RFE practice (116)

After our dismal performance 2 weeks before, I was prepared to work on focus first and above all.  I think it went well. 

Focus work video - I didn't let her free sniff this time, started with a down stay on her matt instead. Then some heeling and such to earn the sniffing time.  She was a little bit distracted, but already far better than before.  I was pleased with how this went.

Freeshaping "paw" video - I was truly surprised this went as well as it did.  When I recently started freeshaping this trick in an effort to get it back, it completely fell apart when I moved from the living room to the kitchen.  So I didn't expect Gimme to be able to do it right away in this location.

Quick doodle video - This is just a quick doodle with part of the plan I have.  It needs refinement, but Gimme was working with me.

Quick walk through video - Here we walked through my plan.  There's nothing firm about it, just some ideas I had.  I wanted to encourage Gimme to work with me for longer time, so she could get a big pay-off.

Run-thru w/music video - We are still working out technical issues for the music, so we lost some of it.  I need to insert 5-10 seconds of silence at the beginning so I have time to get in position.  Also I need to rethink my choreography, so her body is moving in the right direction when I cue a behavior.  For example a "spin" ends with her heiney going in the right direction for the start of "otto".

Behavior warm up video - I ran through some behaviors.  One thing you'll see is where I do a center 360º pivot in counter-clockwise direction, which makes a natural segue into her "otto".  Those are the kinds of tweaks I'm looking for.

Thru 2 w/music video - I can see potential here.  I like the extra steps in the Thru to Front... I think Gimme does better going "thru" with the momentum of the extra steps.  I think I've found a place to put a spin-to-center also.  Ideas ideas ideas...

I did three more runs with music and they went pretty good.  Unfortunately, the camera battery died, so I have nothing to show you. In any case, each was better than the last.

I was contemplating entering the next RFE freestyle competition in September, entry deadline is today.  However, my laptop is dying - it keeps gasping for breath, so I had to buy a new one.   I paid for full tech support for a year and they are loading all my software and doing the set-up stuff.  Tomorrow I drop off this half-dead laptop and they'll do the data transfer.  But then I have to upload new video editing software and learn to use it.  So I didn't want to be rushing through the learning curve.  Just means we'll have plenty of time to tweak our routine.