Oct 21st - at the barn

We started with the puppies first again tonight. Tonight Andrea came up with the idea that we will help each other to ensure that the puppies sit up straight at the start line. When Phe is going, I will feed her only at a nice sit until Andrea is ready to release her, and then Andrea will feed Rip. The first exercise was the set point jumping which we did with a swedish oxer. Ripley had never seen this before but he did not even think twice jumping it quite nicely. We did 2 at 10-22 x, then 2 at 16-26 x and then back to 2 at 10-22 x. Our next exercise was doing the set point type grid on the slice with a 6-16-6 jump pattern at 6' apart. We did 2 on each side and then moved it to 6-22-6 for 4 on each side. We then finished this exercise by doing 2 at 6-16-6 on each side. Having Andrea feed Ripley in a nice sit position was a GREAT help! I was very happy and it seemed like he was much more in control of his body. The final exercise with the puppies was the dogwalk. We have decided to work on less stuff each night but to make it more worthwhile and I felt it really worked. Ripley was holding a nice stay, running across quite nicely and doing a great target! I was very proud of my boy and then way he handled himself.

The big boys were next. We did the same 3 exercises with them as we did with the puppies. We had to be careful with B that he didn't look at me during the set point sessions. I have to make sure that it is his toy that I am using or else it has no value. Once we had his toy in the equation, it was very nice. For the dogwalk we also added a jump before and after the dogwalk at about 18' away. We were trying to get the dogs to drive onto the dogwalk. Baxter gave me some good contacts even when we did quick release and then tried again to fool him. We then worked on his sit-stay. He was doing a good job of sitting and staying for the whole length of the dog walk and the 2 jumps. The first couple of times when I went back to reward he self released. Andrea helped me by feeding him in place so that he didn't self release. Once he understood I was able to turn and walk back without him releasing.