A rainy day session in the garage

Well. Today went just about as fantastic as can be expected after last week's debacles in training, between Basil's injured feet and those blasted signals.

It's raining outside, so we couldn't work in the yard; I'm not really complaining, because even though I would have liked to work in the yard, I'm thrilled we're getting the rain. My gardens and flower beds need it badly. So, we decided to work in the garage. We have a 2 1/2 car garage, so it's pretty spacious, even with my car parked in there.

Another change for today: liver brownies. Holy cow, what a difference. I haven't made them in ages, instead relying on the same mix of Natural Balance food roll, cheese and turkey dogs...for months. I know, bad owner, but it's the same mix I use for clients and I've been so overloaded that I've gotten a little lazy.

The liver brownies are really easy to make, even though they're disgusting to process (you have to puree the chicken livers in the blender first); Basil always knows what I'm baking when these are in the oven and parks himself in the kitchen the entire time they bake!

So, after the brownies cooled just enough for the dogs to eat, I took Basil out into the garage. SIGNALS WENT PERFECTLY! It was as if no problem existed last week...I could have wept with happiness. I think it was a combination of things: his feet are healed, the liver brownies, and time to "forget" that Mom got irritated last week when we did signals. We were doing short-distance signals at only about 15 feet, but it was better to start easy anyway, since we're trying to mend my dumb mistakes.

I set up ring gating along one end of the garage to do some short (15 foot) go-outs. The first time I sent him, he wasn't at all confused! He ran straight into the chute, bopped the gating with his paw, and earned himself a nice fat jackpot. I could hardly believe my eyes! After that first go-out, I removed the broad jump chute, leaving only two striped agility jump bars on the floor as his new "chute." It's time for me to start fading the picture of the chute. Next I'll start pulling that chute away from his target (wall, gating, whatever). He did several great go-outs, enthusiastically bopping, and then we moved on to articles.

Before I continue, I should also comment that it's very cool today--somewhere around 50-55 degrees. Last week, it was 75 and we were working in the sun. I think that contributed to our literal and figurative meltdown.

Articles also went amazingly well. We were pretty close, about 12 feet, so I put out eight articles. Pretty soon, we'll be up to a full pile again (the last time Basil worked a full pile was when I was still standing next to it--as I added distance, I removed articles. When I initially added distance, I cut the pile down to 4 articles, and have been adding them back ever since). He retrieved each article correctly; I did 3 metal and 3 leather, and the only bobble was picking up an incorrect leather after I put the scented leather article out. He picked it up, turned to me, spit it out immediately while still at the pile, and then found the correct one. GOOD BOY!

Gloves went well also. I clicked him for taking a mark, as he's still sometimes confused by my mark hand (he'll look at the hand, or think he's supposed to down), so I clicked looking in the direction of the mark. The glove is still pretty close, no more than 6-8 feet away. We did do some "blind" retrieves of the glove, with me tossing it while his back was turned. No problems at all, but again, the glove is still very close.

I was practically flying by the time we finished this training session and was sad to have to put Basil in the house so the other dogs could have a turn. If we can continue at a decent pace, Basil will definitely be ready for our national specialty in October. I'd ideally like to have him ready in September for a trial or two, just as a test run. We're starting to make serious progress. Our final frontier to cover is directed jumping, which I'm thinking should be pretty easy, since Basil used to do agility.

I worked with Teagan and Peach, too. Teagan is still having difficulty waiting when the dumbbell is thrown. She lunges and then catches herself, crouching into a down like a Border Collie. It's the funniest thing! I did some treating for waits, and that seemed to help. We also did more DOR work, and I also threw the dumbbell over a high jump a few times; I didn't have a jump bar set up, just the bottom crossbar between the stanchions. She did well.

Peach was...Peach. Very distracted, flitting off, etc. She got herself so worked up that she had to poop, and after she pooped, she seemed much better and more able to pay attention. I set up three cones and we did some rally spirals, and she actually did fantastic! I'm still using a lure in my left hand because she's so highly distractible, especially in new settings, but I was proud of her progress. My baby is trying. Most of the time...