Tues night classes at QC. Got there about 6 and trained Cory first in the utility ring. Worked on go outs to stanchion (had ring gates set up); he did well finding the stanchion; worked a little on not barking by calling him back; tried to work a little on asking him to sit before getting to the stanchion and he is having a little trouble with this concept. After a few tries he did start turning on my command, but would down first; then he started veering towards the bar jump on the left and jumping it on the way out. Ping ponged sending him all the way out and asking for a touch but no sit, with the occasional asking for a turn and sit (but getting a down) about 3/4 of the way out; when he thought about the bar jump but straightened himself out I clicked as he passed between the jumps and this seemed to help him understand, though for the most part he continued out and did his touch before coming back for the cookie. Did a small amt of heeling and signals and he did well. Doing a little better on staying with me between exercises. Then put gloves out and worked first just on pivots to gloves; he has the most trouble with #1. Did very well getting correct gloves and didn't do too badly with mouthing them, no drops tonight, though he does tend to lean way back on his front. We were by ourselves mostly till gloves and then people started coming in. Then did scent articles; put out 2 of each plus the scented one, in the middle of the ring about halfway towards the jumps and sending from the go out position. He had a little trouble with this and started his old habit of indicating or picking up and dropping the correct one, then doing random grabs. Shortened up our distance to the pile again; it's difficult because when he does this he also starts really mouthing the article and often dropping it in front of me, so it's hard to separate out working on that from the actual scent work. Will back down to only one type of article out and me right next to the pile, but keep the same position in the ring next time. Then worked on stays in the utility ring with his back to the adjacent ring, I stayed in the ring with him this time but did a five minute sit and a six minute down. He did pretty well, he did air scent a few times which I verbally corrected him for; I went back about 3 1/2 minutes into the sit and rewarded with a cookie. Had moderate activity outside the ring and in the ring behind him.
Robbie was quite revved up today and was first in the ring for beginner novice. We had great difficulty with heeling/attention tonight; the puppies had squeaky toys and a ball in the adjacent ring and he was much more distracted than he had been the week before; in retrospect our warm up did not include enough heeling outside the ring. I had to resort to a little food in my left hand again, but he did eventually improve and start working a little better for me; not without some wandering at the end of the leash and being totally out of position though. Fig 8 very nice. Sit for exam is improving, Libby was able to put her hand on his head and leave it for a few seconds and he held his position. Very fast recall, did front but crooked and I think bounced off me a little. Left finishes improving. We were able to come back in the ring and work a little independently after our first run and he was much much better, still needs lots of input but is starting to be able to string together some fairly lengthy bits of heeling. No pace changes yet. Need to think about starting to work on stand and probably working stays together with Cory at home.
For agility unfortunately the st poo in our class seems to be fascinated with him and keeps wanting to chase him. I think it is predominantly play, but he is definitely not sure of that. She did that on the first exercise and he got into flight mode, would come close to me and bark but not close enough to catch. Did get him back and tried to keep him on lead as much as possible the rest of the night. However poodle chased him again at least 4 different times, so he was stressy/flighty all night. Did ok hitting his contacts on DW and teeter, though he is at the stage where he wants to spin back and look at me on the teeter; still will bounce off the aframe if I am not careful. Did do a little weaving, but hard to do dragging his lead and he was having a lot of trouble focusing because he was worried about the poodle behind us. We need more work on solidifying his contact position and need to work on the weaves with more distraction; need more solid entries and needs to start driving through a little more.
No comments:
Post a Comment