to train EVERY day, and the level of perfection requires great technical, non-natural behavior on the dog's part. Unlike most other venues, you cannot talk to your dog, you cannot touch your dog until the exercises are over. 
I've realized I've been too chatty in my training and am now easing it out as I want my boys to be as prepared as possible for the ring environment where Mommy is silent with her praise and they still need to do what is asked of them.
And - in addition to training, there needs to be proofing.  Proofing is where you set up a situation where your dog needs to make a choice to do what you've asked or do something else, which would not be what was asked.  For example:  I took Pinch and Moto to work with me today, so they could get used to new sights and sounds outside their home environment.  For Pinch's proofing I wanted to heel him up and down in front of my work and I wanted attention.  Another big hole in my training was exposed as something as simple as a leaf blowing by could make him look away.  My bad, I should have been doing this on a regular basis ages ago. Bad trainer!
Moto really doesn't need training, he needs lots and lots of exposure to help him build his confidence.  This is going to take a really long time.  Quite honestly, I think he'll never be a confident boy, but will be able to work through his worries to get the job done.
I'm sure we will qualify and I think both of them should do reasonably well.  I'm excited as this is my first dog show road trip, complete with a hotel stay, in a very long time.
But, we certainly have our work cut out for us during the winter break.