One year later two further training methods in between

Teri Martin in the Recallers 2 Group asked if anyone kept a blog.  I did last year, but like many of us Recallers (Susan Garrett's training online) my weakest point is my record keeping.  As with this blog, I did it well for a month and then gave up on in for a while.  Teri has inspired me to use this for my record keeping.   As for Ponto, she is still improving.  Having taken her out of agility for almost a year, she now competes occasionally again, the problem being me and my nerves that she might misbehave again.  However, last Sunday at the show I ran her with her toy, not for competition in the first Steeplechase, and then competed in the second Steeplechase, no incidents from Ponto and I easily managed to front cross at the last jump bringing her well back into the ring to me so she didn't even think about running off to chase away the other dogs.  However, some of her biggest improvements have come since I started using Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed book, especially keeping her calm before her run, rather than hyping her up, and doing loads and loads of "Look at That" around the rings and on the beach, in fact anywhere when we are out.  She now looks at other dogs, such as a group of collies racing past us and then looks to me and gets treated.  I then decided to do Susan Garrett's Five Minute Recall Course online.  I am still doing this course along with joining her Puppypeaks course.  Since commencing the Recallers with all my dogs, Dylan's speed has upped immensely in the ring.  His drive is so much better.  And the biggest bonus is that training, even the reactivity training has all become such a lovely game for both me and the dogs.

Right, if I am going to use this blog as my record keeping I better put down my POA for tomorrow:-

• Take Alela (border collie whippet cross 14 motnh old pup I'm training) to vet to be spayed - so obviously no training with her apart from perhaps a collar grab and a quick sit, tug and run in the morning just as a game before we go.
• Ponto - crate games, hand touches, are you a gambler and continue retraining weaves two by two method.
• Dylan - are you a gambler - especially for the downs, extreme maintenance on his contacts, Deke Game.  Dylan also visits the Nursing Home tomorrow where he will be practising (performing) his mixture of tricks for the benefit of the old people again, so will have a lot to do.
• Percy - my old red setter - I think I'll start clicker training her to put one front leg and one back leg on the wall.  She enjoys learning new clicker tricks.

Tomorrow I will comment on the above, what we did or didn't achieve etc.