Back to Work

So Rugby has had it easy the past couple of days with halloween and all but it is time to get back to the training. Yesterday at a friends house, I was able to tell him to sit while he was on the couch and I was at the table. This is really good, as we have only worked on our random sits a couple of times and Rugby was under the impression that if he wasn't in heel position...he didn't know how to sit. He has also proved his random sitting skills a couple of time today.

He was backsliding with the standing since I hadn't really been working on it enough. So I decided it would be best to start over than to really confuse the heck out of him. So we are back to no command, and me just placing him in the stand over and over again untill he does it voluntarily (which he is already starting to do but I think I am going to wait longer this time to build up a stronger foundation). We practiced a few today as well and he was very cooperative.

We place for the first time in a few days this morning, and he did very well. I tried moving back to 5/5.5 ft but he wasn't quite ready for it. Although he did have enough of an understanding that when he was half-way there and not sure what to do, all I did was give the place command again and he went to the board.

I have to say that our heeling and sitting has improved since the halloween class. I have been less forgiving when he takes his time or doesn't sit at all. I have been using the sit command in place of our automatic sits when we halt to build up the word a bit and I think it has contributed to his success with the random sits.

He still stays at the front door when we come in and gives us time to put our stuff away. Today I took him to class with me, and we were walking around campus a little afterwards and there was this squirel that stoped right in our path about 20 ft ahead of us, stood on its hind legs and just stared Rugby down for a good 30 second. Luckily I saw the squirel first and put Rugby in a sit stay before he took off chasing it (even though he could only get the 6ft to the end of the leash). Man...that was the hardest sit stay of his life. He WANTED that squirel! It was wayyyy wayyy cute seeing him sit there and try his hardest to controll himself. His tail was wagging, and he was whining....lol When some of the other people wanted to give rugby a break and finally chased the squirel away I returned to him and when I reached down to praise him (as always...before we do our exercise finish) he broke right away and didn't wait for me to do the exercise finish. I couldn't help but laugh at the little stinker.

He was sooo sleepy from helping me train this afternoon and walking around campus he slept for a good 3 hours, and just now started waking up again and searching in his 'toy box' for an appropriate toy for this evening. (he is torn between the tennis ball and the pumpkin ;))