Foundations

Last night I was out hacking nasty, clumpy grass out of my agility field. Zane and Bella were out with me. Before, Zane would not go through the tunnels, even if the other dogs went first. Now that he's learned "through", he's racing through the tunnels like they are the best toy ever. They're fun now!

Last night we also started to work on "stand". I like to use Sue Ailsby's method of getting a kick-back stand (looks flashy in the ring!) - see http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/Levels/ByLevel/2Level.html , but I make a couple of modifications for puppies (yes, I modify everything!)

Because puppies are so limber and roly-poly, I find they tend to fold up on themselves when I'm trying to get them into a stand. So I start with them in a stand and "push" (not really a push - I'm not touching them) the treat toward their chest. They back up to get it. I click that back up. After a couple of repetitions of that, I start in the sit and do the same thing. They're used to backing up with the food in that position, so they tend to kick back. Zane sometimes just scoots back in his sit, but he does eventually kick back to a stand. That's what I click. And I'm working on a stand/maintain from the beginning.

He has learned the verbal cue for sit now, but doesn't understand the verbal cue for down yet. I find that it seems to take longer to get a verbal down than a verbal sit.

Do you wanna' hear what Zane absolutely hates? He hates to be brushed! I do it daily and he does not like it. I'll continue to do it and he'll get used to it, but it's not his favorite thing right now.

Right now he also has "sheltie ears". It's almost time to start doing something with them. They're darn cute, but not quite what we want. Of course, they'll get much goofier in the next few months.

I think I'm going to go over Sue Ailsby's Training Levels again and start working more of her stuff into our training. So many foundation behaviors to get!