Getting somewhere

For the past two weeks I put myself on a self-imposed front and finish 14 day push with Ribbon. I did fronts and finishes every day, for a few minutes. Sometimes I did them in my living room, the training hall, and the kitchen and once I even did them in my closet. I went in there to get changed and Ribbon followed me in with a toy in her mouth wanting to play so I took advantage of the situation and had her do some finishes with her toy tucked under my left arm. When she completed the finish correctly I dropped the toy to her and then played with her. It was fun. The improvement is immense. Her finishes are much more polished and animated. I figured out my right finish signal. I hadn't been happy with her response to my usual signal, but now she is jumping up out of her front position and makes her way quickly to heel position. She has also greatly improved her precision work. She is remembering to tidy up her front feet and line up her body in a straight line. The best part is that her eyes are very bright and she is feeling very proud of herself.

For fronts I played this game with her where she was sent to lay on one of couches and called to front going between two small ottomans to front position. I found the ottomans were most effective if the one on my left leg was further away from me that the one on my right leg. Since Ribbon often sits with her rear end tipped to my left the ottoman on that side prevented that mistake. After a few days I set up further away from both ottomans so that she had to take more responsibility for organizing her body in front position. She certainly made some mistakes, but she was also thinking about it. I kept up her motivation with a high value reward and made a game of sending her onto the couch to lie down or sit before calling her to front. Also I could set up off angle recalls so that she had to work even harder to front proper front position. She is doing quite well. When I was working her in the training hall this weekend she gave me a whole bunch of perfect fronts. I was even more impressed because she was this accurate from about 50 feet away in a full canter.

In my current session of classes, my friend Susie Bell offered to teach one of Novice classes so that I could train Ribbon in a class with distractions. It is a big class, 10 dogs and lots going on. This is exciting for me because this is something we have been lacking in our training. So thank-you Susie! This means that even if I get really busy I get to train Monday night in Rally class and then Tuesday in the Novice class.

Happy Training!!