Zeki Training

Thanks to Leah for the great photographs!

Well, our training is progressing nicely. I am thoroughly enjoying training Zeki as she is such a willing partner and is happy to try anything I ask of her. I think we have good communication between us. Most of our training is done on a positive note but she understands failure and how to try harder if something isn't quite right. She takes negative feedback in a positive way which is really useful when teaching new behaviours.

I am still teaching the running A-Frame and so far am happy with our progress. I have decided to do a sort of running seesaw in that Zeki's main cue to leave the seesaw is as it hits the ground. That said I am cheating a bit and trying to coincide a release word with the hit on the ground. Not sure if this is a good idea or not, will have to see if we can maintain our performance.

I had become a bit stuck with my dog walk but had some help today from a very good teacher which has set me back on course. We were not as behind with this obstacle as I had thought; in fact it seems like I've been holding Zeki back too much when she was actually ready to move on. I have just the dog walk and long jump to finish in terms of teaching the obstacles so we are pretty well there in this respect.

I have started to teach pull throughs/push throughs/snakes but we are only drilling these from a stationary position. Our lefts and rights are pretty good. I've been practising as hard as Zeki on these (anyone who knows me well will understand why!)

Now we have to start some sequence training which I'm looking forward to. She is such happy dog.