Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Step One

I started reworking Legend's contacts today and I'm happy with how it went.  I started with the low A-frame, and placed the manners minder several strides beyond it so she would get the idea to keep driving all the way across and then away from the obstacle.  At first she kept trying to stop at the bottom but with a little encouragement she was soon continuing on to the manners minder.  We alternated between the manners minder and throwing the ball and pretty soon she was having a great time with this game.  Then we moved onto the low (very low) dogwalk.  I wasn't sure she would even know what to think of it being only a few inches off the ground but she ran across like a pro.  We again worked with alternating between manners minder and ball and she did very well.  I wouldn't say "top" speed yet but much faster than "normal."  Not bad for day 1.

Then we moved on to working the "touch" separately.  I used an entirely different board for that.  She has never been asked to "touch" anywhere other than a contact so she didn't really seem to get it at first.  Towards the end it was going a little better.  I expected it might take her a bit to catch on to this but I'm sure she will.  

Then we finished up with a little tunnel entrance discrimination work as that was what she missed in her last jumpers run this weekend.  It was a tough angle but with all her NADAC training and as solid as she has been on her discriminations lately I felt confident that she would do it.  Obviously she didn't!  But she was 100% in practice today...go figure!

I worked Lyric a little on her three favorite things-teeter, table, weaves and she did them all very well.  She's getting a little too excited about the teeter though and jumping off to get treats before it hits.  Need to work on controlling that enthusiasm a little!

Eventually we will get back to diseases, I promise.

1 comment:

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

Sounds like you guys are ON IT! :-).