class on thursday night... and the private.

started with berlin in open. we finally got her back to regular heeling - we do a lot of close work where we almost run into each other, its good distraction work for the dogs. however, for one of the dogs in the class berlin simply doesnt trust it heeling close to her, so that freaks her out. other than that, her attention and such was very good. i still cannot get her to break into a run when we do the fast (even rah canters!) so ill have to work on that tomorrow. fig8's werent that bad either, she was much better attention. still need to work on her motivating for that outer post and driving forward to my right.

broad jump wasnt bad, we worked on fronts with the db in their mouth (rah's issue) and she was vERY lovely. i have one dog that wants to be in front all the time and another dog that hates it :) did a few flat retrieves, but she was getting tired. worked on tuck sits, and just played around.

rah in utility - started with signals and he was completely not paying attention when the entire group was together doing signals - he gets ahead of himself or he stops paying attention. need to work on that - LOOK AT ME ONLY.

moved to articles and he did a lovely job. need to remember to reward him for his efforts- his fronts may not be perfect, but he's thinking and putting effort into them, so he should be rewarded accordingly. but he had three perfect articles!

gloves were tough - i need to stop staring him down with the pivots and just look where the glove is going to be, because it puts him in perfect position. he shied away from heavy pressure at glove 3 (three dogs mulling around) and chose to mark spots on the floor????

go outs and directed jumping were PERFECT. he has no target sticks out there, just guide sticks along the way keeping him straight. the only mistakes he makes is sometimes when he gets 5 or so feet away from the gate, he pulls up short. need to keep letting him get all the way out there. the new people in class were confused because he does go outs to nothing at all, and all his rewards come from me. thats just how it had to be with him... i jumped him at full height too, and its kinda amazing to see!!!!

moving stand is better.

im bored and tired and not tired all the same. maybe someday ill get to that private lesson...