Gus and Flex Update

Wow! What a week. I have been super busy and have neglected to post for almost 7 days! Anyway I am making progress with both dogs on this new training regime.

On Saturday I took Flex to his Advanced Beginner's class and our goal was to work on his focus on me rather than everything else. It was a bit of a struggle at first but he settled in and did much better by the 3rd set. I forgot to bring the mat so we had to just work on laying down on the ground. I have been working hard on getting him to look me in the face since this has been a struggle for him since the day I brought him home. He is now freely offering eye contact when he is laying on his mat. After Flexi's class I spent about 10 minutes working with Gus while we waited for our turn during the Fun Run. He was having a tough time even though we were at least 40 feet away from the equipment and action. After Flex's run, i took Gus out and worked on some TTouch with him. OMG what a difference that made. We went to the line and I had a very calm Gus. I still had someone hold him (to minimize the stress) and he ran ok. Wouldn't weave and knocked a bunch of bars, but he paid attention to me and was not trying to bit me on course.

We continued to work on the ttouch and mat work through the weekend. Then Monday night I took Gus to Handler's Class and he was bananas at first. We spent a lot of time working on his down while waiting for others. He got better by the end of the night. We then worked on being quiet while I taught the Masters class. We made some small progress.

Then Tuesday I took Gus to Billie's for the Control Unleashed class. He was soooo much better this week than last. He was able to walk around the equipment and focus on me. He would look at the tunnels and jumps and then focus back on me. It was impressive. Others commented on his progress.