Heeling, Heeling, Heeling

I took Brit and Pixel to the Cowley Hall this morning for some Obedience training. It is a busy place on training days- and today was no exception. Two "rings" going on at the same time side by side.

 I put Pixel in a whole routine. Due to her limp we have only done little bits of heeling training wise. It showed. lol. Her heeling was great- my footwork was the only little issue. She did every front and finish, but the she did not Drop on Recall, and She ran up to the broad jump and perched on it. SIGH. BIG SIGH. We already trained through that, or so I thought. But her stays were perfect and her attitude good. Lots of really great things today so I'm happy. Just more to work on...
 

 I did little bits of a Novice routine with Brit. She is no where near ready to do the whole thing, and any mega heeling. But I wanted to see what I got in a distrating environment. We are still using "the spoon" as a focal point to keep her head up (and not swiveled).  So we did a short heeling pattern, figure 8, a stand, and a recall

Watching the video I can see she needs more work on keeping her butt in. She knows how to "get in" but I don't want to remind her all the time so we will have to work on building up the duration of the actual position.  Also my friend Liz pointed out that I need to hold my spoon more still. lol. In the video I can see that wherever it went she followed. So if it moved too far ahead or whatever so did the dog. I may go back and try my armband stick thing, but it was just so uncomfortable. lol.

She had great attitude though- even though the distractions were pretty big! We have never had people as posts for a figure 8 so she was a little confused at first. lol. But the second one was beautiful!! Her Stand is solid, and her fronts are the best of any of my dogs... I think with more training, time and maturity she will be as good of a heeling dog as the corgi girls. I am pretty pleased with her today!!! It gives me an idea of how much we have to work on still.