Our weekend away here at home!

We had planned to take a weekend away, but life just seemed like it was rolling downhill without us and we should just stay here and be the busy bees we are, preparing the gardens, working on the house, mowing the lawn, setting up the bistro and all the things that this huge property needs to be the incredible world it is! We love it here and sometimes it calls us and makes us work and tires us out, but we LOVE it!
I promised myself I would not just work the WHOLE time, I would do some running contacts with Spur, I would ride sweet Jewel, we would go shopping at The Tractor Supply store, I would read my book and we would go out for a nice dinner.
We took Spur over to Steve and Laura's to run on a novel dog walk. He needs that work, sort of like the teeter parties, but this work involves just me and him. The teeter parties were all about taking ME out of the scene and making the teeter such a fun, friendly game with his fans. The dog walk he likes, pretty well and I just need to instill the good hits on the down contact that we are getting at home. We did pretty well. I think we did 10 and had one definite, complete miss which you will see in one of the videos and I just keep going and ask for it again, then one hit that missed the hit-it board which you won't see. Rich didn't get that one. The others were all good hits! We need to tighten up his turns after, but I am please I can pull off and redirect him and he still hits it!! Good little Spurminator!!




This last one below has the miss. I have likes and dislikes when I watch it. I dislike the sound of my voice as I bring him back. I need to be happier. He SO melts when he thinks he is wrong. He can not take corrections or even no reward markers (for you non-dog training folks that would be like saying "Oops, too bad" or some such thing to mark it verbally that he has a miss.). I need to continue around happily. But, what I DO like is he was faster on his second attempt. THAT's HUGE!! That may be the first time he tried harder and went faster. What has happened on occasion with misses that don't get the ball tossed, we get deminishing returns. He wrings his little papillon paws and makes SURE to hit the hit-it board the next time, which results in a slower speed. That was OK, but I have been waiting for him to simply try harder and keep up his speed. I am SO pleased this time he DID try harder and was faster!! YAY!