He travels with me every Monday night out to Goose Creek Dog Sports to hang out while I teach my 2 agility classes. This allows us to spend some 1-on-1 time together, and he gets to practice being quiet in a crate (which is the reason why Porter does not come! He cannot chill quietly in a crate while I teach...)
Yes, this beautiful facility is one of the places I teach & train at!
Before class, between classes, and after class, I work with Stout a little bit. Thus far we've kept it light & fun, usually practicing our trick training for our online class with Silvia Trkman. But now that the class has ended, we've slowly began transitioning to more foundational skills for agility.
And by "foundational skills," I mean I've mostly been playing with toys with him :) Yep, a bulk of my training time has been spent tugging, fetching, & chasing.
Why? Well, because everyone says it's important :) And because Porter could not care less about toys. There have been times when training Porter that some things would have been much easier if he had been toy-motivated (like 2x2 weaves) or if he could fetch (like our distance work for NADAC).
So that's why I'm nurturing Stout's interest in toys. I just want to have every tool available to me in the future.
In the video I'm using one of those mesh shower pouf / sponge things (or what is left of one anyway) and a microfiber duster thing on a leash. Yeah, Stout loves my Dollar Store dog toys :) I encourage everone to think outside the box when it comes to toys!
We did the wrapping poles in our online class, but I'm now looking for some speed & enthusiasm. And maybe a little more of an attention span... Make sure you watch the end to see him get the cone stuck on his snout. I may be dragging one of those around on a leash next week for his toy! :)
You'll notice in the video too how he does his "alligator roll" when I go to reach for his collar. It's his way of also twisting the toy out of my grip. I'm ok with this for now. We work on release work & impulse control in different exercises. At this point I wanted him having as much fun as possible. If he had grabbed my hand though, we would have stopped all play for a time-out.
Besides the exercise above, I've also practiced sending him into a tunnel & having him chase me & the toy as he comes out. We've also worked on the wobble board & done some shadow handling. I am not in a rush, he's still just a baby :)
Wow, he's doing well on his training, he's very energetic and brave dog.
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