Novice B Today

We had a good day. I scratched Wyatt in Open A for today figuring I need his sits and downs in Novice B to be solid before going back to Open A. Novice has a 1 minute in sight sit and a 3 minute in sight down. Open has the much harder 3 minute out of sight sit and the 5 minute out of sight down. Wyatt did fine in the sits and downs today (in sight.) Yesterday, he "froze" on the initial "come" command of the recalls. Today, he was fine and did a very nice recall with only 1 point off. His heeling was pretty good but he did not do the automatic sit part of the heeling. When you come to a halt, the dog is supposed to sit in heel position. He did not do a single one! This is typically a sign of stress or a busy location. We ended up with a 186, which is a very good score. He seemed a lot less stressed today and I also felt more relaxed. The judge was also very nice and mellow. This gives me more confidence to get back to Open though I need to continue some of the retraining I am doing for sits and downs. More on that later.