She is on fire!

Last night and this morning Hoot has been ON FIRE in her training.

We are working on smaller and smaller boxes (Silvia Trkman).  Last night I had a couple of boxes that I thought would be a nice challenge.  Put the box down, she hops in (all 4), nice duration and gives me that "what else you got mom?" look.  Both boxes, no problem, no thinking, just got it done.

We also worked a bit on shaping a "through".  Which is come from behind, in between my legs and stop.  I use this to line them up at the start line.  She got it in one session.  Brilliant little thing.

This morning we worked on recalls and tugging out on the field.  She is getting so much better about playing with me on the field and not doing her own little girl thing!  So we moved on to a couple of cones.  I have shaped the going around the cone in the house and am working on getting a nice send and drive out of the cone back to me.  She is JUST A PUPPY but I like how she is using her body so far.

We also worked on tunnels a bit.




She is so much fun to train.  Great ethic to work and always eager.

Puppy Table Games

Hoot is telling me that she is ready for more!  Her play is getting more vicious and mischievous and I am beginning to see that look of "what are you going to do about this?". A bored border collie is a bad border collie!

Her nickname is now Hoot-a-vicious instead of Hoot-a-licious.

This morning I decided to play puppy table games with her.  This isn't really about training the table for me,  but it does build a love for the obstacle.  Really it begins to introduce two things 1) shaping without food 2) there might be some rules in order to play (get her thinking). 

This is our second session playing this game and the puppies catch on really quick as to what makes that toy fun again.



Tangle loved this game.  I never really "trained" the table with him.  This game just kept progressing to the point that I would restrain him about 20 feet away and he would run onto the table to tug.  Tangle still has a great table.

Yesterday Hoot learned the word "back" for her back-up and can do it for food or a toy.  She also went out to eat with us and enjoyed getting all the kids to play with her.

Her first snow!

Yep, it is mid-May.  But it is also Colorado.  We can get snow almost any time of year.

Hoot got to see snow for the first time in her life.  Really didn't phase her and  she ended up just loving running and poking her nose into the snow.

 

This past week as been fun.  Hoot is turning up the dial on being naughty.  She has started running away, wanting to be chased, going under the gates to get into the agility field and in general looking for reactions from me on her naughtiness.  Ah, I remember this well with Tip!

I had to get creative and block off the AFrame, Dog Walk and Teeter.  She doesn't hesitate to climb each one.  So instead she started doing tunnels.  She had an awesome session of the puppy crazy's a couple of days ago and did the circuit of tunnels over and over again on the field.  She loves interacting with all the equipment.

But to counter the naughty she has also stepped up her understanding on being shaped.  She knows what the clicker is for and starts offering a behavior.  Almost always the last one we worked on.  She doesn't hesitate offering something else if that doesn't work.  Nice!!

Hoot is 13.5 pounds, up from 10 last week and still LOVES people.  She greets everyone she can and is sure they are on this earth just for her.

She is 9.5 weeks old.