A week for small successes

Just to bring this back to dog training, I just have to share how thrilled I am with my boy this week.

We started with agility training on tuesday. As some know Tooheys has been getting incredibly stressed by the amped-up agility environment which leads to his precious little head going into overload. We have been training in the same class for a little while now and he is fairly comfortable with the other dogs in the class - thankfully none of them are particularly gobby or manic - and we have been building up to doing more & more in class. Well after several weeks break from training, he came back this week completely relaxed from the outset and not bothered by the other dogs standing around the course. He had a very small blip on our last run where he went to run at the terrier standing directly next to the jump he was about to take (yes I mean right right next to, close enough to touch..) when he realised who it was and immediately recalled back to me. Woo Hoo! Breakthrough! Ok so I know Im excited by the small things..

Onto wednesday and Working Trial training. Up until this point Tooheys has struggled to understand he needs to use his hind legs to get over the scale when it gets too high to jump it cleanly. Well after the first attempt with a little support the penny suddenly dropped and before we knew it he was able to negotiate it set a fair bit higher. Breakthrough!

He also did a beautiful dumbell retrieve without any warmup - not too bad for a dog who a few months ago wouldnt hold the dreaded thing - and is coming along nicely with the sendaways. Now just to work out how to get him to scent properly.. the exercises that use his nose (tracking & search square) on the other hand are not coming along so nicely.

And to top things off today we had another wonderful agility clinic with Toni Dawkins. The class is filled with noisy, high drive dogs Tooheys doesnt know, but other than some stressing on his part mid class he was completely focussed and switched on to his work, and did some really nice stuff. Im still smiling, what a high to finish on. I think we may finally be making a Breakthough!