A Big Dog Transition

If you don't own dogs, you won't get why this is such a big deal.
If you DO have dogs, you know this is HUGE:

I can put the wastebasket on the floor.

What freedom!
Since I've had such bad luck health-wise with my dogs, we've pretty much had a parade of puppies for several years. First Blitz, then Moto and then Pinch.

Little by little the puppy proofing has gone away as each dog has become a young adult. But never, ever in all these years has the wastebasket ever been able to leave its spot on top of the toilet tank. That is, until today. Everyone seems unimpressed with the change, which of course is a good thing. We are now a "regular' dog house. Hooray!
The weather continues to be uncooperative for training outdoors. It's either ridiculously hot, ridiculously windy or a combination of both. I'd like to get moving on the broad jump with Pinch. We are at the point where I still stand beyond the broad jump, but I can now face sideways, the picture he'll get with the finished product. It's time to start working that turn but alas, the nasty weather. Ditto directed jumping. He's getting it - going over the jump with the raised hand - but I need to start moving back toward the center. On the good side, we're working lots of fronts and finishes and I must say so myself they look lovely. Enthusiasm on recalls causes a crooked front which is a great problem to have.
I'm not going to give up on Moto. One one of the obedience e-groups I belong to there has been heated discussion about recalls and relationships. While the problem of the recall is not ours, I do believe I can, painfully, admit the heeling and work ethic problem is a large part due to our relationship. Yeah, it really hurts to say that. While it's not fair to expect Moto to be dazzling in the ring, I know he IS capable of turning in an accurate performance. Not high-scoring mind you, but accurate and well done. Now that the emotional part of our miserable CD title journey is past, I feel I can begin working with him again.
First, I needed to examine our relationship. I realize that while he loves me, we are lacking in the respect category. He is not as soft as originally thought. While he's not tough as nail as his sire, he can take a collar pop and reacts to that better than a physical correction with my hands. That's a first for me - all my other dogs will do anything to avoid a physical correction. With Moto it's the other way around. And with good results. Actually surprisingly good results.
The other transition that I overlooked was making me the cookie over food and toy rewards. This one needs a tremendous amount of work. I never realized how sadly lacking I was in this area with him.
So we've done a lot of backchaining, in almost all aspects of obedience. There's some good solid foundation work that doesn't need revisiting but there's a lot of it that does, most importantly heeling.
New goals have been made: most of my training will be devoted to Pinch. He wants and loves to do this sport, and it's only fair to let him do what he loves best. I have very high Obedience expectations for Pinch. At least for now. What he's showing me is very exciting.
Moto's obedience goals are to eventually get him to Utility. Depending on how that goes will tell me if we go further or retire with just a CDX or UD.
Moto will get most of the herding time. He's not a passioniate herding dog like his dad. But he approaches the stock with a calm demeanor and does some amazing work when he is up to it. I'm not sure how far he will go but if he applies himself, I am hopeful we can get past the Started level with him. I'd really like that. And I hope he will like it, too.
Pinch's herding career is simple: an HT and a PT. He has lots of "want to" but very little natural stock sense. It can be trained into him, but going further will take good handling on my part. I suck as a handler. But we'll give it the old college try and see how far we go.
Hopefully some time I can put both in agility. Moto liked his agility classes. I think it would be a great confidence-builder for him. But alas it's a time and money thing.
But I digress.
It's great to enjoy the small things, like the graduation of a waste basket to the floor.