Before class today we did a quick weaves session. A couple times Gimme sped up and lo and behold - did the two step footwork
after the entry. Mostly with her on my right, but once on my left
too. Nice to see that, since I was thinking I might have to get out my weave-o-matics
to teach her some footwork. I like the two step footwork, since I
think its a lot less stress on their joints than single-foot.
Class was good as always. We were outside the garden center at Lowe's. Had planned to work inside the garden center, but they closed the outer gates early.
I also think I'm being boring. Because weaves is largely mental work, I have a tendency to go slow and methodical. When I jazz it up a
bit, while she makes more mistakes, she's more enthusiastic overall. So I need
to find a happy medium between them. I'm sure it'll be more fun for her when we start adding
other obstacles. I am considering putting in one jump and then one tunnel to do
the around the clock with four poles before adding the third 2x2. I could also
play with starting her from the table. The last thing I want is for Gimme to
see weaves as drudgery.
We had two searches, five hides the first time and four the second. The first search Joyce set out each hide individually as we were rewarding the one just found. The second search they were all set out at once. All were paired. Gimme found all of them fairly quickly, if not directly. We were all sitting on the edge of this tall planter to watch the other dogs and after our first search, I went out around the planter to leave the area so the other dog could start sooner. Got halfway down the side and Gimme just hopped up there, like the light footed gazelle that she is, and trotted down that makeshift dogwalk. This girl's mind is always thinking up something.
The hides were a bit challenging, not because they were hard locations, but rather because of the direction of the breeze. So the hides that were on the gate/fence surface, the odor was blown away from us to an area that was inaccessible. Occasionally there were little swirls and that would give some lingering scent near the odor, but it didn't seem to be enough to tell the dogs exactly where it was. They all found those hides both times, it just wasn't easy for them.
Twice there were hides in the little sheds and for some reason a couple dogs found that intimidating, but obviously not Miss Gimme. She was all over the inside of those sheds in no time. The sheds were odd, since they were mock-ups and only about 2.5 feet deep and I think for some reason the dogs found that weird - since they had no problem with the normal depth sheds at Home Depot last month. I don't agree with Joyce's method to pick the little dogs up and put them in the shed, certainly not how I'd do it and those dogs were in quite a hurry to get back out again.
On Monday I met family at the Woodland Park Zoo for my Mom's birthday surprise. Since she'd been cooped up all day, that night Gimme just couldn't settle down. She was driving me a bit nuts and needed to do more. Apparently the short weaves training session when I got home wasn't enough to make up for spending the day crated.
So I did a free shaping session with her, goofing
off with some odd objects to no purpose, then decided to put her dumbbell down
and see what she'd do. In no time she was
retrieving it from a 6 foot toss. By the end of the session, she would sit and
hold it briefly for me. Holding has been a real problem for us. The first
couple times I asked her to sit when she brought it to me, she dropped it. I
cued her to pick it up again and paused a little before taking it from her. She
quickly learned to hold it until after she was sitting and that my hand would
then come to take it. Clearly we have a ways
to go, but this is a big step forward for us.
Tonight when we got home, I did three quick retrieves. This time I introduced the sit at my side and by the third time Gimme understood she had to wait until I sent her for the dumbbell. She races out and prances back with it in her mouth. We are still working on the sit and hold, but the third time was the best.
Gimme says she's been thinking about inventing this
for quite awhile and is glad to have finally taught it to me...
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