Handlers Class - Week 8

Practice with Gus - Thursday

Today was some box work and some practice on his sits.

Practice With Gus - Wendesday

I have started to make Gus work for everything that he gets, including meals per Debbie's request. Today we worked together for both breakfast and dinner on his jumping and moving into a sit.

Top Notch Canine Class

We worked on the following things tonight with Debbie:

1. We reviewed his progress on the jump to sit work.
2. We reviewed his work on the telephone book and rear end movement.
3. We reviewed his sit stay.
4. We used the channel weaves and how to work them with him - especially to minimize the number of repetitions.
5. We reviewed his teeter and dog walk performance and discussed what I wanted from him on these obstacles and how to train that.

Our homework:

1. He must work for all of his meals.
2. Continue to work on his come to heel using the telephone book - don't sweat the fact that he is lifting his front leg.
3. Continue with the jump to sit exercise but I need to get low with him so that his head stays down. Only treat when he is seated.
4. Continue with the control and stay work that I have been doing.
5. Continue 101 things to do with a box.
6. Open the weave-a-matics so that he doesn't have to bend much. Work on the following:Send, Run with and recall from 5', 10' and 20'. Add in lateral distance too.
7. down on the board with all 4 paws. he should be looking down and straight ahead.
   

Monday Night Handlers Class - Week 7

Tonight we worked on Gus' focus and self control. He ran with a buckle collar on and a small thin rope that would not pull down the jump bars. Gus did OK, but he still had his moments. We worked on him focusing on me when other dogs are running and getting lots of yummy cookies for doing so. His out of control crazy man act is no longer tolerated. By the end of the night he would look at other dogs for short periods and then immediately look back at me for his treat. This is huge progress for him. The set numbers start in the lower right hand side of the screen and rotate clockwise around the diagram.

Set 1: For the most part Gus did well on this set. The object was for the instructor to call out a random off course obstacle and the team was to find a way to recover and finish the course after this unexpected issue. I focused on his start line stay for this exercise and his focus on me. He was able to have all of his turns because he did not ignore me once.

Set 2: The object of this lesson was to have the dog complete the DW independently and for the handler to get into proper position to handle the serpentine of jumps that came next. Again, I worked on his focus and stays which he did very well with. I lead out enough so that I could baby sit his down contact on the DW because he does NOT yet have an independent performance on this this obstacle.

Set 3: Again I worked with Gussie on his focus. I ran him through the weaves only and rewarded him with the tunnel if he was successful.

Set 4: This exercise was from CR Nov 08. It was for practice on the FX and RX handling. As with the other sets from the night we worked on stays and focus. He was able to have all of his turns. Gus knocked lots of bars but we were pretty successful in our communications and handling of these two exercises.

Home Practice - Saturday Night

Gus and I practiced tonight his jumping. We worked on keeping his head down. Debbie had asked us to work on jumping and then immediately going into a sit position. It seemed to me that this seemed to encourage him to keep his head up because he raises his head to sit. Instead of asking for the sit after the jump I placed the treat on the ground and rewarded him down low while he was standing. I want to ask Debbie about this next week at class.

We also worked on the box game. I shaped him putting his paw on the box. It took about 10 minutes but he stuck with it the whole time and kept offering different behaviors. Of course he would offer a down when ever he wasn't sure what to do.