Week One... round two!

Michele's Novice Obedience class was great - lots of good ideas. Poor Vinnie... Logan is in this class and I think that is going to be one of his biggest challenges. He loves Logan more than life itself. Lots of good ideas and tons of things to work on... it's 10pm... I have to be up at 5am...

And So It Begins...

Vinnie and I began our class tonight with Melinda (tomorrow night it's Michele's turn!). We will have two classes per week for several weeks - I think this will be good for Vinnie (and me!). We BOTH need to get out of the house and work our little brains and bodies.

Melinda's class is in Iowa City, so Vin and I left straight from work and headed south. We found the building and then headed for Micky D's for dinner (mine, not Vinnie's).

In class, we worked on handler focus (yeah! we are making some progress!), bouncing (which came a little TOO naturally :-), recalls (ok... we only had one VERY SMALL incident of puppy rips), stays (hmmm... I have been slacking in this department, but we rebounded quickly) and downs (ugh... this gets Vinnie's nose even closer to the ground - must work on sniffing). Class went very well - I think his head only spun a few times!

Once home, Brian's best quote: "I thought class was supposed to wear him out?". Hmmm... maybe I shouldn't tell him we are probably just building endurance. I'm worn out - does that count? As I type this, he is chewing on my slippers (I'm wearing them) and all I can think is "at least I know where he is and what he's doing".

Night!!

Jealous...

Jealousy - it can work wonders!!

I started taking Frank down to the basement with Vinnie for training. Vinnie goes in a box (he is starting to just go in the box on his own now. LOL) and Frank gets to play with the tippy board and balance disk for breakfast/dinner. Then Vinnie gets to play while Frank stays in the box. I think it has really started to help Vinnie. If he gets too "butterfly", Frank comes out and gets all the attention.

Michele has given us homework for class: We are to have our dog run between our legs (toss a treat). I didn't think giving Vinnie's raw a toss would be such a good idea, so out came the marshmallows - yummy!! Vinnie likes this game (and it's good for his recall)!

From the other day - I love this shot - sometimes ya just gotta hold it by the rope:

I read something today...

Yep... not only do I know HOW to read, but choose to read! LOL. But, seriously, I read something that Helen King posted today on the agilitypoodle list and it really hit home. It was just part of her post...

"There is more to training than just rewarding! There is NOT using
NRMs or slumping shoulders to show disappointment in the dog or oneself or
any other negativity in training. Lack of fun on the trainer's part will
suck the drive right out of a dog!!!"

If I am not having fun, I should not be training my dog. If I am just not that into it, I should not be doing it. He needs 100% from me and it's not fair to him if I just dole out the cookies. I have found myself doing this a few times lately and it really shows.

So there you have it... this will be my 2010 goal: I will make training as fun as I possibly can. It will not be something I do just because I have to get it done and check it off the list. It will be something that we can BOTH go out and enjoy.

Now let's just hope I don't drop the ball!
(note the spit line!! Eeeewwwwww!!!)