Made It to Hanover

While I never get as much done on my "free" weekends as I expect to (or hope to), we did make it to Hanover yesterday and today to practice heeling on the green. Iggy did very well, all things considered, and was a little less tempted today to sniff and sight-see than he was yesterday. This morning there was another lab there and Iggy managed to keep his attention on me -- most of the time. Too bad it was in large part due to treats!! The attention with distractions and without treats will come, but it will be a slow process.

Bethena did some great free-form rally-o heeling. It has to be on-leash because it's a busy and unfenced place, but it's still good practice. Today, she even did a figure-8 around two treats that I used as posts without trying to eat the treat-posts! Yeah! (She did get to eat the treats as a reward for doing such a good job.) We have used our new jumps a little bit; it's so nice to have them in the front yard where I can incorporate them into her heeling/rally practices. I haven't used them yet to try to work on any open exercises, although it is on my to-do list.

I was very extravagant and did order official utility scent articles from J&J yesterday. Martha really likes Deborah Jones's book Click n Sniff for formal AKC utility scent training and she also has Roy Hunter's Fun Nosework for Dogs. Hunter's book isn't geared toward the utility exercises, but it has lots of cool things to do with your dog. Anyone interested in lots of information about all sorts of sites related to obedience should check out Dr. P's Dog Obedience web page.

We did manage to get in a swim at the pond this morning before doing a little training. They ran and ran and ran and Bethena swam a lot (tho she is reduced to retrieving the rope from the kong toy, as the toy itself sank after they played tug with it too much and several attempted rope/kong repairs left the float inside the kong inoperable). Iggy makes lots of noise running around, but his cowbell lets me know where he is. He is enough of a boy that he doesn't always think ahead to things like "what will happen if I get out of sight and can't find my way back?" After having one episode almost a year ago where we were in the woods and he decided he didn't need to come when called (for half an hour, during which I was crazy-insane screaming his name and Bethena was fretfully searching with me), it was a long time before I let him off-leash again. Only recently have I had him off-leash when I was by myself and didn't have a friend walking with me. His recall was rock-solid when he was a puppy, but as he got past 8 or 9 months old, it started falling apart. The day he pulled his disappearing act he was about 13 months old and he got neutered the next day. He has been better since then, but I have also been a lot less trusting since then.

Hopefully the weather will get a little better (it was about 60 degrees all day today and mostly cloudy) for training over the next two weeks before the next shows in Hopkinton (Wednesday and Thursday). Bethena is entered there in rally advanced b.