05.14.06
Weekend Training
Cosmo: I tracked her at Rosaryville Park in the late afternoon. The grass was slightly damp from the previous evening’s rain and appeared to have been recently mowed. I am working on decreasing the amount of food in the track and doing more than a schutzhund one track. I did three legs and than about 200 meters of an S pattern. She did great and didn’t seem bothered by the new shape. I was a little concerned we had wandered of course as she snaked around, but was happily surprised when we arrived at her end reward! We have also been working on focus, sitz, and platz. She knows them, but has chosen in the past to listen until something greater comes by. Now I am showing her she has no option but to listen. It seems to be going smoothly, but now she doesn’t want to go from the sitz to the platz, because she thinks she can’t get up! I will continue to focus on this for the rest of the week.
Jingo: Jingo’s obedience has improved drastically since we have gone back to the very basics. Instead of continuing to build on his shaky foundation, we started working on his focus and basic positions since January. I am very happy with his improvements and special thanks to Butch Henderson for his help. Jingo’s tracking continues to improve, but Saturday was a setback for him. After his track had aged, the grass had started to dry in the sun. The freshly mowed grass was like hay bales and kept sneezing throughout the track. He actually lost the track at a couple of points. I haven’t seen him track like this in some time, but I am chalking it up to poor conditions. If he continues to track like this throughout the week, we will go back to tracking for meals.
