I am starting this thread a day early since, weather depending, I may be at an agility trial tomorrow. This is at the same facility as last weekend and while we have had snow melt this past week, today & tomorrow have all kinds of wintry precipitation forecast; many plans are being postponed until next weekend based on these reports (hence yet another of my rentals having been cancelled for next weekend - and any rental that is cancelled does my training goals no good ; sore point right now) .

Anyway, I am very excited that my Precision Heeling class will be starting on Monday - I am off to Home Depot in a bit with Brady to fit him out for a few platform type things. We have been forewarned that this class is not about games, not about motivation but rather about teaching heel position. It will be up to us to build value and excitement but this course is about laying the foundation for precise positioning. Should be interesting since we have also been forewarned that many of us will have only advanced to one step by the time class is over in 6 weeks - we will be given way more material however, since access to the material will be available to a further 6 months; just no interaction with Denise Fenzi, the instructor.

I personally have never known how to lay this type of foundation down and am very interested in learning more about it.

Okay, perhaps another reason I have started this thread early is that this has been a thoroughly rotten week - everything from health stuff to rentals being cancelled and ensuing bad feelings and a very weird call from Staples.com to verify the shipping address of my new computer - umm I didn't order a computer so had to cancel that credit card to really horrendous traffic for no apparent reason etc etc etc .... bring on the new week Thank goodness I have my goldens to bring smiles to my face and laughter to my throat.

ETA: Oh and lets not forget Ms Towhee getting out of the house Tues morning and found wandering up the middle of my road -luckily at 5am so traffic was minimal, and my having not known my driveway would be icy and having to get safely down it yada yada yada ... I envy folks who lead predictable boring lives <sigh>

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Golden moments shared with
Casey, Faelan, Towhee & Brady too !

and forever in my heart, my golden Bridge boys
Rowdy & King

Just finished doing articles with Nugget , all ten of them five of each leather and metal with switching one or the other every other time I sent him to " find it " and he did this 4 times each and I'm very pleased to say he was correct every time . He's got it! We will do it all week with them tied down and then cut one or two loose every day. We also did a few fronts and finishes which were mediocore. No practice tomorrow as i think he deserves a day off from training but will go to club Monday night and get some other things worked on still lots of things to clean up and fix and several items to be taught but only some time has to pass and a bunch of maturity has to occur !


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I have realized that I have gotten complacent/lazy about training lately. I train at home, at rentals and in my driveway. I train in parking lots. I train at the Truck Stop where there is noise but no dogs. I train at stores where again there is activity but usually no dogs and people are in a hurry so no chatting etc.

I have not been training in heavy distraction places really - the dogs even know all the other dogs at rentals and classes so their ability to focus is usually quite good.

Today, I have no rental and needed to train. So, since I also needed 'stuff' for Brady's class, I loaded him into the Xterra and headed to Home Depot. He was introduced to all kinds of things including a power saw making his wood the right size for a platform and some sort of loud pneumatic thingee by the gardening area. Bunches of people including oriental and black people and some people who smelled heavily of various oils/fluids and other things. I am Caucasian and eat a limited diet so meeting and greeting folks from varying ethnic groups is good for him - I mean no offense when I mention these things. He took it all in stride although he was less than comfortable about my climbing up those moving stairs to look at wood. He was prancing calmly by my side when we were walking and sitting for anyone who held their hand toward him. All that was expected of him was loose lead walking (excellent), sitting politely (excellent) and being comfortable in the environment - he earned an A+ There were birds twittering about in the gardening area while I was looking for his new perch, no issue with them.

I then came home and loaded Towhee and Faelan into the truck and headed to Petco. Whoeee, a madhouse was found!! The lines for vaccinations and exams was literally snaked around the store - small dogs, big dogs, young dogs, old dogs; you name it - many of the dogs were even wearing clothes, something my dogs are definitely not used to. Dogs in carts and baskets, dogs at heel, cats in carriers - it was wild although honestly almost all the dogs were well behaved

Towhee was beside herself - I must have spent 10 minutes working to get her collected enough to actually start training - granted I was by the snack bin and registers but she was really having a hard time. Then another half hour or so working heeling in an aisle (snack aisle LOL), going around a corner and seeing a massive akita that she apparently loved in a previous life! She could not focus, could not sit and could not do a slow ... and so we spent tons of time on it gathering quite a crowd of people watching as we worked through it.

Next up was Faelan who of course did awesome - until he didn't. Apparently I have done too many DORs along the back corridor there, since he kept dropping without being cued when I gave him a verbal Come cue. So we worked through that. Then we worked through his not being comfortable coming when someone was in the aisle between him & me. He did do very, very well with his signals, Moving SFE and pivot work near the vaccination lines before we went to the back - he is sensitive to pressure so this is an area I need to stay on top of to keep him comfortable .

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Golden moments shared with
Casey, Faelan, Towhee & Brady too !

and forever in my heart, my golden Bridge boys
Rowdy & King

@hugs to Sharon - here I thought you were just very quiet lately because of all the snow you guys have gotten. o_O

I went to class with both guys today. Class starts at 9:30. I got there at 9 in hopes of getting directed jumping practice in with Jacks.

So I got there and let the dogs run around loose while I dragged the jumps over and put up the ring gate and Bertie.... POOPED.... *shock*..... right in front of the high jump. o_O!!!! I felt like I had to cover Jacks' eyes so he didn't get any ideas. But really, I guess this is one of those reminders that Bertie is potty trained at home, but not quite there at other places.

So I cleaned up that mess, set up my target - and got ready to send Jacks....

And some other class mates start walking in like 20 minutes early! *confounded*

And the one guy actually walked up to the middle of the ring where I was standing in front of the jumps, getting ready to send Jacks, and he let both his dogs visit with Jacks while we were technically WORKING. I didn't say anything, but I was sending him mental "GO AWAY" messages while holding Jacks in a sit at my side. The guy asked if he could let his dogs visit with Bertie, and I told him "yes" if only to get him out of our space so we could work.

I did 2 sends, and only 1 jump before more people started coming in and I saw the instructor arrive. >.<

So I cleaned up and switched dogs.

Bertie -

Instructor called sits for the whole class. One thing I'm really excited about is this class especially was the first time where if Bertie looked away and I told him "ah-ah-pay-attention", he returned his focus immediately. Very proud of him.

Stays - rock SOLID.

Signals/Verbal commands - basically she wanted us to only use signals to get the dogs to go down or sit. And then she wanted us to totally freeze the body language and get the dogs to go down or sit with verbal commands only. OMG I felt so handicapped with the downs in heel position. There is absolutely no reason you'd ask for a down in heel position without the handsignal, so I've never taught it. This while Bertie definitely can go down on verbal only while in front of me. With him at my side, he was just giving me the blank, "Whaaahah?" look.

I demoed pace changes with Bertie. My sister would have been laughing about me getting an inflato head from the way the instructor pulled me out and described what and why she wanted me to do them.

And then there was a scrambled come practice close to the end of class. <- I thought class was over and put my coat on and pulled Jacks out. And egad had to scramble to get back out there with Berts.

********

This week -

Bertie: I want to work on getting straight sits in front position. He has a tendancy to sit crooked. Even if I have to dig out my front box, I'm going to prevent this from becoming a bad habit.

I also wanted to do the first step to a flip finish. <- This is the leap back only.

And I guess I have to work on him getting his downs in heel position without me moving my hand. I guess.

Jacks - articles, drop on recalls (if the fangled snow melts in the driveway), and signals. I do want to get some heeling in as well, but his heeling has been very good lately at class. o_O

Other random thing - I did the initial step to becoming a member of the one obedience club. I just feel so weird about that.


ETA - I almost forgot - the guy who brought his dogs out there to visit with us in the middle of the ring, while I was trying to send Jacks for directed jumping + visited Bertie in his crate? His one dog was doing the telltale kennel cough snorting towards the end of class. I drove home trying to figure out what I can give my boys to boost their immune system. o_O

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Always loved, never forgotten, all our previous boys -

Sunrise: " I have realized that I have gotten complacent/lazy about training lately."

Sure doesn't sound like it to me.

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Zoe, Rockwall Nantucket Breeze, BN, CGC, Delta therapy dog
Zeke, our introduction to the world of Golden Retrievers

Couple things....

No way could I accomplish any training at Petco at this point, and are the Minnesota Home Depots the only ones that don't allow dogs? I keep hearing about people bringing them in there, but I've never once seen a dog in there. I'd do it all the time otherwise.


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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)

@Nairb - Can't bring dogs in Home Depot here either. I'm mindboggled that it's so different elsewhere.

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Always loved, never forgotten, all our previous boys -

Very light training day today. We did a few left and right pivots, some fronts and finishes, a long sit stay, a long down stay, and we simulated the grooming segment of the CGC test a few times. The other night, I noticed that she likes to wrinkle her nose when I grab her paws, as some sort of invitation to play and mouth, or something. She didn't do it to the instructor (and I doubt she would), but did it to me at home later that night. Over the last three days, I have nipped that in the bud. If she did that in the test, it could be the end, so I'm not taking any chances.

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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)

Sunrise, I hope you will share some videos of your Precision Heeling training!!!!
I plan on training today since we took the whole day of on Sat. and watched movies while the dogs napped and we all lazied around. I need that at least once a year. Living on land with extensive flower garden beds keeps me pretty busy from spring until fall.
The show catalogs are starting to arrive at my house so I had better get serious about tidying up the Open exercises.

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Be Happy With What You Have!

We had a rather full training day, but it was spread throughout the day.

This morning on our walk, we did some fairly long recalls (50-60 yds) with no leash. That is by far the longest off lead recall we've attempted. She ran as fast as she could, and had difficulty slowing down on time for a straight front. I gave her somewhat of a pass on the crooked fronts this time.

This afternoon, my son and I took her to Petsmart, and we did a few sit and down stays in the aisles. Staying in this environment is not a given for Bella at this stage. We were there for about 1/2 hour. I think we'll make this a weekly part of our agenda.

This afternoon, we did quite a bit of off-leash heeling in the hallway. Head and body position (mine) was the focus. I spent a lot of time reviewing my video from the other day, and watched some videos of my intermediate class trainer to see how it's supposed to be done. Shoulder and head position appears to be important.

We concluded our indoor session with a few minutes of "treat toss."

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Grasslands Liberty Belle "Bella" CGC (5-7-2012)