It's been about two weeks since I first posted about prepping Casey for his debut in Obedience and Rally in April. Our training has been interrupted this past week by life. Unfortunately not everyone thinks training your dog for a trial is a priority.
I wrote out a visualization of Casey and I performing the Novice exercises in the ring. I heard top athletes do this, why not Obedience and Rally competitors?
Where we are now:
Down and Sit are not on stim control for voice cues. I can signal sit or down and get the right response, but the verbal discrimination just isn't there. It may not matter since the only time I down a dog in Obedience or Rally I signal, still I want to work on that.
Heel-He is doing very well at heeling when we go out in a straight line and turns are pretty good. I think we can start putting them together. I'd like a little more distance on straight line heeling before I begin working on fast and slow. I'm not in any hurry to add the automatic sit.
Recall-We've been doing angle fronts from a short distance and we're ready to start adding distance. He really can do this exercise well enough to get by, but I want to be sure we work it.
Stand-Adding duration to the stand. I want to take Casey to the conformation class a few times to get him used to being gone over. He's not a conformation dog, but that's okay. I think it will be helpful.
Stays-I backed up a bit on stays because I want them tight. Did sit and down stays with me close varying duration between 10 and 20 seconds. I want to get duration to 1 minute before I begin adding distance to it.
Rally-Decided that we were far enough along to start doing the Rally Novice signs. I pulled out all the Novice signs and then the ones that we already had the basics for. We're ready to do 360 right and left, 270 right and left, about and U turns, right and left turns, spiral left and right, serpentine, straight figure 8, and moving side-step right. I want to get him into the next Rally class which should come before the trials.
I really think we're right on track although I wish I had not let training be bypassed last week.
Just have to stick to the training plan and stand my ground. Maybe I need a really good reward for training--like cheescake!
