Week 15

Fourteen down (thirty-nine to go)

We had our first Canine Good Citizen class this week, and I think Zachary did pretty well. I was hoping to have time to practice Loose Leash and Greetings over the weekend, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Accomplished Last Week:

Curriculum: Sit-stay, Sit-stay, Sit-stay (and still Zachary goes down when I turn my back.) His recalls were nice in the house so we’ll see how he does in class this week.

Extracurricular: TL4 – High Jump, TL3 – Contact, TL4 – Distance, TL4 – Tricks (101 Things to do with a “Box”) - Zachary, Helping Paw – Beau.

I’m doing the “one-behavior-a-day” variation of “101 Things to do with a Box” (or, in our case, a moderate-sized plastic basket) for Zachary, and so far we have “two paws in the basket”, “two paws on top of the overturned basket”, “one paw in the basket with the other on the rim”, “nose touch the edge of the overturned basket”, and (my favorite) “jump over the basket”. I’m spending just a few minutes (2-4) per session.

I’ll do a few more and then call it done and (maybe) piece it together into a montage.

I have played 101 Things with Beau multiple times in the past (both at home and On The Road), he visibly loathes it, and I don’t see any reason to subject him to it again just to get it on video. He’s been working on holding a (different) basket, instead, for Just For Fun. Zachary will probably not have time to do that this month and I might just keep it on the list through May.

Videoed: TL4 – Distance (10’), TL4 – Jump, High (Beau), TL4 – Tricks (Zachary)

Blog:  CGC – Class #1, Scrapbook – Jump (this is Photo of The Week), and Goals - Revisited

Planned for Next Week:

Sorry Beau, this week will be almost all about Zachary, with the possible exception of Trick of the Month (neither dog doing well) and Contacts (Beau is leaving Zachary in the dust!)

CGC Class (Zachary) - Let’s hope we can get some socialization work in this week plus work on separation. I’m going to work toward a 3 minute out-of-sight down-stay to help him deal with to me being “gone”.

Looking over the Video Guide, it appears that Beau just needs Contacts, Crate, and Leash Manners in order to finish out all that I plan on videoing for Level Three. This will most likely be the highest level he completes, as I don’t plan on doing the On The Road items he would need to finish Level Four. Of course, he will still get to do all the “fun stuff” of the higher levels.

Zachary just needs Crate and Contacts to finish Level Three. Heel has been videoed, just not released.

Beau has a Training Level Three video "in the can" and just awaiting me time to upload it to YouTube.

(As always, click to make bigger)

... rats, just realized that last line in Extracurricular ("Distance") should be TL2 OTR. Too late!