On Again, Off Again...

Lupine and I have been battling on with utility training. At least twice I have given up, thinking she just wasn't cut out to be a utility dog and getting frustrated with her, especially with the signals exercise. Then each time we've started up again, I've seen some hope and improvement that has encouraged me to keep going with it. A couple of weeks ago I put her in a fun match, knowing that she is not ring ready, but at least at a match I could add in some extra rewards for good work and use a target for the go-outs, etc. Most of our training has been at home, so it was good to get her working the utility exercises in a different place. She only passed 2 of the 5 exercises (!), but it confirmed for me where the holes are (signals - no surprise there - plus our heeling and fronts are rusty). As usual, she worked happily through the whole routine, which is one of the things I love about her. Now that the snow and ice is finally disappearing and it is warming up (well, a little bit), we can train outside. This means we can get back to working on the directed jumping exercise, which needs more space to train than we have indoors. I took some video while we were training yesterday - first the scent articles (the one with my scent on it is #6 for both the metal and wooden article) and then directed jumping. It's not the easiest thing to handle the dog and videotape at the same time, so please forgive the quality! The plan is to work hard on getting her ring ready over the summer and possibly put her in the ring in the fall..... assuming we keep with the "on again" plan....