Saturday, April 08, 2006

Day 261

And the rain came down and down and down. No lessons this morning, so Diane, Alison and I decided to work dogs in the studio. Tyler had a great lesson with Alison. They worked on sit and heel. After a rocky beginning with Tyler insisting he didn't want to heel with Alison and he didn't know this "sit" word, things got better fast and he was heeling and sitting very nicely.

The really big thing is...drum roll....Tyler is doing the basement stairs all on his own as of this morning. Seems being left upstairs all alone with all the action taking place at the bottom of the dread mountain of stairs was what was needed to inspire him. His first attempt took the better part of 45 minutes with him crying, oh so piteously the entire time. However, once he has done it, he then proceeded to turn around, run back up the stairs and do it again. He just kept on going up and down those stairs until he no longer had a problem with the down part. It was very interesting to watch him practice all by himself. In the end, the stairs became just another "no big deal" for him.

Sanity's working of the articles today really did look as if she wants to bring back the correct one with her paws and when that is not possible she will try to bring back a taboo article in her mouth. I am beginning to get the feeling that I would be better off to put more articles out there rather than continue to stick with so few. I do know that I am going to start leather articles sometime within the next couple of days. And my mental schedule calls for me to start signals and the directed retrieve as well. Of course, I'm not sure the directed retrieve will be much of a challenge since we have been doing a casual form of directed retrieve in every day life for some time now.

One good note is that I have noticed she is getting much better at dropping an incorrect item when I tell her "phooey" or "that's not what I want" and then getting right back to work looking for the thing I do want.

She continues to hold out on this coming in season stuff. Get on with it, gal.

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