Sunday 21 August 2011

Getting it wrong

Things started promisingly with a visit to the KC agility festival to see some proper agility dogs and also meet up with Sian, Rhomi and Rocket.  We had a go on the small agility course for non-agility dogs to have a go at and Molly did really well, mostly listening and having a great time.

It was our KC good citizen test on Tuesday and despite lots of practice I was not totally confident Molly would do a minute stay.  She was very bouncy - but worked nicely and did everything else I asked of her so I was pretty pleased as it is just four months since I got her and they have been a pretty difficult few months without too much focus for dog training.  Slight extra difficulty for the stay exercise was us being placed next to a large mastiff type dog we had not met before and Molly was not sure of.  Anyway....



.. I asked her to lay down and stay - walked the required five paces and she stayed there - but sat up to have a scratch which means she failed the test.  Oh well!!  I was pleased with her anyway and it just means we need to stay in the class for a while longer until the next test.

Wednesday evening I decided to take her for a nice relaxing walk in the fields by Old Milverton.  I seriously understimated her desire to hunt and when she heard some rustling she vanished into the crop totally and I had to call on Marianne and Andrew to help me find her.  Lesson learned and we are back to working on the long line in areas which may be tempting.

Our final training experience of the week was Thursday and agililty.  I guess I should have predicted really - but after the fun she had on Wednesday she had no wish to listen to me at all and spent her evening doing what she wanted - which was more than a tiny bit embarrasing!!

Saturday 13 August 2011

Stubborn - or maybe not!

Last week at training, at one point I asked Molly to sit and she ignored me, even to the extent that she looked away and did her best to avoid looking at me.  After another couple of asks and moving her off the spot to ask again she did eventually sit and I did not think much more of it.  Until this week at exactly the same point in the class and the penny dropped – not bright these humans sometimes!!

We were about to do a recall so I had taken her lead off and was asking her to sit at my side.  She has no objection to the recall part of this exercise but dislikes me moving away from her a great deal so was obviously using her brain and realising that the only time I took her lead off and asked her to sit was when I was about to move away from her.  Not sitting was as good a way as any of voicing her protest – as was her lovely heelwork when I then tried to walk away from her.

Next week our good citizen bronze test with a one minute stay – hmmmm – I have a feeling we may not pass!!

On a brighter note at agility we were actually promoted into a group who show "potential" - I suspect in our case that may well be potential to create mayhem and chaos - but as long as we have a good time sounds good to me!

Friday 5 August 2011

Andrex puppy?

Maybe it was a mistake allowing Molly to watch tv as I think she must have got ideas from watching Andrex adverts.  It was really warm at the weekend so I had all the doors and windows open to try and get a draught through the house.  An unsupervised Molly is not always a good thing - although she was rather enjoying herself.

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Fun with friends

We went for a return visit to the Wedge at the weekend and met up with a friend and her new puppy.  Molly had a great time running through the fields.


Grace puppy was brilliantly behaved- as well as stunning!


Leo was his usual handsome self





and Poppy was enjoying herself too - especially the queue for treats:

Unfortunately the excitement of the wedge was too much for Molly and she decided to vanish into the bushes for rather too long a couple of times so we are going to have to revert back to the long line for a while in such exciting territory.  Please note - only one dog needed to be on the lead
 
Things have been progressing rather better with stay training and this evening at training class she managed a 1 minute stay for the first time.  Our test is in a couple of weeks so hopefully if I keep up the work we can pass!