What a great 3 days! Everyone had fun and learned alot. We had cold, rain and giant gusts of wind but everyone stayed in a great mood. The sun finally came out and the wind died down just as we were wrapping things up on Sunday. Friday we started out with everyone doing obedience. Stefan either gave pointers or said that things looked great. He worked with Tom and Chewy alot on their dumbell hold. They made alot of progress just in 3 days. Vada did good heeling and her sit and down in motion were perfect. Stefan even said full points and perfect. Less then a week earlier Vada had lost her sit in motion so I was very happy to see that she got it back. Then I showed Stefan what I was doing with the stand in motion. He told me to just tell her to stay and walk away. So I did and she stayed. I kept adding time that I waited til I went back to her. She got it. Finally. I did a bit more of that with her later in the day too.
We also did 2 rounds of bitework. My goals with Vada were to work on neutralizing her to me by the helper, drives and long bite. Both of her sessions on Friday were really good. Stefan does his walking back when the dog is in front and barking. It keeps the dog focused on the helper and it makes the dog feel like they are pushing him. So he does that as I walk up to him so that Vada doesn’t worry about me. As I walked up and he would walk back then he would stop and tell me to tell her to sit. As soon as she sat he would pop the sleeve. At one point he told me to tell her to sit but I didn’t understand him and she sat on her own. LOL He said to always start the dogs with a bark and hold in the blinds to get them warmed up. For the second session we worked on drives. Unfortunately, the first session didn’t get taped even though we thought it was. And the battery had run out for the second session. I was bummed. We just got obedience but it was good obedience. 🙂 I think we worked on the back transport on Friday too. It was very good.
Friday night we all went to Darryl’s house for pizza. I worked Copper after everyone left and let them both stretch their legs. I was home long enough to feed them and crate them and then headed to Darryl’s. Darryl has a nice house, nice wife and 2 very nice dogs. By the time I got home it was another late night. Deb was at training on Friday too so it was nice to see her again and to see her Dutch Shepherd, Bart. He’s a very nice boy!
Saturday a few people worked on obedience if they needed to. I ran all 6 blinds with Vada for the toy. Then I just did 4 for the toy and put her away. Later I did some stands in front of my van. I did them out of motion too with a light tap back on her leash. She’s doing them with that little bit of help! I also worked Copper a bit off on the side of the field. I did some heeling and sit and down and stand in motion with him as well as had him chase the tug and bring it back to me. Then we did our 2 rounds of protection. We did the same thing as the day before. In the first round we worked on her doing the first 4 blinds to a helper in the 4th blind. Then I put her on a down outside the blind and sent her to the last 2 and there was a helper in the last one. She loved that. We did more neutralizing and a long bite. In session 2 we worked on drives again. She looked good. When we were cleaning up and getting ready to leave for dinner I let Copper out to walk around. He was getting so much pets from everyone. He even jumped up on the picnic table with people to get petted. He was in heaven! He was very spoiled!
Saturday night we went to Tanuchi’s in Newport. It was a buffet. An expensive buffet but it was really good food. Karl joined us for dinner which was nice. Everyone likes to see Karl again. I was happy to get to see him for a bit too. All weekend I was only home long enough to sleep. After we got home I hooked up the video camera to the TV so I could show Karl what we had been doing.
Sunday was much the same as Saturday. A few people did obedience. I worked Vada a bit and worked on the moving stand again. When I did it with no help she sat. Stefan suggested I use the German command for stay so it sounds different then my sit command. Protection went well again. Her grips were better on Sunday. Angeli had asked Stefan about her grips on Saturday as they were getting crappy and he said it was because she was getting tired. Sunday we had Tom work her so Stefan could give him pointers. We mostly worked on neutralizing. I totally forgot to bring the camera out on the first session. The second session we did some work in the blind and then some catches. Dennis came out for the day and trained Diesel and Ronin. Jason also came out and trained his Malinois, Nico. It was great to see them since they haven’t been out to club training for a long time.
Everyone had a lot of fun. All of the dogs made progress in obedience and protection. Stefan showed us how to have the dogs run through our legs on recalls to get straighter fronts. By the end of the weekend most guys had overcome their fear and had their dogs doing it. They had fun with it at first! LOL
Stefan had to hit the road by 4pm to get ready to get on his flight. That gave me time to get some yardwork done after I got home. I finished putting up the little garden picket fence. I planted the mums since the wind keeps blowing them over. And I picked up garbage, bones, toys and sticks in the yard. So I’ll be able to mow one night this week if it ever quits raining.
I think we’ll have the stand solid for our II at the end of June. I also think that doing the helper walking back is going to help Vada alot for neutralizing so that’ll be less points that we lose there too. And Tom got to practice long catches with her again too. Those were my goals for the weekend and I think we met them all!