Open Class

I went to our novice/open drop in class last night after a month long break and was really pleased with Wyatt. I could tell he was stressed a bit, perhaps because he had not been there in a while. However, his heeling was fantastic! No lagging at all. I have been working with him at home by clicking and treating (C/T )when he is in heel position. Now I guess I have to gradually fade out the C/T as we get ready for competition.

At one point the teacher called for a sit from a down and he would not come up on the sit command. I guess I was a little rusty too because I forgot I have an up command instead!

He was a little reluctant at first to retrieve on flat especially when the dumbbell was close to other dogs. I will have to work on that but really warmed up when I started out with more informal, shorter retrieves. He did much better on retrieve over jump and even went over the jump when one of my throws went way to the side (I have been proofing this at home.)

He also did his scent articles perfectly even in the class setting. Unfortunately, I left them there so we won't be practicing until I can go back and "retrieve" them.

He has a problem on the out of site sit even though that is going well at home. I am going to back to using cones in class to prevent him from going down.

His broad jumps were awesome with perfect fronts and finishes. Drop on recall is a work in progress. I practiced a lot but had the usual problems with slowing down sometimes and creeping sometimes. I am using a string at home for my barrier at this point.

It was good to get back to class and I can see we need to start going again.