Target!

Meg and I started playing a new game yesterday. She knows target, but is getting sloppy about it and won't actually touch the target with her nose and sometimes she will just walk towards it and then turn around and look at me. Other times we won't touch it with her nose...she'll just sit or lay on it, which is not what I want. Silly girl! So now we play target-soccer. I will kick the ball for her when she touches the target. Its fun watching her. She brings me the ball, she touches the target, I kick the ball. She brings it back, touches the target, I kick again. Hopefully this will help solidify her targeting and also help teach her not to come back to me to get a treat after she touches the target.

In class on Wednesday, Meg did an awesome sit-stay. She has a tendency to either lie down or creep forward on sit-stay. We worked on it quite a bit Tuesday night on our walk. In class, she was the only one to hold the stay the entire time. Even Bear, who loves 'playing' sit-stay, broke his stay. Huge rewards for Meg.

We also worked on wraps...Meg has it down...I need some work. Lol.

We got one step closer to a back cross too, using the target to get her to go ahead of me. Meg did this one ok in class, but when we worked on it in the yard yesterday, she didn't want to touch the target at first (hence the creation of target-soccer) and then she just wanted to wrap. We'll keep working on it, but I think old Bear is doing better with this one than Meg is.

Another thing she's having trouble with is a standing stay/stop. I think it might be because we've been working on sit-stay so much, she thinks she needs to be in a sit. We'll give the clicker a try for this one and see how we do.

On another note, Meg met someone new yesterday. A chocolate lab decided to run up and greet us while we were out walking. Meg absolutely flipped out initially (as is typical for Meg). The chocolate decided to try saying 'hi' to Bear instead. He growled a warning at him though. The poor dog with his tail wagging non-stop just wanted to say hi. By that point Meg had calmed down some so chocolate came back to her. She sniffed him and he was very polite and came in sideways so they could both sniff at the same time only Meg wasn't having it. She's actually quite rude. Once she finished her sniffing, she snapped at him (not aggressive, just her version of saying 'get lost'). Disappointed, he trotted back to his owner.

What happened after that was great though. Meg seemed to have gained a little confidence from the encounter and wasn't bugged by other dogs (in their own yards) for the rest of the walk. She just kept her eyes forward and ignored them, as she should.

She really needs to socialize with some other dogs. Hopefully we can try Doggie Day Camp this winter, if she makes it past the evaluation.