Monday, January 16, 2012

Obedience & Nosework

Not much blogging going on here. We've been busy though!

This weekend Irie had her second Foundation Obedience/Rally class. I am so pleased with her work ethic. She has great focus for any dog, let alone a 4.5 month old puppy. We did some "about turns" in our "choose to heel" and she seems to really understand that game. Her "about turns" were quite nice.

We worked on fronts, and if I do not ruin it, she currently naturally gets into a pretty straight front. Please don't let me ruin it (Ike and Bug are both hopelessly crooked!).

Perch work made a leap forward and she is really understanding moving her rear feet independently of her front feet.

Bug had his second Nosework lesson this weekend. A few years ago my friend Marie and I attended one of the first Nosework workshops on the east coast. She started taking classes and I did not. Since Bug can no longer do herding or agility, and we are not that excited about Rally, we were looking for something to do together. My commute makes it hard to be taking two weeknight classes, so Marie offered to give us some private Nosework lessons on the weekends.

Bug is a natural hunter and is really, really enjoying this game. I LOVE seeing him so excited to play. I thought his lack of excitement about Rally and Obedience was due to my lack of excitement about obedience. However, I now see how focused Irie is about Obedience/Rally and I no longer think that it's me. I think Bug just didn't really care for Obedience/Rally. So, we will focus on Nosework together and possibly tracking. I might still do some Rally with him, but I am certainly not going to plan on focusing in it with him.

I was sick last week, so Ike missed Tuesday night class. This week will focus on him, though. We have class on Tuesday and are attending two Amanda Shyne workshops over the weekend. Saturday is a 4-hour workshop on Jumping Skills and Sunday is a 4-hour workshop on Building Drive. I am a bit nervous about Sunday's workshop. I am not sure it will be a workshop Ike enjoys (he really only plays with toys at home and only with select toys). I wish I could do it with the puppy, although I don't think I will need to do a lot of drive building with her! I am mostly going because it is a topic that interests me and I have had to work really hard with Ike. I know there will be other dogs I have to work as hard with and I'd like more tools in my toolbox.

1 comment:

Kathy Mocharnuk said...

I miss having some good classes esp after I hear about all you guys are doing, I love the choose to heel stuff, I hope the nosework does good for Bug and you, sounds like it might be a great solution for something you guys can do together