Week 18

Seventeen weeks down (thirty-five to go) -or- Four months down (eight to go). My how time flies.

I thought it might be useful at this juncture, 1/3 the way through the year, to summarize where Zachary is on his 2010 goals:

Training Level Three – still remaining:
... Contacts (walk the plank)
... Crate (1 min)
Training Level One (On The Road) – Completed
Training Level Four – about half way done
Training Level Two (On The Road) - still remaining:
... Crate (in/out)
... Leash Manners (loose leash 1 min)
... Target (end of stick)
... Watch (10 seconds)
Training Level Five – not started
Training Level Three (On The Road) – not started

In addition to Training Levels, I was hoping to get Zachary’s Canine Good Citizen (CGC) certificate this year. With help from the weather gods, he should finish up his classes in a few weeks and take the test by the end of the month. While he is still a work in progress, he has already made much progress and I am very proud of him no matter the final outcome.

Finally, while I hope to enter Zachary in a Rally Trail before the end of the calendar year, I have yet to broach it in a serious fashion. (If only Wendy would teach a Rally class…)

Beau pretty much mirrors Zachary for non-On-The-Road things, and I’m not planning on doing On-The-Road with him past Level One, which he has completed. He earned both his Canine Good Citizen certificate and his Rally Novice title several years ago, and it appears that retirement from competition suits him well.

Moving right along…

You will recall that last week I decided to reuse the previous week’s worksheet, as that week had been filled with Really Important Things. Therefore, this report covers two weeks using the same Weekly Worksheet - #16.

Accomplished Last Week:

Core Studies: TL4 – Sit-Stay: Wow, is Zachary every persistent about going down. I had thought I could cure this with patience and time, but it looks like I might actually have to resort to serious training with chutes-and-ladders.

Canine Good Citizen: Worked all but the Supervised Separation, and Zachary did splendidly. Class was once again canceled due to rain, but we tried to make up for that at least a little by working in Pet Stores, Big-Box Hardware Stores (see Blog below) and practicing loose leash walking in various parking lots and down Garden Store isles.

Weekly Quiz: Once again failed to grab a family member – I guess those sorts of things just don’t belong in Quizzes. Lesson learned.

Family Member: n/a

Extracurricular: n/a

Videoed: n/a

Released Video: n/a

Blog: Permission Granted

Blue Box: Filled out checklists for Extracurricular Activities: Excursions and Tricks.

Planned for Next Week:

This week is almost all about Canine Good Citizen for Zachary.

HOWEVER

I did decide to shake the Weekly Quiz up a bit by devoting it entirely to items from the Middle School Curriculum, selecting for things that I believe they should be able to pass. I will decree “passed” any item they score 80% or better when averaged over the week with no zeros (reminder: quiz items are generally scored 2 for perfection, 1 if I have to repeat a cue once, else a zero.)

Why the change?

Mostly so I can keep feeling like I’m making forward progress in a month that would otherwise seem highly repetitive.

In all honesty, the items in the right-hand column, with the exception of Trick of the Month and “101 Things…”, might not get touched at all this week.

Note: In order to keep up with the weeks of the year, this Weekly Worksheet is numbered #18. For those playing along at home, there was NO Weekly Worksheet #17.

(As always, click to make bigger)