Saturday July 15th 2006 - team practice (outside)

(Backfilled in October 2009 due to impending closure of Geocities)

Today we did a bit of distraction training with the boxwork. Our teammates were standing off to the side of the box rather than in the runback area. So when I sent her to the box (no ball), she took the three jumps (fourth jump at the box for a tighter turn) but then looked around and came back without hitting the box. After a few tries she did it better though. She was a bit faster today with the recalls, probably because it was cloudy and cooler and she was showing off for Walter who joined us for this practice. She even did some nice tugging on the recalls! But once she remembered about treats, her desire to tug pretty much disappeared. On a side note, it's really exciting to see the other dogs coming along. For example, the two height dogs are really really close to being able to go over the jumps with their handlers running alongside, hit the box, and run back over the jumps, and I imagine the ball will be introduced to them soon. All the dogs are just doing great and having fun too!