Busy Morning for the Zaney Butt

We had a lot of fun playing and training this morning. For breakfast he worked on his contact board. Nothing special there - just continuing to add movement.


Then we headed to the training building. We worked the normal heel, sit, moving stand, and moving down. Then I pulled a piece of round wood and got him to target it with both front paws, then asked for downs - he has to keep his front feet on the target while doing a down. This will hopefully prevent creeping in the future.

We worked spins to the left and right (maybe, just maybe, I'll work directionals with him. I'm directionally challenged, so it will be hard for me.)

Then I pulled out a jump. I really haven't done anything with jumps with him. I put it at 8 inches and we just played with the jump - getting over it, front crosses, driving ahead to it. Then I put out two jumps and we played with those. Then I worked on directed jumping - sit-stay to the side of the jump (only about 8 feet away and 2 feet out if that much), I walk across from him and toss a toy in front of the jump while telling him over. Sometimes he went around, sometimes he went over. If he went over, I grabbed the toy. He loves to play with toys, so he thought this was fun.

Then we worked on self-control - sit while I toss the toy. If he broke the sit, I stopped him and started over. Quickly he was holding the sit until released to the tossed toy.

Then he was put away for class time. He did get to meet a sweet little Shih Tzu. No problems - he kind of ignored him.

After class, we headed to a friend's house for lunch. She has 5 Border Collies and invited Zane along. Overall it went very, very well. We brought them in one at a time so he could meet them one-on-one. There was only one he had an issue with, and she's a lot like him. They kind of grumbled at each other while maintaining distance. That was ok. A couple of the males tried to mount him - he let them know that wasn't acceptable, but wasn't nasty. We threw them all outside (except the grumbly bitch) and let him deal with them on his own. He did hide in the corner a bit, but if they took off running, he would follow them. Later, he fell asleep under the table. He had a busy morning and was worn out!

Oh, while at the building, I also pulled out the cavelettis for him. I need to video this. He does crab a bit - he's a little short in the body and needs more length for those long, angled legs. He was moving nicely through the cavalettis, so I need to work him more on those.

So, how's that for a busy puppy morning?