Well. I'm so exuberant that I almost don't even know what to write. Training sessions with Basil and Teagan were absolutely lovely today!
Basil just rocked, no two ways about it. He did perfect articles, nice signals (only two goofs) and awesome gloves. He's finally learned to take a mark, and today he actually took the mark and ran out for the glove without knowing where it was...I could tell by his body language that he didn't know the glove was there, but he went out in the direction of the mark I gave him. I about fell over!! So exciting!
I also did a few reps of signals by heeling him into it and then standing him without any verbals; I haven't done that at all up until now, because I didn't want to heap on any more criteria until I knew he was pretty well set on signals. I only heeled him for 10 feet or so before doing a turn and then standing him. No problems at all! He's still doing signals at 25-30 feet, so we've finally progressed to the point that he can actually do them at competition distance. EXCITING!
We worked on go-outs and directed jumping today, too. Basil got confused about the presence of the jumps. We worked on go-outs first, and when I cued him to "go bop," he thought he was supposed to jump. I called him off the jump and then sent him out again, and he then went to the gating. This happened three times in our session, and he did many lovely go-outs. I've moved the broad jump chute back about 8-10 feet; it's about mid-point between the gating and the jumps. Even though the chute was that far back, he did lovely straight go-outs every time! I also fixed his "stanchion obsession" by using only a single piece of ring gating...that way, gating is dead center, and not stanchions. He didn't go for a stanchion once today.
After go-outs, we worked on directed jumping. There was a little confusion here and there--thinking the right jump signal is a signal to recall, and taking the wrong jump a few times--but overall, it was an astounding session. I was able to move the jumps to near-competition distance apart: 16 feet. I'm giving jump signals veeerrrrry slowly, leaning as I give them, so they're exaggerated. That's helped him a lot. I was tickled with his progress on jumping today. I'm starting to think that I just might be able to get him ready for our national specialty in October!
Teagan also had a great session; she's finally understood the retrieve over the high jump, with only 2 mistakes out of maybe 10 retrieves. Her DOR looks fantastic as well; I need to practice calling her out of the down, though, because she was confused today when I tried to do that. I just assumed she'd come when she was called, but she's not used to being called out of a down, and she wouldn't come. I had to call her again. When I called her out of the down the next time, though, she came immediately. She's such a literal dog!
The broad jump is also getting better...her fronts had been pretty sloppy, but today she was actually working to get a straight front. Good girl!
It was just a wonderful training session with both dogs. I'm dreading the onslaught of summer heat and humidity, because it's going to melt both dogs and ruin my training. I'm going to have to train for very short periods, early in the morning, and go to the club often. Maybe I can hope for a cool summer...
