Bits & Bobs

I have mainly been working on being able to clicker training both dogs!!! Even my little Jem has managed to get over her fear of clickers thanks to a lot of persistence from me and I can even use it now to actually train her!!

I went to the downs today to do some obedience with them. I trained Jem using her ball and instead of looking confused like normal she was super excitable and kept jumping about and not really concentrating, I perservered with her though and got some nice bits out of her. I did a retrieve with her and she was really naughty, she just ran off sniffing and then didn't really want to work but I pulled her through it and I then put the ball in my pocket (rather than in my hand) and did some heelwork with her and she worked really nicely. She really is and odd little dog bless her, it is really hard to judge when I need to "tell her off" and when i need to encourage her more because sometimes one will work and sometimes the other and there seems to be no real correlation as to when it is which of them that will work!! bless her!!

With elliot I literally just stood on the downs and clicked him everytime he chose to look at me and not at the cars/people/bikes and occasionally I got a few steps of nice heelwork out of him but with him at the moment the main issue when outside is getting his attention so that is all i need to work on when outside for now.

I then did a stay with them and put elliot really close to keri (one of my friends dogs) and he did it until i went back and then he got up so i put him back and left them again, this worried jem and although she had done her stay to this point she then lay down!! They both did the down, again though elliot sat up when i returned - something i really need to work on. He did stay down even though two bikes went past though!!!

On thursday I went agility training at Blaise with Nat and we did lots of one jump work with Asher and Jem to get them really understanding change of arm=change direction, and Jem did quite well at this, I was pleased with her. We then did a few bits with 4 jumps and the weaves, Jemma's weaves were okish i guess, i just need to do lots of work now on her doing them with me moving, I think I need to take myself and just have a weave session with her one day, don't know when though!! With elliot I just did jump focus work with him, sending him over the jump from different angles and throwing the tuggy, he loved it although I still think I need to find a better way of rewarding his jumping and building up the value as he still occasionally ran round the wing. Nat helped me do some 6inch channel weaves with him, he was brilliant on the recalls and then I managed to do "the walk" from the second pole from the end (of 6) no worries, he struggled when I pushed it to the 3rd so I jsut went back to the 2nd :)

Thats it for today, a flyball update after training tomorrow!! :)