02 March 2008

Met at Joy's for a final training session before Crufts. The Good Citizens team was running through their demonstration of the bronze award for Crufts.

once they had finished I got Dor a out to practice. We did the gate a few times. She can do that without a problem.

I got the toy and did the same as the show yesterday, played, gave the toy to the steward (Gwyneth) and set her up for the heelwork. She was much more distracted than yesterday I found it more difficult to get her mind on working with me.

Gwyneth suggested doing some food circuits both with food and occaisionally with the ball. We really got her working well. Gwyneth showed me that I ned to put a lot of effort in to really get Dora running about. Dora does like it and her heelwork really improved, she bounced along with her eyes shining. People are always impressed with how happy she looks when she is working well. I must remember to keep the fun in the training and not get too hung up on the technicality's. This will help all the dogs as I like the dogs to look happy and enthusiastic when working.

Did a training session this evening with each dog this evening concentrating on keeping the energy high, plenty of reinforcements running aftwer treats and playing. Ruby is playing with me much more happily these days and if I can get her playing well she will respond to cues with enthusiasm. I need to keep her energy level hight to get the attitude I want.

With Saffi at first she didn't really want to play, she was looking for food but I want to get her wotrking for the toy so iI brought her in, tried to get her to play and if she wouldn't I put her out again and brought another dog in and trained that for a few minutes. On the third time of trying Saffi started playing well with her toy. I worked on playing then asking her to leave it and then getting it again when told, keeping the excitement high. I also did some tranistioning from playing with the toy to working for food and back again.

With Ruby I used food working on getting enthusiasm for running for the treat. I could really use a larger area for training as the living room is not really big enough. I concentrated on building Rubys enthusiasm for the treat by moving it round fast before throwing it a little way and pretending to throw it.