Monday, February 16, 2009

Lessons--Part one

I've had a busy weekend. I spent Sat. and Sun. at a herding clinic. And then have done obedience lessons Sunday and Monday afternoon. Part one is going to be about the obedience lessons. :)

Thai had the larger part of Monday's lesson and Rumi had the larger part of todays lesson. Thai has a hard time dealing with the stress of any environmental change. Especially people and dogs. So the first thing we worked on was her heeling with as many distractions as we could throw at her :) She did much better than she did in the past. I think it helped that she had been the forgotten one at the herding clinic and was excited to be the center of all attention :) Her tugging has gotten much stronger, even when she is stressed, which in turn is helping to despurse the stress. Her scent articles ROCKED! She even got the one when Laura was standing in the middle of the pile on her second try :) Her Utility stand for exam is also getting better. And Today she held it for two different people, did her gloves (although we need to work on blind retrieves) and was up the whole time.

Rumi. We came up with a goal. Work in 5 different places in the next 5 weeks. His heeling. Work on no forging in straight line heeling, and my cadence in left and about turns. Nice run to the dumbbell and clean pick up. Work on the return and holding the dumbbell longer (while running, walking, climbing stairs). Continue working go-outs, broad jump with target and fronts :)

Overall, good lessons, nice time to focus me on what to work on for the spring :)

Next time...herding

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