Sept 25th - at the barn

Another night at the barn with the boys. It was soo hot in there tonight but at least after 4 hours were weren't frozen human popsicles, lol.


Rip & Phe

Session 1: Hand Touches. Ripley did not do as well tonight with his hand touches. He got frustrated really fast and did more biting than touching. I did eventually get the 5 I wanted but my poor hand suffered for it ;)
Session 2: It's Yer Choice with Andrea being Goofy. I was very proud of the little man on this one. Andrea (like I did to Phe) really tried to entice Rip to go see her. It took him 4 tries to understand that he wasn't getting what he wanted without giving me what I wanted. After he realized, no matter what Andrea did, he was focused on me. At first I thought maybe I was luring him with the food though it was in my opposite hand but when the food went away he still remained with me.
Session 3: Set Point with Hoop at 16-22-26-22-16. Rip did the first 2 nicely but when it came to the 26" height he went around but I was able to beat him to the cookie. I reset him back up and he did it perfect the next time. Overall it went nicely.
Session 4: Nothing But Net using the Bench and a couple of cookies. We started with the cookies about 5' away from the bench and moved it a foot closer each time. I wasn't really sure he knew they were there as he didn't even think to go for the cookie but Andrea was sure he was looking out of the corner of his eye. We think that next time a toy would be a much more rewarding object than the cookie so we will see if he can work though that.
Session 5: Tight Turn One Jump. Rip has such a nice tight turn. We made him stretch more and did not reward ok ones, they had to be tight. I worked back to about 6' with him going out and turning back nice.
Session 6: Teeter. I am so proud of Rip-roar :) We started with teeter bangs and he just doesn't stick them the way Phe can. Phe had gone first and did amazing bangs with the teeter 2 1/2 feet off the ground...never thinks about anything but nailing the contact. Then she did the teeter, beautiful. When Rip did the bangs, sometimes his back end would fly off and he would swing back to get it on. We decided to try a full teeter anyway with Andrea bringing it down to help. He did the first nice then she helped but allowed it to bang the next time, still good drive down and maintained his bottom. We did a full one and he was awesome! We did one more to confirm that it didn't scare him and he drove it down again and maintained his bottom. YAY!
Session 7: Restrained Recalls. Did I ever mention this dog was suppose to be a flyball dog?! He has the most amazing restrained recalls and nails his tuggie. I am so glad he is doing well in agility these days but I can see why the rest of his litter are flyball superstars :)

Overall this was an awesome training session. Both Rip and Phe were on tonight and did not waste any time getting through all this in less than an hour! Gotta love those little dogs.


Baxter & Peso

Session 1: Set Point with Hoop at 16-22-26-22-16. Baxter did this nice. He maintained his sit/stays really nicely and I did minimal bouncing back for rewards.
Session 2: Tight Turn One Jump. Baxter just can't turn well off his right lead :( I started very close to the jump and we raked the dirt to know where his paws were landing. He literally jumps the jump at a diagonal and then after landing thinks about turning. He actually turned left and went around the far end of the jump!! omg. We worked him on this and he definitely improved though. Once he realized what we wanted. The problem that I am starting to see (good thing for doing notes) is that if I don't reward what he gives me, he tries to find other things to give me instead of maybe making it tighter. He couldn't do this with any type of speed.
Session 3: Nothing But Net Teeter - move tunnel closer and closer to end. This was a fun exercise. He had a hard time maintaining a sit/stay as the two most fun things were right in front of him. But he did do it and only needed minimal correction. He bit the tunnel the first time (with Andrea risking life and limb jumping in front of him unsuccesfully, lol). He realized and did a great job. Oh I am lying, we let him go through it when it was 1' away and the next time he just went through it :) Went back and he maintained his stay for the last one.
Session 4: 3 Jump Serp, Threadle, Push Through. It took me 2 tries to get in the right position for the serp. First time I went too fast and had my threadle arm up too early. The next time he was a bit of a butt head but I was right. The third time was beautiful :) I was close to the jump line and he did it so nice and tight. The Push Through was a bit of a challenge as he was coming into it with speed but after a few tries to see where I needed to be, he did it perfect. The threadle he took jump 2 the first time but I gave him too much speed into jump 1. The next time he came back through very nicely between both jumps. The jumps were set 3' apart from each other only.