Last week Meg and I started two classes: Agility II with Penney Morse and Loose Leash Walking with Pat Moberly and Judy Campbell of Diamonds in The Ruff. This is our first class with Diamonds in the Ruff and so far its been fantastic. DITR offers many focused classes to work on specific things. I'm really looking forward to taking more classes with them in the future. We're signed up for another leash walking class at area parks next month. Here's hoping the weather improves.
Our Loose Leash Walking class has been great and we've learned many new steps towards calm walking on the leash without the pulling and walking all over the place. Meg does fantastic on our exercises in class and at home in the yard, but once we start walking on the road...everything is forgotten. We'll get there eventually. I think the exercise that has helped the most is Silky Leash, borrowed from Ahimsa Dog training. Basically, it teaches the dog to respond to slight pressure on the leash by turning towards the direction of the leash, relieving the pressure.
We're also working on some thing we already know, like hand targeting and 'leave it'. It's been great to review. Our 'leave it' seems to be a bit rusty so we'll make that one of our main focuses this week at home.
There are a number of other dogs in our Loose Leash class. Some of the younger dogs have tried to greet Meg by sniffing her face, which results in her snarling at them. I need to work on redirecting her towards me so the other dogs don't have a chance to get in her face.
Our Agility II class last week was a lot of fun. We've been working on a makeshift teeter at home (a board on top of a 6-inch block). Meg has been doing great with that and I was eager to see if our training would transfer over to the real teeter in class. It did! She did fantastic, even pulling ahead of me to find the tipping point on the big teeter. She showed no sign of being nervous about the equipment at all.
She was a bit nervous about all the other dogs and their people in class though. Up to this point, her agility classes have been small, with just one or two other dogs. Our current class has 5-6 dogs in it. This is a great opportunity for Meg to get used being around more dogs and people.
One of our main focuses last week in agility was teaching the dogs to stop and wait at the bottom of the dog walk. We've been practicing this at home on a board for about a month. Meg did great in class on her first two tries, but 'forgot' on tries 3 and 4 when I sped up a bit. We spent the past week working on it some more at home with me working on both sides of her at different speeds. I think she's really got it down now. I'm looking forward to seeing how she does in class tonight.
Meg continues to go to Ruff'n It Dog Day Camp once a week. I'm able to bring my laptop to work and watch her on the webcams. She seems to love running wide circles around the other dogs and running through the bottom of the kiddie slide like its an agility tunnel. She also loves to play fetch with Dan, the human. She plays with some of the other dogs, but is pretty picky about her friends. I guess I can't blame her because I am too.
We have managed to enjoy a few days of sunshine here and there. Here are a few pictures from one of our walks. As you can see, both Meg and Bear put on a little weight over the winter. They've already begun to slim down a bit with more frequent off-leash walks through the fields.
