Sunday training QC

Sunday afternoon took the dogs up to QC for a little training.  Open equipment was set up in back right ring, so worked Cory first.  Did a little heeling, worked on drops, he is still dropping a little slow and he did not drop on his first one where there was some minor distraction going on;  tossing the treat behind him seems to really improve on this but takes some maintainence.  Starting to have some anticipation problems on the retrieves, esp on the high.   Had about half a dozen anticipations before finally got through to him;  working on waiting a prolonged period before sending him and rewarding the wait.  Still getting some barking on retrieves and BJ.  Did well on scent articles in front corner of ring, 3 of each, close to pile.  Set him up in that ring with his back to adjacent ring and left him for long sit;  he went down at least six times;  I replaced him first time, then Sharon replaced him, I finally came back the last time and gave him a good tug up and verbal correction;  he did stay then.

Did a little heeling with Robbie;  he is starting to come along nicely.  Took him over to do agility;  worked weave poles a little in the ring.  Took down the last six and just worked with the first set;  have not done them since probably before Thanksgiving.  Took him quite a while to settle down and start offering to weave;  he is pretty good on the weave part but weak on the entries, also stops and looks back more than I would like instead of going until he hears the click.  Need to probably set up just two poles in the living room and work on entries a little.  Did a few two jump/tunnel sets working on rear crosses;  was getting some bouncing up and nipping, doing good rear crosses on the flat in front of the jump but then pulling off of the jump.  Need to set up this exercise again and work it some more.

Cory's agility class first night (alphabet drills)

First night of Cory's winter agility class, novice alphabet drills.  Tonight we had a five jump set up and worked on front and rear crosses.  I think these short sequences working on skills will be great for him.  He did ok;  we had a few issues with the rear cross that need working on.  Also he was quite revved and could not seem to hold his stays while we reset bars.  After class we went back over to the obedience ring and I set him up in the corner and did out of sight stays.  His back was to the adjacent ring with the first night of a basic class going on, and there were two other classes across the aisle so it was fairly chaotic.  Luckily with the solid fiberglass ring barriers I could sit across the aisle and see his shadow through the barrier, but he couldn't see me.  Once again he went down just under 3 minutes into the sit;  I went back in and resat him and let him sit for another 3 minutes, then praised when we went back and did a six minute down.  He held the down nicely and did not appear to sniff, but he was angled a little when I came back.  Released and got cookies;  then did a little heeling;  worked on doing slow about turns so he doesn't end up forging/cutting in front of me as we come out of them.  Did signals from about half distance;  he "appeared" to do them well but was anticipating quite a bit and once I released him, set him back up to retry he did walk in on the stand a couple of times.  Worked on lengthening the time between signals, reminding him to wait, and praising.  Once done worked on him walking back WITH me to get his cookies;  as soon as he forged/looked away from me I stopped.  This is going to take some work but we really need to work on him staying engaged between exercises.

Also this afternoon while I was downstairs cleaning the litterboxes we did a couple of broad jumps;  for some reason he came straight to me a couple of times which he hasn't done in forever (I think mostly because I was at the same time making Robbie hold a down stay less than successfully).  Hit good straight fronts the first time each time though.  Used the yardstick to push him out.