Friday, June 13, 2008

light at the end of a thursday night

new session of open/utility thursday night.

while the novice class finished up, i worked on rah's in motions - he was having some issue clarifying for himself when i wanted a sit and when i wanted a down, so i got out a clicker and clicked him for the right ones, and that helped (and got speedy results). yay rah.

started with stays for open. 3 minute sit, 5 minute down (and i had my back to him). woohoo. please rah, remember that for the weekend.

did some heeling - i interspersed some schutzhund style heeling for rah (in arm position, about turns, etc) and told terry to ignore him if he/we look funny for that, and rah did well - ok position, straight sits, nicely done blue dawg. worked some fronts, straight and on the angle, and rah did well. then we worked some finishes and rah actually game me some good left finishes too, which was amazing :) i may actually be able to use some of them!

broke into individual exercises. i worked high jump first (eek!) and i got TWO (TWo!!!! TWO!! 2!!!!!) retrieves of a cookie with no refusal, no breaking the sit, no hitting the jump) at 24 inches out of him, so terry said call it quits at that! and i did, i was pleased!

moved to broad jump, rah did that nicely - two or three good ones, did some maintenance for set ups and waits. worked retrieve on the flat, he did that well, and even got to me with some hard fronts ( i turned 90 degrees for him to find me).

worked a bit more heeling, then we ended the class.

started utility with articles, and rah started week six...

WEEK SIX IS ARTICLES WITH JUST MY SCENT NO CHEESE. rah was 3/4 !!!!! he actually had the 4th article no problem too, but terry walked right up to his pile, so he was stressed by her presence and just picked the first article he could see! when i corrected him verbally, he went back to the pile, actually worked it, and found the correct article and brought it to me. yay rah, i never thought we would be here! i guess terry wants me to get a tie down mat and move to that next?

go outs next - because rah likes his go outs so much, terry wants to use them as rewards for his directed jumping (slightly backwards for most dogs), but he didnt avoid ANY of the jumps (good for you rah!)so i got one jump from each side - he didnt hold a wait on EITHER side, but he did them both. then we did go outs - he was funny about the go outs because he went over to the bar jump first to sniff it (yes, itw as even the bar jump that attacked him the very first time!!!!!)

worked pivots, go outs, moving stand on our own while others did go outs and DJ> then did a full set of cheese in lieu of gloves since rah still cannot handle full gloves without shaking (any clue how to fix that??). stupid me forgot he was not on a flexi until he was halfway to the first cheese, at which time he wanted to go out after ALL the cheese.... im going tow ork on the glove shaking this week for real. then did some heeling into signals...




still very nervous for this weekend. but a very good class makes me feel more hopeful for us!

No comments: