He has also been much more uncertain on walks since we moved into the new house. Ears held back a lot, not totally into them in general, though I am not sure what the reason behind it is. My guess right now is that it is due to the cars that drive along the parkway.

In an attempt to remedy my boredom and his uneasiness I have started trying to make the walks more interactive and ask Frodo for more out of his walks. The main way I have modified our walks is that I have given Frodo the opportunity to run, and to be rewarded for running, which is something he is rarely able to do and is reinforcing in itself for him.

So I have been putting Frodo in a sit stay or a down stay, walking about 15-20 feet away from him, releasing him and hauling butt until he catches up with me. I started by holding out my hand as I ran and asking him for a hand target, which worked well, and now occasionally I let him run past me and then ask him to return to me. Both ways earn him mucho doggy-dinero. Then I pick up his leash and we continue to run for a while, as I don't want him learning that the fun stops when he comes to me or when I have his leash.

Unfortunately this game will only last as long as the snow piles separate the walkway from the road and the trails are empty enough that I don't have to worry about bikers flying along the trail. Frodo is really really good about ignoring the bikers, he really doesn't seem to care that they are there at all, but it would be too easy for him to run in front of one and hurt himself and/or a biker.

There seems to be some very large, wide-open spaces throughout the park that we can probably do this one once spring comes, though I can never tell whether these are actually fields or whether they will be bodies of water! I surely hope so as he really seems to enjoy the game.

On the same note, when he is in working mode his recall is pretty good, when we are in walking mode, it is non-existent. The other morning I walked Frodo up to Farwell Park, a very small square park that we walk to almost every day. Frodo wanted to sniff a tree in the middle of the deep snow covered park. The park was absolutely empty so I dropped the leash and just continued walking. Nothing. I called his name, he looked at me, and I took off running. Nothing. I made it all the way to the other side of the park and he did not care. I yelled treats and he came running like a bat out of hell.

Frustrating dog is frustrating.

...that ended with this:

Our homework is Ian Dunbar's The Sit Test!

This should be very interesting. I like to use hand signals and Frodo listens better to hand signals, but I am really going to try and put everything together with only verbals.

Wish us luck!

The new bed I made for Frodo.

In other news, I think it is pretty evident that I got a job, due to the severe reduction of post count this week. I got a job at a local pet food outlet and I LOVE IT!

This week was our second week and Frodo did quite well for the most part, though he did react to a greyhound who (in his opinion) came too close. After the reaction, and it wasn't a big one, he did continue to work fine with a barrier between himself and the greyhound.

As for actual shaping today we worked on muzzle work, which went really really well thanks to Megan, who brought in a basket muzzle that Frodo could easily get his snout in! He was much more willing to leave his nose in this muzzle than he has been with the other mesh muzzle that we have been working with.

The rest of the class we spent working with his plush monkey that I am trying to teach him a play retrieve with. He did really well, better even than our work at Ryan's house. If I hold the monkey he will bite it, and sometimes even hold it for a second. If I put the monkey on the ground he will bite it repeatedly, but isn't so keen on lifting it off the ground. I need to choose one of these methods and move forward with it, instead of dabbling with both!

That's about all I can think of at the moment, my brain is pretty fried. I now have TWO jobs, which is great and will definitely keep me busy (and hopefully pay the bills), one of which I start tomorrow and work pretty much every day, so if the blog starts to slow down a bit, that is why. I also finished Frodo's awesome dog bed that I have been working on, and I have pictures but uploading them seems like a giant task right now, maybe tomorrow...

The first week's challenge was to take a picture of our dog being naughty.

Done.