Sunday mornings

I don't know exactly why but I have always loved Sunday mornings.  It's a day where I can occasionally relax and enjoy watching the world go by a little.  Things slow down, I'm not in a rush to get to work.  I take my time with the dogs and usually have a very long outing with them at some point.

That's how it has been so far this morning.  I took the dogs to the park, in the car, so I could control how much exercise each of them got.  Both had a really nice long leisurely walk.  Gata just had a few sessions of position changes and maybe 3 or 4 long throws.  I did require that she work quietly though.  If Gata starts work quietly she will usually stay that way.  Sometimes she will quiet herself as we get going but her tendency in competition is to build and get noisier.  Today she was pretty amped up just getting out of the car.  So as we walked toward the field I asked her to heel.  She took the basic position sitting at my side and was whining.  I told her "No, quiet" and backed up.  I told her heel again.  Her silence earned her the ball.  Did the same thing and took one step forward - she whined.  I told her "No, quiet" and backed up.  Gata doesn't like to back up in heeling position so this is a form of punishment for her.  Plus, it takes her further away from where she wants to be - the field.  Repeated successfully and gave her a short throw.  Did the same thing with about 3 steps of heeling successfully and that was it for her heeling/"Silence" work for today.  After that, she did her position changes quietly (normally quiet for these anyway) and that was it for any real training with her this morning.

Tor got quite a bit more work but in little increments.  With him, I finally started the leash pressure stuff that Michael does.  I'm not exactly sure that I am doing it right although the concept is pretty easy to understand.  Tor seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly in the straight forward direction.  It wasn't as easy for him when I tried it a little sideways.  But I didn't really push it.  I think this is a process that will take several days to a week to really get.  I will be positively thrilled if it results in a dog that doesn't try to drag me around on a leash attached to his regular collar!  I will also do this with Gata at some point in the future.

Also, went back to some basic obedience stuff with Tor today.  Position changes in all different orientations to me, moving and stationary.  Also continued to work on duration of his positions.  His sit and down are going quite well but have neglected his stand in the different locations and really need to spend more time on that.  Also did a little tiny bit of heeling stuff.

He was really good about everything.  We switched easily between tug, balls, and food today and he worked well for everything.