July Goals

Wow, June really flew by for me.  It was my month "off" for training my 2 boys since Chuck's arrival.  My excuse was that I couldn't train Lance and Vito with the little shark hovering around and getting in the way.  This month I won't be able to have that excuse since Chuck now knows the rules and respectfully keeps his distance when I am working with the other dogs.

July Goals
1.  Prepare Vito for the rally ring!  I entered Vito in the upcoming APDT rally trials the end of the month.  I figured rally was a good place to test his ability to focus in the ring and it allows me to reward him with treats and verbal praise on course.  So this month I will be making sure Vito is good at all the signs and working on his attention during heeling.  I want to try and take Vito out in public this month to work on his heeling.

2.  Resume Lance's (and Vito's) scent article work.  They have had the past 8wks or so off as Lance's cracked tooth hindered his ability to retrieve anything.  I want to get them both back up to working the full pile and add in the formal aspects.

3.  Go Outs for obedience.  Lance has been doing great on his go outs but still needs some work.  I want to a) increase the initial distance Lance can be sent from, right now it's about 1/2 the ring.   And b) Work on Lance holding his mark while I stand up straight.  I plan on showing Lance his mark while I am setting up for the exercise and then remain standing up after the judge asks if I am ready and while I send him.  I will start with a target for this and then transfer it back to our go out.

4.  Vito disc work.  I want to keep doing disc with him most every day, specifically working on playing with 2 discs.  Currently Vito has a somewhat hard time switching between discs and with dropping a disc while running in order to catch the 2nd one.  I also want to work on him flipping to his right better and actually vaulting off my leg when coming from a distance.

5.  and Chuck- So much we want to accomplish that I think it's best I stick to weekly updates.  Plus I don't really feel the need to actually sit down and think of his goals as puppies just progress so nicely.  They have so much to learn that you can really see a difference every single session.  I don't really think out in advance what I want to teach him, he just learns.