However from there on, she did the course beautifully and again afterward. And when we did the other course later, she was brilliant. This was the first time Gimme had ever seen the broad jump and she tried some very interesting variations on jumping it. Once she figured out how its supposed to be done, I think she actually enjoyed it. After that she was just flying over it.
Her weaves were especially nice and Blynn really complimented us on how much work we'd done to get them so nice. I had to confess the truth that we hadn't been anywhere near any weaves since our last class, the last week of November. I think the little break just bumped her enthusiasm some. I hadn't intended it to be a 6 week break, but that's the way it worked out.
After our second turn, Blynn suggested that we could stay in the arena and work Gimme's dog reactivity issue while Kia was having her turn because she never shows any interest in other dogs. Things were going quite well until Kia spotted Gimme from the top of the aframe and turned "never" into "almost never". So that was a little set back and I had to bring out the PB and switch to counter-conditioning. Afterward Blynn very wisely had me take Gimme out on course and do a couple obstacles so we could end with a totally positive association.
Lessons learned -
- always switch to her front hook harness for the reactivity work, so that she's not getting an unintended collar correction.
- always set up with a good exit route or a safety barrier of some type
I have been trying lately to work on our leg weaves and just was having trouble figuring out what I could do well with my hands that could also be part of the cue system. Today I watched a Carolyn & Rookie youtube, to get the hand gesture she used in one routine firm in my mind. It worked really nice and Gimme picked it up in no time. We are kinda stuck on 4 repeats whether doing leg weaves or figure-8-weaves. So next time I'm going to try doing a random number of repeats, using 3 as our average and work up from that to get more duration.
I also worked on some of the listening skills exercises. Its been a long time since we worked on those and its clear that Gimme hasn't magically gotten better at it on her own. My girl just wants to do-do-do and not have to listen and think before doing. I did discover that if I said the next cue while she was actually eating her treat from my other hand (i.e. before she started moving toward the object), then her accuracy went up dramatically. I think it gives her just a little more time to process what she heard before she decides on her own what to do next. I plan to work on that more in the near future.
That was a lot to cover in one session, but Gimme really loves to train. There were a high number of repetitions and the listening skills work is a brain challenge. Still, she was disappointed when I said the session was done. Always leave them wanting more...
BTW we are trying Thursday morning nosework classes for a few sessions to see how that works for us. So I'll report on that tomorrow night.
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