Morning Training

I got a training session in with all four dogs this morning.

Speedy kicked it off.  We did heeling through the house, on both sides, as warm up.  Then we worked some moves that I might use with him in a routine that I have an idea for.  I'm not sure if this is going to happen, but Speedy doesn't care - he always enjoys working on stuff!!

We did this one move where he started in left heel, and crossed in front of me to nose target my right hand, which was stretched out away from me to the side.  Then he crossed behind me to meet my left hand, followed by circles around me as I pivot in the opposite direction.  I'm not sure how it looks, but we had fun working on it.

Then we worked a little on our distance behaviors for Expert tricks.  He is working on a sit from a down and a down from a sit, all 12 feet away from me.  We tried down from a sit, but he wasn't going all the way down.  I think that might be too stimulating for him because of the distance.  We also did spins and twirls 12 feet away, and I tried having him send to a target laterally.  I mean that he was sitting at a distance from me, and the target was at the same distance from me.  I sent him to the target from where he started.  I'm hoping that can count as a distance behavior!

I need to come up with two more behaviors.

After that, Tessa and I worked for quite a while.  We did heeling through the house.  She is getting much better with staying up with me in heel.  We did pieces of her routine with the music, and I am very pleased with her progress!  We worked the opening in particular, and all of the moves with the pedestal prop.

We also started work on a new skill, which we began as a demo at camp a few weeks ago.  She is learning to back under my leg.

Dean and I started off with his rolling hoop dive.  This time I used food instead of a toy and he did much better.  He gets too excited by the toy and doesn't look for the hoop at all.  With food he was getting the idea.  He is sending to the hoop attached to a jump post from about 6 feet away.  I am adding a cue for him to visually find the hoop, and once we have that, I think we can add in the rolling!!

After that we did a bit of Level 2 Rally review.  We worked on a moving down, in both ways that we may need to do it. He is actually pretty good at splatting down when I remain in motion!

We finished up by working his stopped contact re-training.  It is taking some doing because he really wants to flop his back feet off the board, but I am working at being patient so he can figure out what he needs to do.

After that, Tessa got a turn on the board and I found that she can use some review on that, too!

Finally, Sammie got to play.  We did some basic Rally stuff. Some heeling through the house, sits, right finishes, etc.  I am kind of thinking of trying a Level 1 Cyber Rally course with him - just for fun.  I think he might be able to do it!  That is, if I ever get time to get something filmed!

It was a good session.  I hope we can do this more often.  We all have so much to work on, and I always see good results when we work on a regular basis.