Agility day, got there early so I could do a bit of nosework to calm Harley first.

Today we did serpentines, many front, rear and blind crosses.
We had two oups moments. One was on the first go going straight to the main door. Harley had to stop at the water machine for a drink. Second one was some odd angle going to the A fram and Harley was sure he had to take the tunnel.

He is getting much better now if he could figure out that the teether is not about making as much noise as he can leaping on it and scare the crap of every dog in the class.

 Quote: Ariane Gauthier

He is getting much better now if he could figure out that the teether is not about making as much noise as he can leaping on it and scare the crap of every dog in the class.

Hahaha...love it!
That's his "marker answer"; "Hey, BAM, I did it, and I got a treat comin'".

Sadie will sometimes make a big deal of doing a complex behavior after she's sure about it and knows she's done it right, almost like showing off.

Duane: that is so funny! I know when my dogs do something good, and I tell Jerry look at your dog how good he/she is, they kinda prance around and are all excited. Dogs crack me up!

TOday I worked on:
BIndi- heel, front, finshes, wait- walk around Bindi in sit position. Had fun with a target stick. Used it to have Bindi get up on a foot stool with 2 front feet. Reviewed her scratch cue and her push cue on a box. Down, sit while in heel position, moving down.

Cody-Pick it up, finding the heel position, pivoting on mark, turns while in heel, retrieving behaviors. Now working on Cody taking dumb bell from my hands while in the front position, and retrieving dumb bell and bringing it to me. Recall. Played a game of running in and out of his crate and to the "mark". He liked that.

Terra-heel position. (She is so hyper it is hard for her to stand in one spot.) Holding the dumb bell. Terra touching the target stick and moving her around the room with it. Wait. She has a horrible time waiting. Especially if she is sitting. Working on it. Also, worked on the mark and standing in heel positions.

I think that is it for today.
Sharon

Last night, at the club, we did our first session with a regular dumbbell.
Up until two weeks ago, she had refused every attempt we made at having her take it or retrieve it. I had the dumbbell that I made with me, and intended to transition to the heavier one after we did a few reps with mine. I dropped the regular dumbbell on the ground at my right side, put Sadie at heel, gripped the light one in my throwing hand, and told her "ready". She was escalating in drive, and before I got to the ready, she reached around me and grabbed the schutzhund dumbbell off the ground, then presented it to me with a beautiful hold.
Everyone gasped, Martha clapped, and as soon as I grasped what was happening, I threw my dumbbell well off to the side, calmed Sadie, and did about five flat retrieves, some as long as 15 meters. We then did some work on the hold and called it a successful session.

We also did quite a bit of brush-up on my inventory items, and worked different phases of our competition heeling. Throughout the night we did some long downs, but kept them easy to remove some of the stress that we've been having with that behavior.

We had not done some formal OB work in some times. Harley was great but for the front position on the come. So I reinforced the good finish by rewarding the good one with a toss of the ball.

I am also going to have a bit more time as my "horse shopping" is now over. My new mare pass her vet check today and will be home sunday. Destiny will replace Caramba who was sold at the end of september. She is a 4yo 16.2hh chestnut Hannoverian by Don Principe.

started our second week at work up the mountain . . .

so far , we've been working on the behaviours he needs to get along at the workplace , in the winter setting .

henry readily and spontaneously gets up on a snowmobile . he rides with no problem . one strange behaviour he does , that hector also did , he will put his right hand up on the handlebar but not his left . the right also happens to be the throttle side , and the kill switch . there have been some " inputs " lol .

today he started running into " place " , ( between my legs ) while moving along at a good snowplow clip on easy terrain . he will down easily above me while i am sideslipping on steeper terrain , and then recall at breakneck speed , snow flying .

he is distracted by skiers if i am not on skis , but will recall with a couple of lookbacks .

so far , his smooth coat has repelled snowballing well .

While walking back from the tracking field this a.m., we worked on switching from "heel" to "fuss" to loose-leash (released by an "ok", non-reward release), and mixing it up. Like Kory, I've been working through some focus issues in the "fuss", and this exercise was excellent for making her focus on me. She made the transitions perfectly, so she has a good understanding of what's expected in all three modes.

Today I took my Cody-man to petsmart working on fear issues with men. He did pretty well. We then went for a short walk and came home and worked on: recall, sit, down, wait, heel, touch, on, took out the box and played with it for awhile. Cody got in and then out, touched the box with his paw, then two paws and then we stopped for the day.
Bindi- went on walk this morning, heel, and socialization. She has some friends at Petsmart that clip her nails, she visited them. Have massive head ache tonight so resting, won't be doing anything with Bindi to night. Taking the opportunity to study rally signs and look for handler training articles. TOmorrow Bindi goes to school. It will soon be her last days at the pet obedience trainer. I will probably replace her with Terra at the school, we will see how she does when she is evaluated. Probably a level 2 class. Basic skills known, not solid.

Well, keep up the good work with your dogs everyone! sharon

I had a great day, had a request to go and help a couple with their 18 month old Rottie, she hadn't been able to walk him since he got big as he would drag her down the street and was very pushy, jumpy and mouthy. I was there for about 2 hours in which she was walking him down the street quietly at her side, and his mouthiness and jumping had settled. Left them with some homework for the week and will be going back next Sunday to follow up. I miss working with these breeds so much!!

Well I was suppose to go to the agility center after my new horse arrived. New horse got here kind of late, so arena ob work it was.

I got the best ever focus heel, after the second reward someone got a bit too excited and was bouncing up to my shoulder more then any thing else.

Something was off with our fetch. He keep brining the ball back to the mounting block then to me. We often play fetch from the mounting block when I teach but he normally bring the ball to me other wise.

Position change were good, still can't ask for a stand from too far or he walks back to me. 4' is ok for now. Sit and down can be done from over 60'