RFE practice (48)

We met on Thursday for our regularly scheduled practice. I thought it was a good time to video a baseline of each intermediate behavior. We didn't get through all of them because J'Anna needed to leave a little early. I was also a little late, which also cut into our time.

Baseline A video - I started off with some "heel" and "halt" to get her brain in gear. She knows "halt" from parkour and I'm finding it useful to help her understand to stop and remain standing. Here is my baseline analysis
#34 Circle Handler 3x ("around" from "heel") - She's a bit wide on the far side and checking my hands each time for treats. I need to cue earlier for each repeat so she keeps going.
#34 Circle Handler 3x ("behind" from "side") - Again a bit wide on the far side and checking my hands each time for treats. I cued a little earlier for each repeat so she kept moving better. Need to improve her stop in place.
#33 Into Behind ("fanny" from "side") - Not clear for her, she was trying to turn it into "izzy". When she did get in position, her butt is angled out. Maybe platform work would bring her into better alignment.
#33 Into Behind ("fanny" from "heel") - This time I tried using "spin" to get her into "fanny" and it worked a little nicer. Her alignment was better.
#48 Follow Behind - She starts out nice, but has a tendency to go wide to try and get into either "heel" or "side", whichever side the last treat came from. I think this will improve when she understands "fanny" better.
#35 Circle Handler 2x Handler opposite ("around" from "heel") - Starts off wide. Needs better cue timing so she'll understand to keep going and not check hands for treats.
#35 Circle Handler 2x Handler opposite ("behind" from "side") - Needs better cue timing so she'll understand to keep going and not check hands for treats.
#37 CCW Spin to Center trx ("spin-center") - She seemed to be trying to turn this into "izzy". We need to put more value in "center" so she is happy to stay there and not try to turn it into something she thinks pays better.
#36 CW Spin to Center trx ("turn-center") - We had the same issues, though slightly less intense.  Again, need to put more value in "center".

Baseline B video -
#40 & 42 Pivot Right 360/180 and #41 & 43 Pivot Left 360/180 - Reviewing these is when I realized I'd been doing it wrong all along, as reverse pivots. I also did them wrong for my intermediate entry.
#44 Center Pivot 360 - (CW) - Gimme does this nicely once she gets into "center". She had a tendency to try and finish by pivoting right into "side", which we had to work through.
#44 Center Pivot 360 - (CCW) - Same issues, though she didn't try to finish by pivoting into "heel".
#46 Sidepass Right (moving close) - This is coming along, needs more work to get more steps at one time.
#47 Sidepass Left (moving away) - She needs to get better at moving her rear at the same time, instead of leading with the front and following with the rear.
#46 Sidepass Right (moving away) - She did a better job here than she did for our intermediate entry.
#47 Sidepass Left (moving close) - This was the weakest for this day.

Session 3 video - In watching J'Anna do the pivots with her dog I realized she was doing it different than I, so I brought Gimme in to try it the correct way. We tinkered with it for just a couple of minutes and the foot platform worked the best.

Gimme was getting close to her false pregnancy. In fact, I saw the first symptoms when I got home. This explains her tendency to go into food frenzy and to not listen well (at least worse than usual). So we'll probably be spending a lot of time on basics over the next 6-8 weeks.