first things first

ok this will be the first post, trying to address classes this week, then i will do a second updated post on rah's showing this weekend.

i missed classes on wednesday because i was so sick - couldnt get off the couch sick, much less train the dogs. so i opted to do all three classes on thursday instead.

started with rah in novice - the details are fuzzy as to all the little things we did.
i know we worked stands, and i had ashler's dad do his SFE instead - he still took 2 steps towards him. im not sure what his issue is with men, but i definitely need to work it - especially since we're going to be showing to men in november. we've got 2-3 weeks to get this taken care of! eek!

worked recalls with multiple dogs in the group going at the same time - rah was good and didn't come when another dog was called, and i also worked some ring situations, like having the judge wait a bit before giving me the finish, which happened last time which is why he repositioned in his front - whats worse is im afraid one day he will do an auto finish!

heeling wasnt bad. ive taken care of some of his forgey-ness, but hes still glued to me, physically attached. and his fig8's, i dont know what my issue is with them, but they aren't getting any better and its been months, no years, that we've been working on them. and he's still up my ass like a stick - its really frustrating knowing that THAT is the reason we are losing most of our points on leash, all the bumping/crowding on the fig8. im going to have to ask terry where to go from here, because i need more help.

stays were fine.

i put him away for open and brought out berlin. we skipped the group heeling, since all the distraction was too much for her, just did some of the single heeling. not bad for a baby dog. then we broke up to work the jumps, etc. spent 10 minutes with the db out and worked on shaping a "take it" - she gives me good full mouth grips but always stops right before the point of pulling it out of my hands, which is frustrating. so i went to terry, and terry said we may need to use force with her. i had always wanted to avoid it, but im not sure where else to go. i took the db out and just placed it in her mouth (she fought that!) and then rewarded her for a nice calm hold. i havent worked that in days (bad bad me), but ill have to keep doing that and work her to get the nice hold. she's certainly not the retrieving fool for the db that rah is - i have to stop comparing them.

then we did some broad jump and high jump. worked cookie marks over the high jump, i only had her at 8 inches, but she did well, she likes that game :) automatically wants to come back to front, which is nice. nice close fronts, too. broad jump she hadn't seen ever before, so we had to intro that, but she got it quickly too and she was all about it.

dont remember much else, then it was time for utility.
started with articles for rah. he had 2-3 perfect retrieves, and then his last, we totally lost it. he picks up the article right NEXT to the right one - and then when i resent him to the pile (looking back, after showing him that he was wrong, i should have gone back out to the pile to show him the correct article rather than letting him just guess multiple times), he just grabbed any article he could see first, without even smelling them. ugh.

his go outs, on the other hand, were marvelous. BEAUTIFUL. full length, awesome turn and sits. and we did jumps from the center, and i had rah going to the jumps just on a flick of an eye - not an arm, not a verbal - me simply looking at the jump (not even turning my head), WOOHOO for paying attention.

rather than working normal gloves, we worked a modified seekback exercise and that was fun- elsie said rah has very nice pivots.

signals were ok - rah gets them at about 15 feet, past that right now and he sometimes gets confused. moving stand was nice too.

so it was a mixed bag for me. i know i need to work them more every single day - i need to get healthy and then i will make that happen. my dogs would be so much better if i worked them as much as they deserve.