Gimme had so little focus today and really didn't seem to want to work, which is not like her. Since her gait seems a bit off to me, I blamed it on her shoulder. Anyway, later in the day I finally saw "color" and realized she's now in season. I've been seeing some puffiness, but not as much as usual, and this is about a month early. She was unfocused in nosework class too, which isn't usually a problem except for the special day. As she's gotten older her seasons have become lighter and more unpredictable; sometimes she misses them entirely. So, I'm thinking maybe her season started several days ago.
"Away" & "back" video - For the first segment I forgot to bring in the peanut butter. With the peanut butter she does better (though not as great as last time). I really must bring a chair out so I can leave the jar open and save time. It takes a little bit to refresh her mind about standing squared up on the platform. BTW the part with the peanut butter was after the class started (you can hear all the noise in the background), so she was doing better at ignoring it than before. She did get distracted by the puppy squeal in her last repetition, but was able to go back to work.
"Brick" & "pivot" video - Between the first segment of the "away" video and this, Gimme was ready to quit and go back to the van, so I worked on simple stuff. She loves her "brick" and "pivot", so I started there. Coming from "heel" the natural direction to turn isn't for the "pivot", while coming from "side" it is. I think I remember this from last practice.
Sidepasses video - I ran through each of the sidepass variations in heel and side and rewarded a lot to keep her in the game. She's getting better at those.
Center pivots video - As always the CCW direction is easier for her, so her accuracy is worse because she wants to go really fast and turn it into "otto". Spitting treats when she's exactly in center continues to be the best approach. She over-pivots, so I spend a lot of time waiting for her to move back to an accurate center position. Sometime I should try just going really fast CCW; it might be really impressive... of course getting her to stop with me might be an issue. She's a little ahead of me going CW, but not enough to get dinged for it.
Sequence video - J'Anna set up some sequences to work on her novice skills title, so I thought we'd try them. Gimme and I played with the first one, which was all the brain she had left. She was unfocused, but still stayed with me when Dana walked along behind us. The second time through she was distracted by the noise Dana made in the other training area raising the doors and then by a squeaky puppy in the class. She needed a lot of help in terms of repeating verbal cues and adding hand/body cues, which she shouldn't need.
