When Rocket and I decided to get up at 8 this morning to go meet up with our tracking class. Rocket is generally a pansy when he's cold, so I put him in his jammies and hoped for the best. Of course, this means that he was made fun of when he gets out of the car in black and red skulls, but he doesn't have long hair! He seemed to know what we were there for, though, so the weather didn't bother him. Karen was nice enough to lay a 50 yard track into the wind and a 75 yard track with the wind at our backs and he took care of both in short order. I've found that he does better work when I don't lay any food on the track..just a few pieces to start and a jackpot in the article at the end. Food distracts him at the moment. I've got to get a longer nylon lead so I can work our line handling - all I've got is a 6 ft and a 40 ft, but nothing in between. It looks like I'll have to invest in leather roping gloves too.
I finally got a key to the club! So we went there next to train...waited about half an hour to start so I could get feeling back in my toes and fingers. He did another nice job this morning...added another bar to our broad jump....starting to realize what our "drop" signal means and that when we are coming back at Mom that we should be looking at her...not checking the floor! I introduced him to a short dowel today so he would get used to it - using it to teach him how to move his butt when we are doing left turns and when we are fronting. I've been working more on his body position and rewarding him heavily when his head is in the position I want it in. Did our go outs with the big box of fun and he's really into it. I managed to keep him "up" our entire training time, loaded with distractions - especially Carson, an intact bicolor GSD who apparently returned his interest.
I put him up and decided to help Sonia work Prada the Springer. Prada is very much an excitable dog and tons of fun, but lacks a lot of mental maturity! We've taken to each other so much that Sonia is thinking about having me show her instead of herself..Prada's parents are more of conformation people and wanted someone with more experience to train/show her in Obed. Today, we're still setting up her basics..stay very much a challenge for her, and she's such a wiggle butt that she forgets her heel. But she's making good progress and it's a good experience for both of us....I've never trained a Springer and it challenges me to think outside of the knowledge I've gained from working Ruby and Rocket.
Fun match in the morning...we'll see if Ruby's recalls have actually improved!
No comments:
Post a Comment