Today I was driving home when I noted a nice empty grassy field at a corner, the last holdout in a commercializing intersection, and I immediately changed lanes, turned, and pulled in to get a few minutes of practice with Laev in a new location. :-) I noticed first that Laev gave me very nice attention upon exiting the car, ready to get right to work; I noticed second that we haven't done much work at all around traffic, and it was a big distraction for her.
It's been raining for days here, and it's been a wet fall overall, and it was taking a break from actual rain to do a little misting while we practiced. We did a short routine of heeling, which was pretty decent, and then as I headed across the field I tried a sit out of motion. What I couldn't see in the long grass was the enormous deep puddle which we reached just as I cued the sit.
My shoes filled with water. Laev sat, but she gave me a dirty look. "Don't you know that Dobermans melt in water?"
Neither of my Dobes really dislike standing water (except that obviously sitting and lying down in it is ridiculous in their eyes), but they're not crazy about rain. I've tried to raise Laev so that she didn't regard precipitation as a terrible evil, and she will play tug in the rain with me, but apparently asking her to sit in the puddle violated some unspoken agreement and while she complied, I had better pay big for this one. I did. :-)
I did a couple of downs out of motion as well, and she crouched at first until I reminded her that she needed a full down in order to get a piece of cheese, after which she did sink into the lowest position of not quite smooshed into the wet that she could get. It looked like a down, anyway. :-) We moved to a different area and did a down with recall.
Everything was very short distance; I wasn't going to take her offleash beside two busy streets, even if she was giving me nice attention and working well. It takes only one mistake. I am, however, learning to look around unfamiliar fields before I train. :-)
