Please, I beg you

Between school starting again and me being particularly lazy, Rugby has been kind of ‘up.’ We were saved yesterday since we went to dog class and worked for the first time since last Thursday.

He didn’t pick up where we left off as easily as Pete did, but he wasn’t too bad. A couple differences I noticed in him – he worked a little wider than usual and was more distracted than usual. By the end of class he was working more or less normally, just took a little bit to get there.

Today I had more than enough time to work Rugby but – its cold outside. I was much happier lounging than working. Rugby humored me and laid next to me for a while but by 7 o’clock he could no longer contain himself.

He took to walking on me, standing on my chest and licking my face until I acknowledged him. I tried to satisfy him by throwing a toy a few times for him. It didn’t cut it though.  20 minutes later he was in my face again. He was BEGGING to be worked. Fine.

So we began to doodle. I called him to me in a formal come. Turned a little in-place to my left and called him again. He swung his butt over accordingly. I repeated and then went the other direction. He knows he has to move his back end, but he isn’t precise about how much he moves, or has to move. Then we moved onto left and right finishes. Did some back and forth heeling in the hallway practicing about turns, left about turns and u-turns.

Amazingly, we found space enough inside to practice signals, and I was able to see first hand just how in-tune Rugby is to my feet when I screwed the first stand signal up and ended on my left foot instead of the right. He sat – even with the signal. Once I apologized for messing up and got my head together he did the other ones correctly.

Then we did the number 2 glove, since that is all we have room for in our house. He did well and afterwards we did some more ‘spinning’ doodling so we in theory practiced the turns for the other gloves too. Rugby is doing sooo sooo much better on the swing finish.

Last was articles. We kept it easy and short since he hadn’t done it for a while. He got them all right, but I had to redirect him twice. He still has no idea what it is all about. :/

Must have been what he wanted because I don’t think he stopped wagging his tail or took his eyes off me the entire time, and now that we are finished he is passed out beside me. <3