Yesterday I showed Peach in breed at my regional Scottie specialty, and I took Basil along so I could work with him on Utility. I knew that I could have him off-leash in the building because it was only Scottie people, we were among friends, and no AKC reps would be there.
We worked on go-outs, signals, articles, and gloves. Go-outs went VERY well. I sent him to the outside of the ring after setting up the broad jump chute with a stanchion in the middle. The very first time I sent him, I was probably only ten feet from the edge of the chute, but he still ran out and did his dilly-dally thing at the broad jump board. I went out, took him by the collar, led him to the middle and had him bop the stanchion. After that, no problems at all! We quickly progressed to 20-25 foot go outs, with lots of people milling around and some lining up alongside to watch. They were all good distractions for him. I think after the initial miss, he only missed one more go out (of maybe 20) when he just didn't hear my cue because he was distracted (this theme seemed to repeat itself...).
After go outs, we worked on signals in the same area, outside the ring but right next to the boutique table. At first, he was extremely distracted and missed several signals. I found myself having to give a few verbals, which was very disappointing. But once he got working, I was able to do signals at a very nice distance of 15 to 18 feet! I was super proud of him for this. He missed the sit signal most often, because he knows that the down is the first signal, so he tends to do it as a default if he hasn't been paying attention (although he missed a down or two as well).
We took a break for a while, then did articles. I put out six articles at a distance of 8 feet or so, and he did the first several articles without any problem. Once I switched to leather, though, he got VERY weirded out by the presence of the photographer, whose table was set up near the area we were training in. Suddenly, he couldn't even do scent discrimination with me standing right next to the pile. We scrapped it, and I've made a mental note to start working scent discrimination in as many places as possible so he can start pushing it a bit.
We did do some work with the glove after the snafu with the articles, and Basil did very well; we did a few holds in front, and also a handful of very short retrieves, and no problems there. After that I finished with him for the day...he was still acting a little weird, and even when we went to sit down, Basil didn't want to sit with me. He ran into his crate (he was off-leash) and curled up into a ball and wouldn't come out. I think it may have been the acoustics (old airport-hangar type place), which Peach also didn't like.
Overall I think it was a pretty successful training session; any opportunity to work in a new place is excellent both for Basil and for me, so I can see what's working and what's not. I now know that I need to work on the following:
* signals with distractions going on around us. Need to reinforce lots of eye contact while activity occurs around us. Once it warms up outside, we'll start working out there more, and I can even take him down to the school.
* go outs to new/novel locations. I need to get him over this hump of running out and flitting about at the broad jump chute. I'm confident he can overcome it, but I need to be more dedicated about generalizing him.
* articles in new locations with other stuff going on around us (again, see the theme here?)
* keep at it with gloves.
* need to vary my reinforcement more. I've gotten lazy lately. I used good stuff yesterday (liver and tuna brownies), but at home I've been doing the same old turkey hot dog/cheese/Natural Balance mix for months.
The big downside to training alone is that it's almost always very quiet. I need to get down to the club every week this spring, now that my school schedule has lightened up.
