Parkour (2/7)

The Akita didn't show up. Instead we had a big calm Tervuren boy. He was very well behaved and they did well. His owner was suitably impressed with Gimme, so I'm sure she is brilliant.

Interestingly with the recent Wait For The Cue work we did, Gimme was much better in class in a couple of respects. Usually as we walk out to the start point for a sequence, Gimme is trying to do 3-5 things on the way. You never see this because I edit the videos to only include the actual sequence, not the silliness on the way. This time there was almost no silliness. Also, I reminded her one time to wait for my cue to do the first prop and rewarded her waiting, and she waited every time after. I'm surprised and pleased at this. I like what we are doing with WFTC, but I really didn't think we'd gotten very far with it, so wasn't expecting it to carry over.

Sequence 1 video - I left in the video the reminder about waiting at the first prop. The second board was one of the narrow boards. Gimme has done boards skinnier than this one, but she wasn't expecting it. Our classmates in the classes this year have been just fresh out of beginner class, so this is the first time we've seen this one in a long time.

"thru-out-thru" video - Sorry I didn't aim the camera better. This was just too too easy.

Sequence 2 video - I was especially pleased with her quick response to the first "halt". Normally we have to do a couple before she is fully focused. I made it a point to do a control point on the narrow board so she has to focus to balance on it. Slow and/or stopped is often harder than fast. Try it yourself some time.

Sequence 3 video - I asked Gimme to "sit" on the narrow board for an added challenge. She had to remember what to do with her feet to get her heiney down on this smaller space.

Sequence 4 video - Gimme remained very focused for this sequence, even though we added little excursions off the boardwalk.

Sequence 5 video - Same sequence. I'm seeing a lot better focus during this class, almost no instances of her missing a cue or doing her own idea. She really had her listening ears working.

Send practice 1 video - Here we have a bit of individual practice for sends.

Sequence 6 video - Here we added the sends into the sequence. The first one we hadn't done even close to it, so Gimme needed a little help. The second one was just like what we'd done before, just with me a bit further back, so naturally, she aced it.

Sequence 7 video - This was so funny. I'd been paying Gimme for waiting for the cue, so when I said "box", she wasn't sure. Then when I encouraged her, she had to do it with flair, hopping in sideways. She can be such a clown at times. Of course, then she was so impressed with her own cleverness, so she turned off her listening ears for a minute. Seriously, this was her 9th time working, so she may have been getting a bit brain tired.

Sequence 8 video - Same sequence. This time I didn't have to help her with the first send.

Send practice 2 video - This shouldn't have been so hard to start, but I think the appearance of an open door distracted her. Speaking of which, I made sure we finished our send work before people would be likely to start showing up outside the door. After more distance, we switched to using the toy bucket for an added challenge. Overall she did very well, given having two distractions at one time (toy bucket and open door).

With only two dogs in class Gimme got a lot of working time, so she was sound asleep before we got out of the parking lot.