My biggest concern is that I have not been able to put as much time into training her so far as I had planned on doing due to having a car accident on the way home from work a few weeks ago and as a result now juggling one car - I spend a lot of time on the road these days picking up L. from work, which is just under a two hour trip. Ivy comes with me in her crate and is certainly now an excellent traveller as a result. The kelpies jump around in the back of the ute (inside the canopy of course) while she has the comfort of the cabin and a good time is had by all - none of them seem to mind that they only stay in the car and don't actually get to come out most evenings.
We play as much as time permits and with a variety of toys - she is happy to tug with anything I offer, plus she also enjoys chasing balls, kongs and also playing with just me and no toys.
She will also work for food rewards (raw steak is probably now beginning to win out marginally over the cheese) but doesn't have quite the same desire for food as she does for a toy. This is fine by me, providing I can still use food on occasion - especially when we are training our end contact behaviour. We have been working on shaping a nose touch to the palm of my hand with food rewards. I am now waiting for harder nose touches to reward and will begin to ask for multiple touches shortly.
We have worked a little on crate games and I am using this approach to release her from the laundry, where she is contained when we are at work. She now sits automatically when my hand touches the release on the baby gate and once I open the gate, will remain in a sit until I give a verbal release. Then she comes blasting out. She does the same thing in her crate, although I haven't shaped the sit at the back of the crate that Susan Garrett uses. Although I understand the rationale for this, I am pretty pleased with her wait for release toward the front of the crate, so at the moment I haven't decided if I will introduce the criteria of sitting at the back of the crate or not.
We have a verbal cue on her sit, have shaped a reasonable drop and I am delighted with her stay so far. I can move up to around ten metres away at the moment and have also added some mild distractions, such as moving my body and showing a toy. This evening I had a work friend visiting and she was happy to provide a distraction for us - Ivy had no problems remaining in her stay until released and also recalled away from playing with my friend whenever I called her.
We have started circle running and so far she is doing pretty good outside circles on both sides. Her speed is really starting to increase and she pushes me to run faster if I'm not quick enough. At first we were jogging the circles, but now I am finding that I am close to running full speed - and at not quite 3 months old ...... I won't be keeping up for much longer. Looks like it's more training for me !
She has been on the wobble board at agility and also on mine and shows no hesitation with either one. She will also sit, drop and tug on the board. Next week I will start her on my balance disc and perch.
She has met some friendly dogs at agility training and loves meeting new people. Last week we went into 'town' a couple of times and walked down the main street. This was really valuable - she had been before but stayed in my arms and the experience from 'street level' was very different for her. She was a bit unsure of a motorised wheelchair at first, but the next day we happened to meet the same lady in the chair again and this time she almost dragged me up to it looking for yet another pat.
On the coming weekend we plan on giving her a bath for the first time - yes, it's long overdue. Then it's back to the vet next week for her final vaccination. So despite the time constraints, I am happy with what we have done together so far and can't wait to build on this over the next few weeks.
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