Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Heeling, Broadjump, and Relax!



I haven't blogged in a while about the general training of the beasties so thought I'd update you all on the training aspect of things. We'll start with the youngest.

I am in the process of teaching Vito to heel. It is not as hard as one might think, but it sure takes a long time! When I say "heel" I mean that the dog is looking up at me while walking on my left side- shoulder to shoulder. So for Vito- who is still what I classify as a puppy- I am pretty much rewarding him for looking at me while moving. He can do about 10 or 15 steps. He's pretty good, and will offer the behaviour to me consistently. Vito is also learning how to find heel position- he is not great at this yet and doesn't ever sit straight so we are working on that.


As I posted the other day- Wicca and I have been working hard on teaching a solid contact performance on the teeter. I am happy to report that she has it 90% at training. We'll see how she does at the trial this weekend. I have also been working more on her Obedience skills. I am hoping to get a leg or two on her CDX in November. Her weakness has been the broad jump and out of sight stays (just stay in general is hard for Wicca :o) ) So we have been doing the broad jump every day, and I have been making an effort to use stay at least twice a day in normal situations. All of the other aspects of the open routine she is great at. She loves to fetch, and is a good heeling dog. She is also very reliable on her drop.


Sam and I have been working on little things as he is still not able to do a lot of strenuous things. I have been trying to clicker him to rest his head on the ground. This seems to be an impossible thing with him as he really is a VERY "up" dog and unless I lure his head down he doesn't even think about offering it. I am also teaching him back up, which has been fun- and it forces him to use that back leg...he is pretty good, but seems to always shift to the right. (probably mostly to do with his leg)


So that's that on the training front.

1 comment:

the Corgi Girls said...

Go Sam! Looks like you're having fun with your training!

lots of love,
M & I