After much negotiation, Yodel agreed to be a Demo Hoopers-Dog-in-Training. It took a bit of persuading, mainly because he was a tad offended when I explained that I was looking for a slow, senior dog with virtually no distance skills so that we could work through the program from the ground up. Although he has signed on, he has been very specific about the number of training sessions he will perform each week and about the number of repetitions per session. (I'll have to be very organized!) I suspect that the videos will reveal my errors more often than his. I am having to use a pre-placed reward for the forward send. Yodel has done a lot of obedience and we're having to work at changing the handler focus. 

Yodel was not going to left out of the fun. We think he looks really cute doing his tricks. But then, Yodel always looks cute!

Being cooped up over the winter is no fun. What to do! What to do!  We decided to start some trick training. Fiji gave it a go first and did a great job on her Novice Trick video. She passed with flying colours

Prim has been practicing!

Fiji and I thought we would show you another way we play to train heel and side positions. Fiji is at an intermediate/advanced level in this game. I'll have the details for training this from scratch in that sample online lesson I'm working on. It's almost ready. My real job gets in the way sometimes!

Today Yodel is doing a basic version of the figure eight exercise. We aren't working on distractions here. This is just about moving with me and bending on the turns. The further apart the cones, the easier it is. The closer together the cones, the more difficult it is.

Fiji wanted to show her favorite version of the figure eight exercise as well. As one would expect, her version involves high speed and energy! The quality is not great because of the lighting. But I think you get the idea!

Today we thought we would try some figure eight heeling combined with impulse control.  I'm mostly impressed by the fact that each one managed to stay on the bed while the other worked. Of course, I was rewarding that too!  Fiji will demonstrate her favorite way to play the figure eight game tomorrow. She has told me that she expects me to do a better job of filming though. She was not pleased with my poor camera position! I can see that I need to be a bit more careful with that release word. A certain someone moved a split second too soon on the first release. 

Here is a challenge for you. How much fun can you have with figure 8s?! I can think of many, many ways to play with this. Our post for today is Yodel doing figure 8s around some toys. Stay tuned for Fiji's turn!