Barn Night

Wicca's Goals

* push throughs

We really struggled with this at the seminar on the weekend. Last night we managed to do them pretty well. She was unsure of what I was asking her at first but using food to reward her when she came into me made her get it pretty fast after that. We built up to a little bit of speed (okay a lot of speed) and found it more difficult again- I can't imagine having to do those at a trial on a course where my dog is going 100 MPH.....maybe with more practice they'll seem more normal.

* serpentine

She used to have a great Serp. but with all the work on pull throughs and threadles I wanted to be sure she still had it. No Problem said Wicca!

* weave entries

I worked on front crossing and rear crossing poles last night. It went really well and she only missed one entry last night.

Miss Wicca only worked 1.5 sets as I really want to get Boone understanding about contacts. So I spent quite a lot of time working him last night.

Boone's Goals

* confidence on dog walk

because I wasn't the one to teach him the actual equipment it is funny to see the little things that pop up. I have back chained the dogwalk a fair number of times, but last night we did the whole thing- he ran up the first time and promptly bailed off right where the tip point would be if it were a teeter....hmmmm...So more backchaining, racing and rewards and he almost forgot about it ;o) It's something we will have to work on more. I also found that he won't look very hard for the clear target.....we are going to work more on that at home this week.

* pin wheel (adding distance)

Boone loves to jump and I have been working on building jump patterns with him, last night we did the pinwheel- but I started to add a little distance to the far jump, and put in a front cross after. He caught on really quick- but pulled in once when I obviously hadn't commited him to the jump before moving for my FC. I found this very cool little gum container I use for a goodie container works great! Boone will almost pick it up...We are working on fetch at home ;o)

* sequencing
I haven't put alot of things together with him. Last night we did Tire, Dogwalk, Tunnel. After the contact on the dogwalk he was quite reluctant about taking the tunnel. He was quite obviously very focused on me and wouldn't look ahead. He started offering tricks and such- rather than look ahead. I need to work on his contact release driving ahead to something at home.

The next sequence was much better and I felt really good about it. We did Chute, jump, tunnel, dogwalk. He was right on and had no troubles staying focused on the equipment. I was pretty proud of him.

We also played with the weave poles a little. I guess I keep hoping that I won't have to retrain them but last night proved that he really doesn't know how to weave. So- Boone is going to learn what gates are all about. He and Vito both can learn to weave together!

Speaking of Vito I worked him at POTR on Monday night for a little bit- he did great. We did some straight line jump work. Sarah helped and we did some restrained recall, and then sending ahead to a toy. We also worked on a turn. He's doing great and I am working hard at keeping him up and motivated. We do small bits every day- this morning I ran around and had him chase me- I raced him to a target, if he got there first he got the cookie, if I got there first he got nothin'....I started teaching him the 1,2,3 Go game- he loves it and is starting to anticipate now (which for most dogs is something you don't want, but with Vito I love that he wants to go that badly) Step by step he is getting there!