Friday, May 30, 2008

return of the puppyface, see balls fly

ah, back to classes this week.
wednesday nights are now different. first, rah has graduated from his novice 3 class on wednesday night, and berlin has graduated from her attention class - moving rah up to open on thursday (either teaching during the day, or regular open at night), and berlin up to novice 1 later wednesday evenings at TD. however, since i wanted to enroll rah into flyball this session, everyone had to take a break from TD. so, i took the opportunity to enroll berlin, ms. puppyface, into beginners at hk9.

she did well - they were in class 4 of 6, we started out with some LLW, did some sit stays, sit for exams, stands, and then change of paces. did group stays, and berlin did really well for that. i need to formalize a stand for her that is a kickback stand, but her LLW is very nice (especially considering these were totally strange
dogs for her!), but she doesn't have any automatic sits at the halt (i've never asked for these). her stays were very nice!

stayed for the attention class to watch, since i will be able to get her into attention 2 next session while rah finishes flyball, and worked articles with rah - worked the pile nicely, finishing up week 5. i dont think berlin will have a problem with the attention class either - they are just doing moving attention (in the front), some stationary, and just took their first steps with attention yesterday - berlin's already working 10-15 steps in a nice heads up heel, so we've got that. her biggest issue will be her maturity, since shes still a baby pup.

then went to flyball - rah's the only real experienced dog there. worked on some dead retrieves, determining which way your dog turns (rah of course had to be a butt - the dog that always always always turned to the right decided to turn LEFT??), worked on some fast jumps and getting them to one step them and turn right back to come over. then we set up the easy box - purely just a box they can use for targeting, and had them run up to it, grab a ball, and come back over the jump. rah had fun!

fast forward thursday night.

started with stays and rah held them ALL without ANY ISSUE all night off leash YAY RAH.

did some heeling - rah did well, i asked him for straight sits and physically placed him into the sits and then the last one let him do it himself and he was perfectly straight, so that was nice! terry noticed we all slowed down when she called turns, so she started counting out the beats of the turns and we were able to hold our paces much easier, which helped us all. then she showed us some ways to get the dogs to swing their butts out of the way on the lefts, and also a proposition that is being set forth for the OAC about how a left should be done (having the dog back up with the hindquarters) and we worked that - rah loves it - did squares and backed him up for the lefts and he figured that game out with the first turn!

did some set up games with step ups, get backs, etc. then we set up for individual exercises. i started with the broad jump - while karin worked high jump with simon, and there were toys on the ground for her as a distraction. rah did the first BJ beautifully, and then the second one he fell apart. blew me off after the jump, ignored me and ran to a toy, got a correction for that, and then didnt want to set up and hold a wait. finally got him over and called it quits on that.

moved onto high jump (ha) - just worked cookie marks over 16 inches, he did well. i was using hot dogs, and its hard to throw them - cheese is much easier. but he didnt refuse a jump at all during this time, so thats good. moved onto retrieves on the flat, which were good and clean. did some fig 8's and they were also nice.

moved onto utility -

first we did pivots - i forgot my footwork, so terry showed me again. i think im going to have an issue with rah "shopping" if i turn him to the right, and then also end up with him not sitting straight. while some dogs have issues with rear end awareness, he's sharper and quicker if i turn him to the left and have him jump out of my way - we tried it both ways and he "got" the pivots much quicker going to the left, and i actually did left for not only glove 3, but 2 and 1 as well.

then went to go outs, which were straight, fast, lovely and perfect. his turns and sits were so lovely it was amazing. full length of the ring, too.
directed jumping - we were back to him not wanting to hold the wait, but he was more than able to go over the jump once i indicated him to go over the jump. no refusing, no avoiding the jump. once he went over the jumps, i rewarded him with another go out, since he loves them so well.

worked gloves, which he proved he is not able to handle without shaking again, so we switched to cookie marks, which he did well. then we moved to articles, and he finished up week 5 with a bang, doing it perfectly, what a good boy.

worked signals, and he did them nicely - i need to work on getting a sharper faster down with less of a signal from me. ended there, since we were all exhausted...

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