Well that was interesting...

On Sunday I went to a match with both my dogs. I ran Ribbon in Novice twice. When I was warming her up around the different areas of the match, which also had conformation and announcements over a loud speaker from time to time, Ribbon was having a hard time focusing. I tried stationary attention, I tried lots of verbal encouragement, I tried a correction she still had a hard time giving me the kind of focus I know she can give. So I stopped, relaxed my body posture and released her. She immediately started sniffing the floor and acting like a dog in a new park for the first time. I felt silly for making such an assumption that she could work to her highest potential anywhere. For about 5 minutes we just wandered around and I let her be a dog. I put her away and got Gali out for some fun warm up drills. When Ribbon came back out, she was ready to rock and roll. She heeled through puppies coming up to sniff her as she heeled by and baby in a stroller, announcements on the loud speaker. I learned my lesson about her warm up. She needs to explore her surroundings and take some time before she can get down to business.

Because of her first warm up attempt I revised my plan and did my first run through with food in my hand. She worked VERY nicely until we were heeling along the back wall and she noticed a gap in the mats and dropped back out of heel position. I stopped after one step and we repeated that section with some collar tension and verbal encouragement when she stayed in position. The rest of the pattern was very nice. For the last leg of the pattern (right turn, slow) she was jumping up to my hand because she thought I should have fed her earlier, but I just kept heeling and she settled in for the final about turn and halt. Her figure 8 was excellent. Heel free was great and she gave the gap on the floor a small look but kept working. I did get her rev'd up before we hit that location to try to keep her mind off of it. Recall was nice, but I felt so wimpy about my finish that she reacted lacklustre. I have to be more definitive about what finish I am going to use and give my command with confidence. Stays were fine.

Her second run I had food in my pocket but not in my hand and a played with her a lot more between exercises. Ribbon responded to this very nicely and we had a lot of fun in the ring together. On my heel on lead I faded off the wall so that we would be further away from the gap. She glanced at it but kept working and then didn't notice it all on the heel free. So mission accomplished there. Figure 8, stand for exam and stays were great again. I need to work on her halts; she is starting to wrap her head across my legs. I wonder if I am changing my head position too much. I will have to think about that while training this week getting ready for the match on Sunday in another new environment.

Gali was his normal happy self. Heeled beautifully and was very upbeat in the ring. On articles, he got thrown off because the judge asked me if I was ready after placing the article in the pile. I nodded my head which Gali seemed to thing meant go to the pile. I gently called him back to reset the exercise. He seemed to think that I didn't want him to go to the pile. Because when I sent him again, he took the article off the chair. So we restarted the whole thing and it was fine, both articles were great. I will have to get someone to help me set that up, so that I can practice it. Another drawback of training alone I guess. Signals were fine, moving stand was fine. On the first go out I let him touch the wall and asked him sit, did the jump on my right, no problem. Set him up for the second go, sent him and didn't let him touch, when I asked him to sit, he laid down. So I officially have a problem with this. I worked on it a little bit, but then just moved on to complete the exercise. This will be high on my list of things to practice this week. Always nice to have a challenge.