Dragon was dressed in his best.
The wind streamlined him.
He's going to fly away on those ears!
I carried him as I checked out the booths so that he wouldn't get stepped on or accosted by larger or rude dogs. I don't let him greet unknown dogs while he's on leash, anyway. He was calm in my arms and got attention from people won over by his ears.
We went into the rally ring for a minute to do some tricks and get reinforcement for focusing in that context. He's not fluent in heeling yet but we did some sits, downs, stands, circle work, spins, and backing up. Of course, heeling and all other performance behaviors are just advanced tricks, so to the dog there's no difference!
From there we drove to Walnut Creek for the last week of our Control Unleashed class. We continued with reinforcing staying on mats and in crates, played Look at That, and upped the ante in the Give Me a Break game by moving the dogs on mats closer to the ring gates. During our second turn in the ring, with the other dogs lying close by, Dragon was suddenly unfocused and checking out every leaf or piece of debris on the ground. Since during the previous turn he had been coming right back to me to restart the game, and doing 4-5 behaviors per treat, it was likely a stress response. Then he started sniffing an area with no debris on it, and I suspected he might have to pee, so I took him outside. He did pee, but not much.
Afterwards he got to hang out with his pal Jacques the papillon while I chatted with Jacque's mom. To commemorate the end of class, I took pictures of them doing a mini-group stay.
We will hopefully see Jacques and his mom again soon, as she is developing her land into a training field and I'd like to lend a hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment