Rally Class

Yesterday Ike and I had Rally class and he was pretty super, IMO. Our heeling has improved tremendously - although Ike doesn't "get it" - that it is one behavior. We are getting there. At the moment the biggest thing we need to work on other than heeling, crooked fronts, and taking it SLOWER are Halt, Stay, Walk Around Your Dog and Halt, Down, Stay, Walk Around Your Dog.

The winter I spent teaching Ike to stay we worked on this a lot. That was about 3 or 4 years ago....and then we haven't worked on it since. Guess what, it shows! So we need to practice, a lot.

I am thinking about utilizing the Manners Minder for this. At first Jenny suggest playing a leave-it game using a target plate. Ike would be ALL over that - touching away! So, I am going to experiment and practice. This is an easy skill to brush up on and I will also work on it with Bug. The more I do Rally-O with Ike, the more I want to do it with Bug too!!

Oh, side note: Including my friend Marlene's dog Kody, there are three Golden Retrievers in this class. I have mentioned in the past that Ike has generalized about Goldens and does not think they are very nice. Well, joy - all these GR are great. Ike has decided he REALLY likes Nicky a young handsome Golden and started swinging his tush at him yesterday. This is the universal Schnauzer "I wanna play" greeting. Hooray!