I've often said that keeping up with all Gimme's activities makes me feel like a soccer mom. I know her schedule takes up much more room on my calendar than my own stuff does.
Tuesday we had agility class. The last four times we've gotten to class, Blynn always comments about how much Gimme has matured. When she said the same thing this week, I told her she'd said that several times before... to which she replied that she always strives for consistency.
Gimme was very good this week. She had a couple episodes of running amuck, they almost always happen when I'm trying to get her to set up for the start. Blynn recommended something that worked quite well. She recommended using our hand touches, which Gimme is very good at and likes to do. In particular she recommended doing multiples back and forth between both hands. Gimme thought that was really fun, it really got her attention and she didn't care at all that she wasn't getting a treat.
On all our runs, Gimme did such a good job that Blynn was able to focus on my handling. Honestly my handling has gotten pretty bad while Gimme was still so green. Now she is really ready to take more responsibility for what we are doing... so if I get my handling right she does it right about 95% of the time. Trouble is that she really wants to work at a greater distance than I ever done before, so that is a whole new way of working for me and a huge learning curve.
There are some times I need her to come in close to do something, so we need to work on that more, until she is comfortable with it. Still, she picks it up so quickly in class. Tonight we had one of those sequences and the first time she didn't get in there for the jump. The second time she did, but it was awkward. The third time was flawless.
In any case, Gimme is much better at agility than I have any right to expect. I almost never train her outside of class and yet she picks up things so quickly that Blynn thinks we practice all the time (I'm not telling her the truth). Gimme is very athletic, so this all comes pretty naturally to her. It helps a lot that APHS handling is so intuitive.
Wednesday night was nosework and we met in a park. We did two container searches on the grass. Gimme was good at containers, got her odor and ignored the distractions. I was pleased that she did not pee either. Sadly, her box trashing was back with a vengeance. I'm not worried, it'll come. Then we did an exterior drill... She got that one VERY FAST... and didn't use her paws, but found the odor tin on the underside of the grill and bumped it repeatedly with her nose. So much so that she actually moved it several inches. I wonder if they have a fault for aggressive nose bumping. <eg>
Today was Public Dog class again and Gimme did very well. We played a recall game, Come and Get It. The game is that you cue "come" and the dog bumps your fist, then you toss the reward from that hand in their same direction of travel, while cuing "get it" (a lot like ping pong treats). Then you call them, have them touch the other fist and throw the treat in the other direction. Its an easy way to get in a huge number of recalls in no time at all. The idea is that the dog doesn't have to collect their stride as they are coming toward you, so you are encouraging and training a fast recall. Unfortunately, even with the cue to "get it", you are also repeating a LOT of nose on the ground, which became evident later.
We were using it to get the dogs used to working around other moving dogs. Our first round of about 20 recalls was done with Frank and Tor as our distraction, about 8 feet away, also playing the same game. Gimme was fine with that. Then we did all the dogs at once, moving Gimme to about 15 feet away from Tor. She did well, but I noticed after about 15 repeats she would pause to look at the other dogs before coming to me. That told me she was getting concerned, so I switched things up and had her do several "front" recalls. That seemed to help and then did the come and get it again. After 15, again the pauses and again I did "front" and then we ended with 10 more come and get it.
After that we did some loose leash walking drills. I spent most of the time encouraging her to get her nose up off the ground. Not only had she just been cued to get the treats off the ground 60 times, but we were now working where the other people had been tossing treats. So it took a bit to work through it.
Gimme and I are both tired tonight. We spent 2 hours outside this morning before class and then another 3 hours this afternoon after class. I was working on some gutter cleaning and repairs. After at least 40 trips up and down the ladder, I was ready to lay down and die. Then Mary called and we met her and Grafton for a walk around the lake. Its been a full day.
Tomorrow we'll be meeting Susan and Tucker after work for a nosework practice. I'm going to set the hides up before I go to work and then we'll run them after Susan gets off work. So they'll be out around 7 hours, depending on what time we get over there to practice. Then I'll be home to resume gutter fun.
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