First Seminar for Tonks

Over the weekend we did our first seminar together!  We were at the training center for a Shaping seminar with Fanny Gott. We spent some time working on her heeling and retrieve. Saturday had a lot of auditors and I was very happy with how attentive she was. And Sunday I was comfortable enough to let her off leash for a while with only a brief visit to the crowd.

We worked on heeling and retrieving.  She already knew about left side but was not as close/parallel as she should be and was not always intent on staying in position. We haven’t worked on heeling a lot before now – but it hasn’t felt like it was going `very well.  Now we have a little more of a plan – mostly about changing placement of reinforcer (much closer to me) and needing to practice in more locations.

We also worked on retrieving – Tonks has a good play retrieve (unlike Griffin) but that’s a different skill than a formal retrieve. We did some training on a hold, working up to a gentle pull.  Later we did a fast pick up, we’ll have to work on some of her play cues to help with that. I think it’s going to be hard to get intensity for her retrieve but I know we will get a lot of precision.

Next weekend is self control!