2 on 2 off

Tag and I have been working very hard the past month on completely retraining our contacts. It has been going quite well considering we started over from step 1

I have decided to not trial until January 2011 so that we have a good foundation of our new contact style " 2 ON 2 OFF "

We started back in the middle of September with basic targeting in the living room, deck, park, everywhere that had to make him focus on what I was asking in busy areas. We did this everyday for 10 minutes and then had a good play and sometimes even twice a day... I'm very lucky that I have a very smart boy as this took us about 1 week.

Then we started on a plank and I actually borrowed it form our GDG group and I have it at home in my garage and we have been working on it everyday. I place him on the plank and when he looks at the target I say " target" he moves I say "Yes" and then feed him very low in his position. ( 3 weeks of this training ) as he was getting more confident then I would vary my position and I would have to get him really excited so he would have to really work at coming down low with his head looking at the target and not me.

The past two weekends we have gone out and started back chaining on the big equipment and he has done very well. Last weekend he was struggling with his stride as Sarah and I decided to see where we were at.He was trying hard to get into position but he just struggled with his stride. So more back chaining on the dog walk especially.... yesterday we had an ok day as he was quite high so once I got him settled down and he realized "oh.. I better listen to Mamma " he did get his contacts and was a very good boy.

Today was the best day we have had, the wall was lowered so we started back chaining and he was doing well.. so I had him try the entire contact and he gave me 2 on 2 off... we did this a few times with huge Turkey sausage rewards and he was doing great. So of course I sent him up the dog walk at full height and he nailed it and I couldn't believe it. I could see him really trying to figure out his feet in order to get his "TARGET" we did this a few more times and he nailed it every time... so I added a jump and then the dog walk to get him a bit higher and he Nailed it ..... :o) I couldn't believe it so I stopped while I was ahead. We also worked on our weave entries, turns on three jumps and some jump grids... We had a great Sunday training session ... so we will keep working on our contacts and start varying my postion more and more as we both get more confident.