is it really saturday?

im SO REMISS.

so classes this week -

agility - we started with 20/20 review on the teeter - debbie stressed she doesn't want us doing the whole teeter yet, we can have them start halfway down, and we can even do restrained recalls on there to build speed. continue working 2o/2o separate of the target to ensure solid individual behaviors. berlin, well shes fast and she's hilarious. when in doubt try to play bang it!!! and pick up your target and run!
then we did some jumping sequences - tunnel to a jump with us running with the dog, then worked go on, and go out. with me running she wasn't half bad, but with me moving she kicked into PSYCHO GEAR and she was moving at mach 10, jumping up on me to bite me, and didnt want to go over the jump, she wanted to go over me (and almost did). there's that drive liz thought berlin lacked :) once we focused her, she went over the jump - go on wasn't hard, but getting lateral distance was a little harder.


jumping grid while we ran with her - she's fast and not focused on me, just the toy at the end - so right now he has to do indiv. jumps and refocus on me after each one.


open with rah - lots of heeling. lots and lots. worked the left turns repeatedly to remind them to get their butts in, rah has good hind end motion but it was still good to work him - it also makes him less forgey and in my face - then we did MORE heeling after and we all just about died but when i know a turn or something is coming (as i should in all but a run off) i need to give him a cue a little early so he is ready to move himself.NEED to remember to use this to warm up for shows more. we also incorporated it into circles directly around us in place and rah rocked.


broad jump - he was coming into front but not sitting - just screwing around. if thats the case, he gets a correction for it. but i also need to watch to see if its that im not completing my turn and my hips are still crooked, because he has trouble fronting to a broken picture - no fair to correct him if the picture has changed and its really my fault. did some nice work and he kept his focus well. corrections were simply me grabbing the collar and gentle pop into a sit. im NOT going to correct him for the ones where he scoots himself into correct position, but when hes not doing anything at all, those are lack of effort!

ROH - worked that to a front, rewarding him for a fast front - no box in the picture right now. same thing - if no front, he gets a reminder for it, it needs to be fast. im less concerned about accurate now (Are we exactly where we were 6 months ago?!?!?!?!?!)... now i just want a damned sit in the ring!!!!

fast forward (but still rewing, since im late!) to thurs..

novice - berlin gets moved up! this was the last class of the session (to make things complicated, none of the nights are on the same number of week, and agility and open on wed are different too!), and next week berlin will be moved up to the open class rah works, and ill take rah out of open. hm. maybe i wont for THAT class, since its the day before we show outside?!?!?!?!!?! but who knows...

anyway - worked heeling in a group, she did well off leash the entire time. nice heads up position, very nice left turns (especially in the slow!). then we split the class one group on the inside, one on the outside to work with distraction. she's got a lot more drive in her step, she's maintaining a much better position and she's getting where she needs to be - compared to where she was a month ago, im happy with this. hopefully this translates to her in the ring again. im making much more of an effort to reward her in multiple ways - food, toys, physical praise, verbal praise, you name it - she gets to be silly and rewarded ALL the time for what she does, cause she's so serious.


worked stands - her stand was nice , but when we tried it with a strange man, she moved. first time she's moved in awhile, oh well.

worked recalls - three dogs at once, calling them individually. when she's insecure, she comes to me without waiting - i really need to reinforce her wait.
stays were perfect - 3 minute sit, 5 minute down, including some part of it out of sight :)


open with rah rah - heeling cant remember much, but we worked left turns again and getting them to cue into us.

ROH - i need to remind him to front and get MY timing right - in the ring i will be thinking it. i cant ask him to ignore the jump and LOOK at me because he needs to see the jump to get over it (you would too if you were jumping something that big), but he needs to be THINKING about me and ready to focus back on me immediately afterwards.

broad - worked on where i set him up - she thinks (terry being she) if i set him up more to the left of the jump, it will allow him to make a bigger loop at the end, and it does - so we will keep working that. im working the other new pieces too, reworking it seems to be working. we shall keep seeing. if i set him up too far, i could push him off the jump so i need to be careful.

flat - worked right next to the broad jump. of course, off leash he took the broad twice. so i put him on the flexi - even then he wasn't focusing on me quick enough so i was going out after him to "surprise" him - but one time he ran too fast and it went out and he pulled the flexi out of my hand and it flew - and it hit him in the butt!! i will say that it was the fastest, prettiest front he had ALL NIGHT! and he wasn't afraid of the flexi after - in fact, he was still dragging it, and i told him to "get it" and he picked it up and carried it around. what a DOOFUS.

moving on to utility - phyllis (one of the local judges, actually who gave rah his second CD leg and who likened him to a fast sports car!) trained with us because her new dog is having trouble with outdoor go outs. it was fun!! she's so nice...

go outs - WOW. nice, straight, fast!!!!! great turn and sits - he even got to do the jumps!!! he just failed to go out once - terry threw a toy when he did his go out (but he still went), but on the next one he "marked" go out, but couldnt make it out because he was staring at the toy. all in all i was VERY PLEASED with this.

articles - poopy. worked them with phyllis. she thinks he's not used to me being so far away for some reason, terry agreed. he didnt work the pile at all until i took 2 steps in, then he worked and found the right article both times, rather than just grabbing and running.

gloves - not bad but i still hover over him for glove three - i need to think less and just DO it. but one and two were good. however, he's still on flexi (because he wants to grab and RUN), and he still shakes the glove to death. i dont know what to do to fix it.

signals - WOWOWOWOWOW. he was perfect. terry has to remind me that he needs more cues when i know the heeling pattern to give him time to move his huge body, but he did well and he NAILED every part, including the stand! we also worked ring entrances and transitions over to heeling. i was totally impressed, as was terry.

moving stand - perfect. perfect perfect perfect. locked in, didn't move a muscle. only did one, because i wanted to end on that perfection.

all in all, a GOOD NIGHT.