More calm Spike

Just a couple of barks in our obedience this time. Lots of good heel work, even with a dog barking and whining a little bit. He is 4 this year, maybe he is maturing. Ben also had a good 1/2 hour, but I am coming to expect that because he is a good boy (apart from when he isn't).

crate games

I got the crate games dvd yesterday, and watched it last night. Garrett's accent may have put paid to my vague ideas of moving to Canada, but I think on the whole the dvd is good. The principles seem simple, but probably hide a lot of thinking and work on creating a consistent system. Greg Derrett has a similarly simple seeming system for agility handling which I loosely follow, and I think there is definitely something to be said for this approach as it stops you over analysing and getting paralysed when you need to be acting.

It would be extremely useful to get Benny trained to chill out in his crate while I work Spike, it may even be possible to do it the other way round. Who knows. I will post on how it goes.

Spike reasonably calm in obedience

I took Spike to obedience last class, rather than taking the other two which is what I normally do. He had a few little grumbles at first, but after that I worked him through 4 15 minute classes off lead. OK he went up to the trainer a couple of times, but also worked very well. This was going past lots of dogs, most of whom looked at him. A couple barked during the classes, but he stayed focused. After the class I left him off lead and him milled and mixed with all the others really well. Great!