Second session of this bout of advanced classes and re-learning things from previous classes.

Heelwork

We started off walking normal pace, passing dog to dog straight away. Then we moved onto walking at a slow pace, passing dog to dog again.

The trainer threw in lots of about turns and double about turns.

Then we moved onto everyone walking in the same direction and doing heel work off lead at a normal pace.

Artemis did really good here, I couldn’t believe it. I brought out new treats, some still from Christmas, some I bought but haven’t opened yet, and she was glued to me most of the time and actually managed to lick a treat out of my hand one time too!

Then we did heelwork off lead at a slow pace. I had to ask Artemis to heel more frequently and give her treats more frequently too. As we were walking so slowly, sometimes Artemis would go in a down position, perhaps thinking I was walking too slowly – but I just asked her to heel and she was walking slowly by my side again.

Stay

Down stay

We started off with a down stay. I walked away – staying in front of Artemis – but was still relatively close to her because of where we were positioned in the field ie I could only walk up to the fence.

The trainer went near Artemis and her tail started to twitch like she wanted to wag her tail, then the trainer smartly moved to another dog in case Artemis broke her down stay.

I then walked around Artemis in a circle so that she would experience me not being in front of her, and she just swivelled her head around to try and see me, staying in the down position. She has a really flexible neck!

Sit stay

Next up was a sit stay.

This time I walked towards the trees in one end of the field, so was a lot further away from Artemis – she did really well here.

Near positions

This is when you stand in front of the dog, toes to paws, and ask the dog the following commands: sit, down, sit, stand, sit.

Artemis would stand and then sit back down again. We practise this at home, so she knows the order of the commands. The trainer advised to treat and praise her in the stand position so she stays standing.

The trainer also advised to go from down and stand and back to down again, changing it up so that Artemis won’t sit down straight away. I’ll have to try that next time.

Send away

We practised this with treat. I asked Artemis to heel, then wait, and hid a treat for her, then came back to her, and said “away”.

Away is fine, as Artemis just wants to find and eat the treat.

The trainer advised that to get Artemis in the down position quicker I should have more urgency in my voice when I say the command.

Conclusion

I was super impressed with Artemis’s off lead heelwork today, clearly these treats are really tasty to her!

Send away and near positions we will need to work on, but I see progress!