Yesterday, I set up a gate circle using my six gates and six hoops. I was pleased with how well Willie did. This evening we went out and played around with it some more, and he did even better, although he still doesn't quite get the concept of a rear cross. Here's video from yesterday.
While we were out in the field, I came up with this set-up to work on send distance. Obstacle 3 is a traffic cone, and as Willie becomes more comfortable driving out and around it, I will move it further away from 2 and 4 while I remain behind the line.
This setup also lets me work on leading out and cuing Willie to come to my left or right side when released. I can also practice a front cross between 4 and 5.
I can't believe more than a month has gone by since my last post. Since the weather has been very nice, I've been spending gobs of time working on my flower beds. I did post some videos during that time, but I didn't write any posts to go with them.
Willie was 17 weeks old on Monday. His legs have grown so very long, and I noticed four adult teeth last Friday. His training is coming along nicely. So far we've worked on:
- sit
- down
- stand
- stay
- sit pretty
- wave (left and right paws)
- high five (left and right paws)
- celebrate (high five with both paws at the same time)
- bow
- crawl
- put four feet in a relatively small box
- balance disc
- retrieving (very much a work in progress)
- Buja board
- heel
- side
- front
- behind (switch from one side of me to the other by moving in back of me)
- around (both me and other objects)
- spin and twirl (clockwise and counter-clockwise, respectively)
- recall
- nail clipping
- touch
- putting names to objects (we've got a long way to go on this one)
- waiting patiently at the back door
- waiting to be released from his crate
- tugging
- front cross
- rear cross (definitely the more difficult cross for Willie to understand)
- travel plank (for the 2o2o contact I'm hoping for on the dog walk)
- hoops and gates
I try to work with Willie at every meal so that we have at least three short sessions each day. The wonderful thing about working with a puppy is that there is no time pressure to accomplish anything. After all, he's a puppy! We can't compete until he's 18 months old. Therefore, I can take my time and lay a solid foundation and let him mature physically and mentally.
Willie was offering too much handler focus when we were working with hoops. He was actually running into some of them! I decided to see if using a few gates would help him focus on where he was going.
