Another lovely session today!
Basil worked on everything except go-outs (we'll shoot for those tomorrow). Signals were perfect!!!!! WOO HOOOOOOOO! We worked at 12-15 paces (25-30 feet) and he nailed every single one, no anticipation or missed signals. We also did gloves, and he did very well on those; he's up to about 10 feet away on totally blind retrieves and doing great. He did miss the glove once today but only because I had it placed too close to the bar jump, and he got confused and thought he was supposed to jump.
He had one error in directed jumping, but overall, it was beautiful. I'm keeping my jump signal very slow and deliberate, and I have a slight lean when I give it to help him out (all this will be eliminated later). Today I moved the jumps to about 8 paces apart (about 15 feet), and he worked like a little champ.
Articles were flawless; we did a mishmash of metal and leather at about 8-10 feet from the pile. The pile is full, with 10 articles. I think at our next session I'm going to add two more, that way 10 in competition will seem like a breeze. It's also time for me to start adding distance again, since he's doing so well. He didn't make a single mistake today when we did articles.
We still have so much to work on....we haven't worked on pivoting at all, or the moving stand. We also haven't put signals together with the actual heeling pattern yet, nor have we added the pivot to the signals or had the pile touched by anyone else yet. Go-outs are still a major work in progress, and I haven't entirely faded the broad jump chute (nowhere near it, actually). So much to do!
Teagan had a pretty good session, too. We did 2 out-of-sight sits, one for 4 minutes and one for 3 minutes 45 seconds. I'm starting to randomize reinforcement, with the longest interval without treats at 1 minute 15 seconds.
We did some high jump work, and the baby gating was down since it's been raining. She ran around a few times, but also had many nice returns over the jump later in the session. Her DOR was perfect; I don't anticipate any real problems with that behavior. It's essentially taught at this stage, and ring-ready (other than adding distractions). We did work on the broad jump and that was pretty ugly. She's jumping beautifully, which is a victory for her, but her fronts have completely disintegrated. I may need to put the bar from the bar jump back in again as a guide.
