So it had been a little while since Artemis and I went to obedience classes, but things are under way again for the second round of Advance classes.

Heel work

As usual, the class started with some heel work. Crossing paths person to person, then moving to crossing paths dog to dog.

Lots to keep Artemis working hard: walking very slowly at a funeral pace, whilst keeping her attention on me. I was reminded that funeral pace means walking slowly but with normal sized steps.

Then we did down, sit, and stand; where the dog performs the position and you continue to walk forwards and then back again and then bring the dog to walk to heel again.

Then we did “call your dog“, which I only half remembered. I called Artemis to come to me as I continued walking backwards – that bit was fine. I forgot that I would then need to turn to walk in her direction, not the other way round, so I’ll have to remember that next time.

Send away

This was something new.

There were 6 cones positioned to form boxes. You ask your dog to heel between two cones, then wait, and you hide a treat in between two cones further along, then come back to your dog. Then say “away” and the dog is meant to go towards the treat, and then you ask the dog to go in the down position. Then you praise and release.

Artemis, though, just went and found the treat and ate it and then offered the down position! So kind of the wrong way round. But this is something new that we can work on.

Hold and give

So Artemis wasn’t always great at this, she is usually totally uninterested in the tube that she is meant to hold. So this session we just played with the tube in an effort to get her interested in it.

Another dog owner offered her bright pink dumbbell and Artemis did sniff it and was interested in it. Then I gave her the tube and she actually held it in her mouth! Progress!

When the other dog owners threw their brightly coloured tubes and dumbbells Artemis was very interested in those, so it might be the dull colour of the tube that might not be capturing Artemis’ eye.

Or perhaps when we tried this trick before we kept asking her to give it back, so she might know that holding the tube will only mean she will have to give it back.

Finishes

Next we tried the English finish. Artemis did this ok, her lead was still on her and the trainer noticed that the lead might be in her way.

Then we tried the German finish and that was absolutely fine.

Conclusion

So, lots to work on with Artemis, but we are getting our groove back into these classes. Slow progress is still progress.