There is nothing like planning ahead :-)

I just had the greatest training session with my dogs! 

The weather is still really horrible and the wind is howling, the snow is blowing and it is really cold, but, when you are lost in that "zone" all seems right with the world :-)

I started with SoBe , realize there is no prescribed order in which I train my dogs but I guess if I think about it, generally SoBe and Wally go first. Well SoBe goes first because Wally is quiet in his crate while SoBe works and SoBe is a raving lunatic in her crate while Wally works. 

Because of this SoBe has to go first or she uses all available brain cells screaming in the crate and it makes for a less than productive training session.

I suppose you are wondering why I just do not teach SoBe to be quiet in her crate? Well, I am a big believer in picking my battles and since I want the utmost in attitude, energy and drive out of my dogs, I choose not to fight the quiet in the crate battle. 

If I am really bothered by the noise I just make more trips up the hill to rotate dogs.

Also, to be clear, I did not teach Wally to be quiet in the crate he just always is, you see Wally is perfect :-)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, a FANTASTIC training session! I had a plan for each dog and it is amazing how much better things go when you actually have a plan. 

It also makes a huge difference that I am finally rested up from the latest trip and I did manage to sort of get my house back in order after being gone for 2 weeks.

 This limits the overall stress I am feeling at the moment and makes it a lot easier to just lose myself in the training process.

This brings up another point, when you are feeling stressed, overly tired, sick, whatever, it is a good idea to take the day off, just hug your dogs instead of training them.

I will once again try to get back to the point... why was SoBe so brilliant tonight, even more than usual? Because I had a plan! 

I am really very bad about literally planning out my training sessions. I always have a general idea of what I want to work on or it would just be chaos, but, tonight I really felt ready and very focused on the task at hand.

SoBe needs work on her weave pole entries so I set up a great exercise with 2 sets of 6 poles separated by about 10 feet and a slight angle, I then had jumps and tunnels strategically located to offer many entry choices from essentially 4 different points of entry. With unlimited direction options.

I had great lead ins to the different entries and the best part of all was that I set SoBe up for success right off the bat! I used my fancy gates/cube shelving sections to help her collect at each entry point, I revved her up to near manic proportions and we took off. She had amazing entries and was collecting like a reining horse! 

It was all about speed and more speed and the collection necessary to get into the poles, she was amazing! I never did take the gates off because my mission was to have 100 percent success with SoBe taking all of the responsibility for entering and staying in the poles. Practicing success is always going to help you meet your goals long before practicing failure will.

We also worked on improving her teeter performance by focusing on the end behavior and the fact that it is her job to find the end of the board, not to just move the board.

Tomorrow we will focus on A-frame performance!

Next up was Wally, I know you will be surprised to hear that I find him to be absolutely brilliant! 

He also had some fun finding multiple challenging weave pole entries. 

Wally is also in the process of teaching his handler how to relax when he is doing the dog walk so that we can create the perfect "running" dog walk performance. Please note, I have no plans of ever teaching another dog a running dog walk Wally gets to be the one and only!

I have decided to go back to hoops and just let him run with reckless abandon, wow I feel so much better when I am not stressing about the contact, I bet he does too!

Merger got to come and play next, he was on fire! We are in the process of introducing weave pole channels and he is really racing through them. I think the crowning achievement for Merger tonight was his understanding of that dreaded outside turn cue! He did his "back's" on the left and the right with a verbal cue only!!

He also wrapped some jumps like I have never seen him do before and was pouncing into his Bang position at the bottom of the dog walk and A-frame! Another note, we are doing the bottom position only, not the whole piece of equipment. 

In general, we just had a really good time working and playing together, that is how it should be. We definitely got some good work in but mostly we just really enjoyed each others company!

OK, this is getting rather long winded :-) Torque of course needed his time so down to the building we went, what a little powerhouse! 

We played tug and I introduced him to the 2 toy game which he thought was awesome! Torque learned in about 30 seconds to make eye contact in order to get a treat, he also learned that there are treats to be had if you touch your nose to mom's hand, how cool is that!

There was a lot of toy time in between "behavior" drills it is really important to me that I have a dog that is equally motivated by toys and treats.

Since he was so incredibly driven to tug and chase his toy we brought out the traffic cone and practiced a few laps around the cone just for fun.

Then we took a run over to the teeter where at a very low height he bounced on and off the end of the board chasing his favorite toy of the moment, what fun!

Have I mentioned that I had a really great night?