A Post About Dog Training

I just had an awesome training session with Dottie!! We worked 2o2o on DW (she prefers to lay down), and a frame (I ask for a sit), bang game, table, tunnel, shaping tire, running through uprights and beginning rear cross with uprights.


But the BEST part was I was able to use the toy and she'd bring it back and we'd tug, even though I had chicken in my other hand! And she was really excited. Previously if there was food around, tugging wasn't that cool. The food could be in my pocket, but not my hand.


But EVEN BETTER than all that is if she dropped the toy, I could re-engage her by asking where it went. Previously once it was "dead" I couldn't get her interested unless I made it alive. This is our first step to understanding a retrieve to the hand, instead of the foot (which is still so much better than what we ha...d a few weeks ago.) Yeah, I'm excited.


Something non agility I'm working on is when I play fetch with the dogs she wants to chase them and bit them. Not cool. And me verbally correcting her isn't effective. At all. All it does is make Pie sad.


My brain wave for the year is I gave her the same toy we had been paying with earlier, thinking it is hard to bite with a toy in your mouth. And by golly, it was an improvement! The biggest drawback is she would stop to chew on it, which is only bad in that I would like her to get the excercise of the fetching. Or in her case, chasing. But chewing on the toy is better than biting. I didn't want to crate her while we played because I hoped to fix it instead. I think we are working our way there.