Breakthrough Imminent?

We didn't train yesterday because Gimme up-chucked in the car on the way home.  Obviously I didn't want to fill her up with treats.  She seemed a bit "off" for a couple hours, but then got back to normal. 

Tonight we did another session on scent discrimination.  It went fairly well.  She brought me an unscented tin a couple times, but mostly got it right.  At one point when she brought me an unscented tin and got nothing for her efforts, the next time she went back to the pile she spent a little time sniffing the correct tin and one next to it.  As it turned out she brought me the wrong one, but at least she is using her nose to try to sort out the difference.  I realize she was likely just trying to smell a hint of food, but all the same I figure a breakthrough is imminent.  Its only a matter of time until she realizes what the difference is.

We also did some heeling and front stuff, mostly the same things we did the other day.  She didn't do nearly as well as she had then.  That's not unusual for her.  She often follows a really good session with one that is several steps backward.  I'm not sure why that is, but I don't worry about it anymore. 

Her learning pattern usually contains fairly steady progress followed by a leap forward and then her version of a plateau, which is several steps backward.  I've never had a dog that does it that way - most seem to have a plain plateau, whereas Gimme backs up a few steps.  Then again, I've never had a dog that takes such large leaps in performance.  If I factored those out, perhaps her progression is more "usual". 

Unless I miss my guess, she will have another session much like today's and then the next session after that will either resume steady progress or take another leap forward in understanding.  It is what it is.

Happily using the little gates really helped her "around" behavior (clockwise circle around me ending up in heel position) - its been nice and tight ever since we did that.  Now its time to work on "behind" (counter-clockwise circle around me ending up in "side" position).