Started the day with a few minutes of stacking and stretching on the TotoPawds. It’s amazing how much muscle this simple exercise uses and how quickly he gets tired!
That’s a pretty good looking pup!
Had a good time in our training time with Barb and her pup. Last week was his first introduction to Training Levels Come. Step 1 was good, he loved running back and forth between us, but unlike Dori, his training partner of the same age, he didn’t figure out the next step – that after SHE paid, *I* paid, and then SHE paid again. Today he got it immediately. Barb and I both used come cues, we got up to 20′ apart, and he was spinning and running to us. Nice. So that cracked off Step 2, 3, and 4, and since I successfully called him off the feral cat the other day and several other enticing prospects, I’m calling Step 5 done as well.
We finished Level 1 Zen as well when he stayed off a dog dish in my hand and on the floor even though there were several kinds of treats in it.
Sit’s done. Had a little trouble with Target last week when we worked it AFTER Zen, so this week we did it first and got it finished up.
And down. Level 1 Graduation Party! Clever boy!
SpiderLevel1
A lot of Level 2 is about duration and distance, so we started working on Level 2 Sit – in Step 1 I walk 5′ away and return. We got up to 3 feet. After that he wanted to follow me, so we’ll be working on that. Once we have the distance, I don’t think duration will be TOO much of a problem, but we’ve been working a lot on down lately and for Giants, down is an inborn default, so we’ll be forgetting about down for a while and working on sit.
We work on giving to collar pressure almost every time we’re sitting for a moment doing nothing. That’s a default I sincerely want to hold on to as he gets bigger. Then for certain situations, like conformation and drafting, I’ll teach him to pull into leash.
We’ve done a lot of work on settling (which worked brilliantly the other day when we went to get the truck fixed), but today we tried getting him excited and then asking for the settle – no problem. His temperament is unbelievable.
Backing up and moving out of my personal space, even to the left – brilliant.
Zen at the front door is going well.