Weaves Day 5 and Jazz being a star!

I got some video of Jazz running a course at class. We're in overdrive preparing for Regionals which is just under two weeks away. I haven't done a tonne of training with Jazz since last Regionals so we're working on getting back in sync with eachother. I think weaves are the thing I'm going to concentrate most on from now until then.

Weaves Day 4

Weaves day 3

Yesterday, I got a bunch of sessions in at a school field nearby. 7 really seemed to make a breakthrough on this day, particularly with his off-side entrances. Those have been the ones he's struggled with since I first angled the poles so it was great to see him clicking like this!
The next time I train him I think I'm going to add the second set of poles as long as he continues to show me that he's understanding all the criteria.

Here are the vids from day 3...

Weaves Day 2

I'm happy with 7's weave progress so far, he is gaining confidence running through the poles and best of all he is bouncing back from failure without breaking stride. I've moved on to rewarding with a thrown toy to encourage speed and the single set of poles are now rotated to 8 and 2 o'clock.
Here are the video's of today's sessions!

Finally!

Today I finally started 7's weave pole training. I have dutifully waited until he was over a year (12 months, 20 days) as I will be teaching him via Susan Garrett's "2by 2" method which is a very fast moving method. The twisting and turning necessary for stellar, fast weave poles is not something a young puppy with an under developed skeleton should be asked to do.
I did 4 sessions with him today in my lane. I was using food for this first part so I needed to work on a ground that would allow 7 to easily track the flying cookies.
I am very happy with the progress he made today! He had two thought-provoking "failures" which allowed him to really get a good idea of what the criteria was I was looking for (move forward, quickly, through the poles along reward line.) I kept my sessions short only working him a total of 11 and a half minutes spread out over the four sessions. Also, between the second and third session, I took him away from the poles for several hours. We went for a hike and hung out in the house before I brought him back. This was to allow "latent learning" to kick in, and give him a chance to get the concept ingrained in his wee brain.
Anyhoo, here are the video's from today! I'm going to try and tape all of my sessions throughout this process.

Sun beam

For Jody...

SQUID!!!

Guess who's 1!

Yep, the baby dog turned a whole year old yesterday and he spent his weekend thoroughly enjoying himself!



I bring 7 to work with me every day and he has been coveting the morning bagel of my coworker to the point of obsession. On friday his life's wish came true. Erynn bought him a bagel all for himself and he devoured it! It was hilarious watching his eyes bug out when Erynn handed him piece after piece!





He even cleaned up the wrapper when he was done...what a gooood boy!



After his bagel, I took 7, Cooper, Jazz and foster Squid on a hike with Faren and her herd of pooches. 7 had a blast running around with everyone especially his good friend Beezer.







Finally, to round out his birthday weekend, I took 7 to Spanish Banks Beach with sister Kira. Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of this outing as the weather was pretty wet and windy and my hands were firmly clenched in my pockets!