Thanks to Gary Platt for taking and sharing this picture. He could make a living with his wonderful pics. This was from Obedience Camp 2009 - what fun!
Moto has really been blossoming since the camp and surprises me each day now. Surprise #1: he LOVES the frisbee. None of our dogs loves the frisbee except as a tug or chew toy but he really lights up when I throw it and loves retrieving it. I've added this to our training repetoire as a reward. Surprise #2: he prefers praise over treats! He's such an eager eater but it's quite clear that now he would rather hear me say"Wow, good boy!" over Here's a Cookie. Surprise #3 came today as we reviewed some things we hadn't done since before the car accident. He understands now about going and sitting inside the box on go-outs. He understands directed jumping from a good distance. He understands the broad jump (with a little guidance). Really, all he needs is stringing everything together and some fine tuning. Last: that darned heeling. I thought I had pretty good heeling until I went to Platt camp. When there I discovered several holes, the biggest of which is he still doesn't have good control of his rear. The second thing is that darned attention isn't where I want it either. So we are doing some big-time backchaining to get this under control. Also, he can do signals at a distance but what degenerates is the folding Down. So still need to work on the "back back Down" to get that in muscle memory. But, the mechanics of ALL the exercises - Novice thru Utility - have been trained! Woohoo! I was shocked at how much he remembered.
I need to be very careful to nurture his New Attitude as it quickly deteriorates with drilling and overdoing picky things. My drive for perfection can sometimes go a bit too far and I need to take that 1 inch of progress instead of shooting for that mile.
Best of all, I have more energy than ever since the car accident and while I'm not pain free by any means it is not getting in the way of my doing things.
YAY!
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