A new blog post is up at my training site!
Looking at how to get your dog to see silence as a good thing, and not get stressed or frantically offer behaviors!
FYI, if you subscribed to the feed from the last post you will need to change it as I officially moved hosts for the new site:
https://www.tandemdogsports.com/blog/transitioning-from-shaping-to-silence-good
I think we're really making progress now with Zumi's retrieve arousal levels!
I just started using a front foot target to have her wait on and that really seems to be gettign that weight shift back to prevent the foot dancing. I've used a platform before without success, but I don't know why I didn't think of the perch!
Look at how far I can throw it now!
Her stand is coming along too. Mainly we're working on anticipation issues now.
I'm still using a bar in front of her and know I will need to for quite awhile. Stupid retraining of styles!
This past Friday I took the tollers to a USDAA trial. Then I packed up so Saturday I could take all 3 dogs to another location for an obedience/rally trial (CDSP/WCRL). Packed up again, and then Sunday I took just Zumi back to the agility trial. And to make things extra complicated I had bonus babysitting Cow that I dragged along to the trials, showed in rally, and returned to his mother on Sunday at the trial where we did team relay together.
Lance
Lance played 2 rounds of WCRL rally at the trial on Saturday. Sassy as always. Trial 2 had much less sass and less forging although both started to come out at the end. He earned his level 3X2 title (20 legs after the title) and another bonus leg. Nice job mostly retired corgi!
Vito
Vito was very happy running his 3 agility runs on Friday! It was fun to see him run and of course he broke at least 1 startline. Another sassy dog!
And then on Saturday, he had one of my favorite runs of all time in utility! He was focused and very motivated! The dork ran to a chalk mark on the very first exercise so we NQed in like 30sec of being in the ring. Thanks buddy. And then he went to the wrong glove on the #2 send. I think he's cursed with gloves in the ring. Of course I could actually try practicing with him....
Zumi
Zumi continues to mature in her agility handling. Friday she didn't get any Q's but she was a very good duck! On Sunday she ran her very first team relay event and she placed first in her 20in height category and her team got 2nd overall! Almost all of her mistakes the agility runs both days were refusals after a rear cross. She turns well, but loses that obstacle focus after them. And of course I don't do many rear crosses in practice so I can't blame her.
On Saturday I did 2 rally runs with her in level 3 and then an open obedience run. She was a little bit off I thought. She was focused about 95% of the time in her rally runs but had some occasional visits to signs in her first run and just some glances around in both. Her down from a sit was also broken.
Overall I'm happy with her effort in the runs and see that she needs more practice with focus in different environments.
In open I knew that I really shouldn't have entered her. Thus my minimal restraint to only do one run instead of 2. I just really, really wanted to do obedience with Zumi and figured it wouldn't hurt anything in the long run.
Her focus was a little spotty again on the heeling. Based on her 2 rally runs she did earlier that day it was no longer a surprise to me. Her second half of the heeling was much better. Broad jump had a bad front. Drop on recall was a little slow to drop but she did it.
Then the retrieves, our main thing we've been working on. Honestly it went better than I expected. She pattered her feet on the toss, but the vulturing was WAY less. And she offered me eye contact before both sends! Of course she squealed on the release of both retrieves.
Go out she didn't squeal!! and she did that weird arc to the left stanchion again instead of the right. Maybe that's her new thing?
So technically a Q and her CDX-C title. But a long, long way to go in Open still before she's proficent and has more of a brain. Next CDSP trial is April. Just 2 more months, but at least I feel I'm on the right track.
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