Heeling #3

It was pretty hot during class this afternoon, and so I had a lazy Aussie. I took advantage of this and had her hang out on a blanket with me instead of in her crate. She was really good! She stayed out the entire class and seemed generally ok with just hanging out with me.

We only practiced a little this past week, but I did see a definite improvement in her following me around the ring in heel position. I really like working on that one with her. Yesterday, I was even able to have her out in the yard just dragging a long line, and she was awesome about staying engaged with me. I've never brought her out in the yard like that because one of the reasons she was in the shelter was for bolting. Something is starting to click in her head.

In class, we practiced getting our dogs to move from in front of us and into heel position. I used a treat to lure Iris around and into position and then asked her to sit. She figured out pretty quickly that the end result was a sit and started sitting too early. Silly girl. We also worked on teaching our dogs to keep their front feet stationary and shift the back feet around in a circle. Iris had a little bit of trouble with this one and kept wanting to sit (hey, that is what we were doing earlier!) When I taught her to back up, she picked it up much faster what I started clicking for back foot movement, which probably means I'm more accurate with the clicker than a verbal marker.

But the really exciting part of the day is that Julie and Ike gave Iris her very own Screaming Monkey. Iris says thank you Ike for sharing!


No more posing! She has to carefully maintain focus or else the boys might make bid for it.