Posing and Training...

Finally! A nice portrait of "The Three".

Even though Jane is secretly wishing she could throw Kaleb infront of the train, and in the same breath, wishing Gyp would hop the next train to "get-the hell-outta-here-ville, so I can have my mom to myself"

Kaleb replies with "Bite me"

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We went out to "train" yesterday, the Agility kind, not the "push-Kaleb-infront of it kind".

We kept it simple and individual obstacles. Weaves. Teeter. Directionals.

Weaves - proofing:

Gyp rarely, rarely, misses a weave entry, even really hard entries. But if she does anything she'll pop the last pole in anticipation, so we have been proofing for this, sometimes I hover close, and sometimes we do this from a distance of 10 - 20' - with lots of reinforcement - off my body - I throw her toy as she comes out of the last pole or last two poles to keep her forward focus, so she isn't looking at me - sometimes I swing the toy as she is weaving to make sure she is still on the job, and not focused on the toy to be sure.

what we proofed:

- Racing Gyp through as fast as I can (both sides) - I got to the end while she was around 8th pole. She is pretty good at this one, so we moved on.

- Then I raced her and switched sides from the left the right  (not a front cross, just running around the end pole to the other side) - at the end of the poles and vice versa at a really hard angle - while she is in around poles 6 - 8. She did great from L - R, but from R - L she popped the last pole as I was high tailing it around the poles to get to the other side. The second time through she was great.

- Then I would abruptly stop around pole 8 - 10 to see if she was paying attention to me or doing her job, she did good the first time, so we tried again until I was able to make her look at me, it took ALOT for her to pop, which is really good, she is getting better at this!! As this was a big weakness a few weeks ago.

- Lastly sending her ahead of me while I stood at the first poles - me NOT moving, she did really good with this too, we ended one last set with her sitting at the beginning and me going to the end and recalling her through.

We didn't do this all in one shot - I did each one at a separate time - in between playing with Jane in the field and trying the same things with K - which he did really well with too.

We also tested our directional cues with some great and not-so-great success with G & K. That will come in a separate post, as this one is already long!!!