Not too much happening here since Discover Dogs! We attended one breed show the week after, Elton got Best of Breed and Ria was a disaster - just as the judge put her hands on her another dog errupted behind and really scared her. She did let her go over her but wasn't happy and didn't show well. Hopefully she'll be ok next time - she has a nice long break!
Other than that it's been regular agility classes for all three dogs, and that's about it!

Solei is enjoying his classes, but he's lacking the foundation and understanding of the other two which is a bit awkward for me too - I have to remember which dog I've got! Due to his first few years he doesn't seem to learn in the same way either. He has rekindled his dog walk/aframe obsession and takes great delight in doing them whenever he thinks that might possibly be what I want :X

We've resumed weave training with channel weaves (as that's what they use there) and it seems to be going better than last time so there might be hope yet. I want toy play to carry over better but I am able to get some play there, just not really as a reward yet - that said it did work a couple of times! I'm just trying to be careful to not "reward" lack of interest in toys (you don't want the toy? that's ok, you can have food). Last class of the year next week, and in a moment of madness I entered him for his first trial in January :-P (just to see how focused or not he is)


Elton...I think his confidence is slowly growing. He's very "sticky" still and needs an awful lot of work on independent behaviour (which is also largely a confidence thing) but he is making progress. He's enjoying it, which is the main thing :) He is starting to interact with toys a bit, though as a functional reward it's a bit hit and miss so I'm mainly using alteratives (food in various ways!). Contact equipment is still very much work in progress, but he was walking right to the top and down the up part of a lowered dog walk plank last week, which is definite progress. The chute is also still a scary cavern!

He did a beginners course running workshop a couple of weeks ago, just jumps and tunnels and we gradually built the sequence back until at the end we ran the whole course. I was really pleased with him, he was fab - even though I suck and forgot the course when we came to run the whole thing.

I've recently borrowed a Manners Minder and just started his 2x2 training again, so that's my Christmas project! I completely buggered it all up last time and it's been super fragmented, so I need to basically undo what I've done and start from scratch!


Ria I think may be maturing. I've had a lot of issues with her, largely with reactivity - especially towards other dogs. She has struggled to concentrate in classes because of that, even after months. It's been incredibly frustrating and very depressing, I have worked really hard with her but at times it felt almost like we were going backwards!

She had a really good week in class the Wednesday before Discover Dogs, much more focused. A few days later Solei went absolutely crazy and there followed a very peculiar season which never seemed to develop into a proper one - but I kept her out of class for 3 weeks to be safe, more from the mental aspect than physical - I didn't want her to go all spooky or skittish or anything, especially as the previous week had been so very positive. Last Wednesday was her first week back - and omg she was SO AWESOME ♥

Not once during the class did she run off or bark, and she was pretty focused. As she hadn't been there for a few weeks to start with we went up to the top of arena on our own and I just played some focus stuff with her and threw her ball - but even there I noticed a difference, she was much more interested in me and less interested in the floor and what was going on around her. Then we did a couple of dog walk ends and I mixed up rewarding with food or toy. Then we moved on to sequences.

This is what we were running - two different sequences - obviously not to scale and the jumps aren't quite in the right place but you get the idea - (run from the top) jump, tunnel, dog walk, pin wheel. First time she blasted past the first jump after the dog walk (contact was ok but when I released her she veered off...couldn't figure out why at the time as she was still somewhat focused and came back rather than wandering off, but it dawned on me later - I think she thought she'd finished and was expecting me to chuck the ball :P

Second time she ran it it was really nice (and there was another group working the other sequence, which was in quite close proximity, at the same time, so I was so impressed with her managing to keep focused). So then we were told to run to the wing of the jump after the dog walk before the dog had finished the dog walk to see if the contacts held up, then release from there. The other two dogs contacts blew up, Ria's were lovely but then she could not get the pinwheel - eventually got her to take the first & last but she kept missing out the middle one. Gave up and let the next person go, whilst I was waiting I remembered I'd had that problem before and it was when I was trying to "help" her....because she's so used to work further away from me when I'm that close I actually end up pushing her off stuff - which is why she'd done it fine the previous time, I was further back. So we tried it again with me further back and she got it perfectly.

Then we moved on to the other sequence and she was prettty awesome there too :) Blasted past the weaves the first time but then was ok after that - except after I managed to throw her ball *into* the tunnel when rewarding the first set of weaves and the next time she did that bit she decided the tunnel was way too awesome cos last time it had a ball in it too and she'd only do half the weaves. More proofing required ;) (though she only tried it once and didn't miss a pole the rest of the session, which I was extra pleased with because I've had a problem with her popping out one pole too early after I accidentally rewarded it a couple times :X)

The other really, really fantastic news is that we finally seem to be making obvious progress with her reactivity. Yes she can still go overthreshold if I'm not careful, but the last couple of times I've unexpectedly met another dog off lead she has bounded a couple of steps towards them without making a noise, then recalled back to me - previously she would often bark whilst going towards them and then would just run in a completely uncontrolled "panic" and there certainly would have been no hope of her tuning in to me to recall (though her running was always a large circle which ended up back at me).

We have also managed to walk past various dogs without her making a sound - lots of food involved and the occasional cookie on the nose but even that wouldn't have stopped her before.

I am under no illusions; we still have a hell of a long way to go (as she sometimes reminds me!) but I feel more encouraged that maybe there is hope yet :)