Well today the sun was out again, flyball was on so we spent the morning at flyball and then afterwards we went for a walk down the beach to try and get rid of some of the mud before we got home. We were out for about 5 hours, and we are now all completely worn out=). Ernie did absolutely fantastic at flyball, and did his first ever full run without me running alongside him. I was so proud of my little Ernie:). Whats more, he was having great fun as well and at the same time increasing his confidence even more!
Indi was not as good, but it was definantly an improvement from yesterday. He was let off with all the other dogs at the end again with a muzzle on and only barked at a few and was completely friendly with some. We still have so much work to do, but I think next time I might click and reward with something everytime he is friendly, speed up the process a bit. He is improving though, that much is obvious.
With both dogs I did some work with weaving for agility as there is a sort of fence that replicates weave poles really well. The only difference is the poles are a bit bigger and the gaps are larger. Indi got the idea amazingly quick, I was so impressed! He was very speedy as well, hopefully with a few more practices he will have a fantastic weave. Of course, competing is impossible at the moment, so any agility foundation work we do and any agility obstacle work we do is just for fun and for building confidence and trust. He absolutely loved doing the weaving, and we also do jump practice every now and then which he loves so maybe one day... but for now its all just fun and confidence building.
With Ernie agility is also just for fun, but sometimes if theres a little obstacle or agility course set out at a flyball comp/demo we of course have a go. We have done quite a bit of weave pole training before, minus weave poles and so he knows the basic principle. He has just never been very speedy. Today, he was fantastic! After a few goes he was actually going ahead without me guiding him. Agility for him is just for fun and for confidence building as well, but I would love to compete one day with him because he would be perfect. For now were just building his confidence with flyball and getting him more confident in working in unusual environments. He is fantastic at working with distractions, and is always very focused no matter whats going on around him but is just very unconfident at working on his own in new environments with distractions which he has to do in flyball and agility. However, he did do great when we competed in the summer, so he is getting better and better.
Overall, I am pleased with both my dogs progress. We still have a lot of work to do, but of course Im always up for a bit of extra training. So at the moment everything is about confidence building and trust building. So for now some pics from our fantastic day today :).
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