Saturday training recap

I forgot to post my weekly training review yesterday, but I think I remember most of the details.

Free heeling - just ok. Focus wasn't fantastic. Though we did some hand signal only exercises between heeling and he did well for that despite us never working on them.

Figure 8's - really really good. Great focus and heeling. Nice, quick sits at the halts.

Recalls - suck ASS. I swear to god they get worse every week. Sure, he comes when called, but he has the most crooked, out of position front on the planet. I don't even know what to do anymore. I'm really, truly at a loss.

Long sits/downs - MUCH improved. He did go down once on the sit (at the very end of course), but he was great on the down. Got a jackpot for the good 5 minute down =)

Stand for exam - excellent! Didn't move at all. Very impressed!

Free time - Since our next Rally is this coming Saturday the 17th, we worked on some Rally exercises like the 1, 2, 3 steps halt; sit/down - walk around; call fronts, finishes; turns; etc. All did well. Occasionally he'll pop up too soon out of a down because he thought we're about to move forward, so I need to pay very close attention to my body language so I don't accidentally cue him before the exercise is finished.

We do a lot of play and tug during training - and I have noticed that I'm pretty much the only one who does this with their dog. There's only one other person - Michelle - who gives her dog a toy as a reward occasionally. To me, training is just structured play. I don't want it to feel like boring work - I want him to view working as just another fun thing we do together. Anyway, it works for us so I'm stickin with it =)