We have been seeing a ton of dogs lately on walks and he has been an absolute gem. He sees them and I say his name and he turns and gets his peanut butter squeeze. I'd like him to be looking at me without me having to say his name, but beggars can't be choosers and it's not taking effort for him to turn away from the other dog. He gets some time with the peanut butter and we can pick up and be on our way with the dog still well in sight.
We have also been able to walk much further, but I am not sure if that is do to cooler weather or what. Whatever it is I am enjoying it immensely.
Thursday night we went back to Sue's and did more focus work. Mainly going into the practice area and keeping the dog engaged for a set amount of time. Frodo, by far, was the star of this show. Even when the set amount of time was up he was more than happy to keep focused on me and didn't care about the environment nearly as much as the other dogs. There was a straight tunnel, a J tunnel, and a curved tunnel on the course, and he did all of those beautifully. Lots of speed and he absolutely loved them!
Tomorrow we are going to a different location to practice, so it will be a good test of how he is doing in a strange place with strange dogs. I am both excited and nervous. I know they will probably have more of a course set up than Frodo and I are used to (the tunnels Thursday night weren't sequenced or supposed to be sequenced, since we are working on focus and foundation and not sequencing) but we will probably still just work on focus and rewarding with tunnels.
In other news, next weekend I am going to learn how to show groom Bedlington terriers and hopefully will also be at the corgi Nationals for one of the days!
I'm so happy he's doing well, and getting to play in TUNNELS!
Do tell about this whole Bedlington grooming adventure. I keep saying I want a poodle so I can play with his/her hair... but I don't really think I want a dog with that kind of hair. Is it really as difficult as it looks?!
He is doing amazing. Today a stupid little schnauzer charged us through a fence that we were walking toward and he didn't even growl. Just turned around and walked the other way. I am waiting for this good behavior to end!
And yes, Frodo says tunnels are quite fun!
I will definitely blog about how the Bedlington grooming goes. I know there is a lot of maintenance between shows and time spent keeping it under control, so we will see. If you go on the club site there is a grooming diagram and it looks like a topographic map or something. Crazy!
I know she said she has quite a few dogs that need groomed up, so we will see how much effort it takes. I'm quite excited :D