Spark training at 16 wks old

Our training arena is under renovations this week, so that meant a night off from teaching last night.  Most people would probably have stayed home, watched a movie and drank some wine.  Not me.  The first thing I thought of was "what can I do with my dogs!" Yes I am a little dog obsessed.  I decided that dropping in to a conformation handling class with Spark was the best choice.  It would be another chance to visit a new building, be around strange dogs, have a stranger handle my puppy and make it all positive with lots of cookies!

So Spark and I went down to Auburn Mist Kennels, only minutes away from me in Dewinton.  A friend of mine came along too with her 4.5 month old Aussie puppy. We picked the perfect night to go. It was just the two of us and one other lady with 2 Aussie puppies.  The instructor also had a golden puppy that she worked as well. It couldn't have worked out better for all our puppies.  They could work in a quiet environment with all baby dogs. No adults to spook them or come running up behind them.  And it gave the instructor lots of time to work with us and give us tips. 

Spark did great!  She was confident and happy. She let me stack her on the table and held it for a reasonable amount of time.  She let the instructor examine her without wiggling away.  She had some good moments of movement too.  She is still learning how to move at faster paces without limping. So every now and then she would throw in a hop and then would recover.  It is getting better and better. It was a great night out and I'm very happy that I went.

Spark and I continue to work on all her agility and rally skills.  I have added three videos of us working on skills at 16 wks old.  The first is some fun with tight wraps around a post and sending to a tunnel. The second is our perch work.  Teaching Spark to move her back end independently from her front legs for hind end awareness. Really important for pivots in rally and most everything in agility.  The last video is her working on sending to a mat with an immediate lie down. I use this for my table behaviour. Once she can race to the mat and lie die from any direction I then transfer it to a table.  Put the mat on the table a few times then get rid of the mat. It teaches a really nice drive to the table with an automatic down.