CBS Training 2 March 2009

Well another week of CBS training last night - week 3 in gold class or our forth lesson so far. As is usual for a Mon afternoon I took both the girls to the dog pool. Kenzie loves swimming in circles and is really quite excited at the pool. Woofing at Ness when Ness is swimming if I don't put her in over the side for a swim. She seems to enjoy swimming in her own little circles.

Any way now to training last night. Wasn't sure class would be on as there was quite a bit of rain forecast. I had rung and checked and since Kenzie was being feral and running and digging holes in the yard I thought I would drive there anyway and the girls could have a bit of a play if class didn't end up being on. We got there nice and early and Kenzie had a bit of a run with Darcy another BC. Well ok not really she spent the entire time bouncing up at me wanting to do something rather than to much playing silly girl. So we did a bit of circle work as well as some heelwork and then she harassed Ness a bit (of course Ness being Ness was only interested in finding food).

We had just gone out to start class and it started to rain :(. Deb moved us under the school verandah so we could continue training. The first exercise was suppose to be heelwork. Kenzie spooked so I couldn't get her to work. Not sure if it was the combination of the enclosed space, shadows or the echos that spooked her. I was able to take her off to the side and sit the exercise out and gradually see if I could get her back under the verandah. The class did a bit of heeling and at that point the rain had given up so we moved back out to the oval.

When we went back out to the oval Deb had placed out 4 discs in a large square and on each disc she had placed a toy. We had to heel the dog up to the disc and then around the disc before releasing them. Kenzie was on fire. She did some lovely up and happy off-lead heelwork and wasn't the slightest bit interested in the toy. We did this a few times. Once with the dog on the outside of the circle where the toy was and once with the dog on the inside.

We then moved onto targeting. I discovered I hadn't packed my normal target stick so I had to make do with my second one. Kenzie was happily following it around the place. Then Deb set up one in the middle and we had to send the dog from whatever distance we were happy with. My first one I did was about 3-4 paces and she went really nicely. We tried again from slightly further back and again she was successful. Clever little girl.

We did another heelwork session this time around objects "toys" placed on the floor. Kenzie did extremely well apart from once when she thought it was about time she was allowed to grab a toy rather than continue heeling. First bit of distraction heelwork I have done with her and she passed with absolutely flying colours. She continues to amaze me.

New trick was to have the dogs fetch a plastic bottle with food in it. Only thing is you could only reward them with the food in the bottle. Kenzie was happily retrieving the bottle but then I am not overly surprised as she will readily fetch most items.

Refresh on the old tricks tonight - spins/twists from a couple of paces and duration on the bow. Kenzie its great in a bow once she is in position but still has no real cue for it. Her spins are good but her twist still needs work.

We then worked on sits and drops from a distance and introduced a stand. For the most part I am getting somewhere with the drops and sits but occasionally she will scoot forward on her sits (not great from a trialling perspective). Fascinating though in that she was actually offering some quite nice kick back stands from a sit. If I give her her command to back up and C/T after 1 step she kicks herself into a stand :). Need to work on putting a proper stand command on her though. Especially considering I am intending on putting her in the mock trial at Dover on the 22nd of March and she still has no SFE or stand stay.

We finished up with some sit stay work. Kenzie is great so long as there is nothing to freak her. Deb had us hop up and down and that movement of another person spooked her. She was also distracted by the assistant instructor standing a few meters from where the class was happening. Unfortunately we still have a bit of work to do in the people department.

Any way good class and Kenzie is certainly a little star. Happy with her progress but do need to get my act together and start to get more serious about training her. She is such a quick little learner and seems to enjoy working so I hope that will put us in good stead when I wish to trial her down the track.