Getting ready to move

We finally have our orders and are preparing to move in less than a month! Needless to say, I've been a bit preoccupied.

This week we worked on open stuff. Monday we did a run through. I'm really pleased with the healing we've been working on. He still crabs, but I don't think we can fix that because it is natural for him in that position. I jumped him at 4 inches, and he looked at the broad jump funny but went over with no problem. I guess it wasn't much of a jump for him.

I've really limited our go-out practice. It has had the desired effect of getting rid of some of the sloppy behavior (running and spinning in particular).

We have been working on signals (sit and down) up close (about 10 feet) and in random orders and with variable schedules of reinforcement. For example, he is laying down and has to sit, down, sit then reward. Then down and reward. Etc. This is building his drive and response time for the behavior. I need to get down to business and work on the recall signal more. I've let that one go for a while. I've decided on the signal (open sweep with the left arm), so just need to pair it up with a recall behavior.

I have been holding off on articles. He's been really snotty (allergies), and I don't want him to pattern mouthing each one. He can do it by taste, but I'd rather not practice that. We've played a couple of find it fun games (hide 1 in a room and then have him search).

I need to touch base with our friend Samantha about gloves. She was looking at getting some more significant big gloves to work her Maltese with. I'd like the same for Soda. He's doing nicely with his gloves, but it just seems like he barely has a tiny bit of the glove to hold on to. I have big, thin gloves from our friend Leslie which are a little better, but way too thin.

On the agility front...not much! We've pretty much been rained out. Hopefully we'll make a class Sunday evening. We both need the outlet!

Oh, and I got some orange cones at Target in the dollar bins. Great for practice! We'll see what silly things we can teach Roo to do with them.

Back to moving prep!!!