Obedience fun match, and therapy visit

eek its been waaay too long since I posted in Red's blog! Gotta get better about this!

Anyway, Redders had a busy day today. First thing in the morning, we drove to Warren for an obedience fun match. We are working in Open now and slowly but steadily plugging along. Still a LONG way to go before being ready to trial. Our biggest hurdle (literally) is the retrieve over jump...

Heel off leash - was good... but a little bumping but he was pretty enthusiastic, so I was happy with that.

Off leash figure 8 - needed reminders to keep his head up so I didn't ram into him on the inside turns... not sure why this is such an issue!

Drop on recall - really good! We've been working on quick drops with just the hand signal and I think he's got it! At least that's one thing out of many... LOL

Retrieve on flat - had to back up a bit and cal him to front. Needs more work to come in straight. Also for some ungodly reason, he dropped it before I could take it, so I made him pick it back up. Not sure why he did that either...

Retrieve over jump - MUCH improved! Really happy with this. Up til now, he'll go over the jump to take the dumbbell, but he wanted to run around the jump on the way back. Even after lowing the jump and putting up barriers, I can tell he still doesn't really get it. But this time, he went over the jump, and I run up to it in preparation to block him from going around and direct him over, but he didn't even think about going around, and came straight back over! Jackpot!!

Broad jump - usually is good but up til now, I've been giving the command and hand signal, which I know you can't do - its either one or the other. So I decided to try just the command, and he tried going around it on the side I was on. Reset, did hand signal and command and he did it fine. So discovered something else to work on...

Homework:
1. Head up for figure 8 heeling
2. Straight fronts for retrieve on flat
3. Continue working on retrieve over jump
4. Eliminate either command or hand signal from broad jump


After the fun match, we came home and went for an off-leash walk/run, and then it was off for a therapy visit. I figured it would be a good day to go since he'd *hopefully* be tired from training and the walk earlier. But, alas, he was still raring to go when we got there. He's probably the most hyper/busy therapy dog they get in there. We didn't stay very long because he just wasn't into it today. But at least we went. I've been so busy lately, that its been awhile since we went last.

And then we both came home and took a nap, LOL!