Training - Tom 4/3/09

Below is a plan of part of what we were doing last night at training. I have been having problems with Tom and his overly solid wait but to do this exercise I needed him to wait so I could get in the right place to put him in the correct tunnel entrance, to help one of the girls held him by the collar and I called him to me and treated him, we then carried on which he did very well apart from his turn back to me after number 4, I think I was a bit late with my 'steady', coming out of the tunnel to the seesaw I pushed him out a bit so I could get a really straight entry which he did and then he did a good A frame running right to the bottom.

The second time I had to really do a squeaky voice to get the recall but got my 'steady' just right then put him in the tunnel and then completely lost him, out of the corner of my eye I saw him come out but then couldn't find him, I twiddled about a bit and said 'I've lost you' only to find that he was doing a beautiful seesaw :)

I like to have a criteria for things like contacts with all my dogs but have to admit that this sometimes goes to pot when the red mist comes down but my 'steady' is the same for all three and that is 'go over the jump, wrap the wing and come back towards me whatever side I'm on' this means that I don't have to put a left/right in as well as the steady. Last night we had several opportunities to practice this and Tom go it every time but I need to do some more work on tightening up the wing wrap as he tends to power off as soon as he lands which make the turns rather wide, he loves his tug and treat so I'm going to use this to help tighten up the turns.