Well the Internet at the farm is pretty much dead in the water and so I am posting this from my phone. Please forgive any autocorrects!
Loki did really well with Recall today. We had him on a 30 foot ground line and played Puppy Hot Potato. My parents, Claven and I made up 4 points to a square around Loki and each took turns calling him. Once he came to the correct person and sat down he would either get praised or be given a treat (only 2 of us had treats and so it was always a mystery what he would get). At first he tried shooting past us to get us to chase him but once he clotheslined himself on the longline (timed perfectly with a loud "NO" from me) he didn't try that again. His attitude quickly changed and he was running from person to person as we all took turns calling him and sitting down happily.
I am hesitant to remove the line completely and really work off leash. He has a very bad bolting impulse and I am not sure if this comes from a place of playfulness or anxiety. Either way, I do not want to chase him around the county. On this note I will be expanding my octagon pen this month but not before Loki goes home. I may take him to the new fenced yard at the dog park and practice there a little. I have lately been using our fenced garden to run dogs but we have baby garlic in there now. Alas.
However, even with my hesitations I am confident that we will have him fully off leash by mid-late this week. It will mean some work on his owners' part to continue working with Recall when he goes home so he doesn't revert back to old bad habits.
Loki loves the snow!

We were in a much better mood today. He did well with the long line and pinch collar today with Heel/Autosit, Down, and Implied Stay. His Recall was making progress but he has plateaued with it and isn't doing very well anymore. He no longer simply runs from me but he stands and stares and pointedly does not come. I am considering putting him on a remote collar to work on this so I can completely remove the leash and safely reprimand him for ignoring the Come command. Of anything else I can teach him, Recall is the most important. I know he understands it because on the 5 foot leash he does it perfectly. As soon as he has breathing room, however, he gets to be a real problem child about it. His owner wants to enjoy him at the dog park and to do that we need to get this recall thing under control. I am going to try a grounded long line (ie one that is not in my hand but drilled into the ground so he might feel like he isn't really on leash) and see if that doesn't help. Everything else is going fine except for a few times in the house when he knows he is in trouble and runs from me. Grrr. He is going to wear his pinch collar all day tomorrow to work on this. On a happier note, he has been inviting me to play with him over the past few days which is very nice because he was a bit shy with me last week. We had a nice game today of Toss the Toy (guess how you play) and he has been soliciting more attention from me. Hopefully he starts seeing me as less of a drill master and more of a leader and friend. 
He has moved into the house full time now and is spending his whole day with me and the family. This suits him just fine.
He gets one more workout tonight and then it is off to bed! 

Well our friend Pearl is almost done here. She knows Heel/Autosit, Down at the Side, Down from the Front, Implied Stay (that one is still hard but she can do it if her handler is clear and firm with her), Come, and Placemat all on-leash. I didn't get around to making her video today because I didn't have a helper to work the camera. But tomorrow we will give her her last workouts and get her video taken and edited to show her people what she knows and how it should look. She has learned well and while she did challenge me she was eager to be taught new things. Like I said before, the big challenge is going to be making the training permanent. This is work that must be done at home. Her owners will face the task of being consistent  

Loki took some baby steps back today. I don't know if he didn't feel well for some reason or was just feeling contrary but he argued with me all day. He would either flatly ignore me or would act really pouty when corrected. I skipped one of his afternoon workouts and let him play with a bottle he likes for a while to give him a break. All dogs are allowed to have bad days. I certainly get grumpy sometimes. But because he was feeling a bit argumentative we did not get very much done. We mostly worked on what he already knows. He did seem to enjoy relaxing with some toys. I will probably work in more active toy time during the day. 
Tomorrow we are back to the grindstone working on off leash. 

I missed yesterday's post but Pearl has been doing very well. She now lays down from the side and from the front on command with 80% reliability. If the cat is around I have to correct her but she is getting it. I am actually a little surprised at how well she is doing with Placemat. In a calm environment she has stayed on her mat for 2 hours straight without getting off of it. But if I played with a toy or ran around she would likely make a mistake and get up. Children playing might make it difficult for her but it will certainly build her character a bit.
I need to get ready to take her video and glamor shots for the website. It is hard to believe she goes home in 2 days! It feels like she has only been here for a little while but then I think back and she has made so much progress! I am very pleased with her. Terriers are very rewarding to train because it is such a difficult thing to harness that focus (or lack there of) and turn it to something constructive (Dane, I am thinking of you here). They are also such fun dogs to have around. She plays non-stop with her buddy Loki and those two make the whole family laugh as we watch them play tug-of-war or wrestle together. Loki is so much bigger than she is and he could easily win both of these games but he lets her win sometimes just to be nice. He will roll over and let her jump on him and grab his ear like she won the fight and he just smiles and waves his legs in the air as if to say "Oh, you have killed me with your giant strength" and Pearl just eats it up. They are quite the odd couple.

I have not been very consistent with my blogs this week but Loki has had a good couple of days. We are taking things slowly just because I have so much time with him I might as well be thorough. He has started off leash and is doing fine with it. I haven't had him off leash outside yet but in the training room he has done well.
I have also been working on his hand snapping issue. It is obvious that someone played a mouthy game with him when he was a puppy and it is also obvious that as he grew up he learned that if he snaps at someone who is reaching for him they back off. His world has been turned upside down this week because every time he snaps at me (even and especially if he actually bites my hand) I do not back away but I cuff him under the chin and give him a stern "No!" then I reach for him again and again until he allows me to grab him roughly and handle his collar. I grab him roughly on purpose because it upsets him and I want him to know that it is a good thing when I handle him roughly because we then go for a walk or play a game. Soon he won't be afraid of someone grabbing his collar quickly or even handing his scruff. Over the past few days he has cut down a lot on his hand snapping and only does it when I really surprise him.
He has been interested in the horses but when I took him out there he just put his paws on the fence and stood up to sniff their faces. I am going to see if I can't get him to one of Caitlin's (my little sister) riding lessons where she will be doing some intricate dressage work and the horses will look more fun to chase.
He is doing just fine over all. Is doing REALLY well with Place. His only issue is that he  falls asleep and when he wakes up he forgets that he is in a command and gets up. But he stayed on his mat for 2 hours today while I ate lunch and while his buddy, Pearl, was on a mat across the room.

BOING BOING BOING!!! This girl goes a mile a minute! She is getting Heel/Autosit really nicely but when she sits she quivers and you can tell she is getting wound up for a great big spring into the air. Down is pretty hard right now. She will do it but she tries really hard to just kind of squat and bounce right back up. Her Implied Stay is really pretty good, we are working on more and more distractions for her.
She is getting along with most of the dogs here. She likes male dogs a lot more than girl dogs and she likes submissive males the most. She is getting on great with her roommate Loki. She and Kylie probably won't ever be bosom companions seeing as they are both dominant females but they are tolerating each other (Kylie had to assert herself and remind Pearl that Kylie is bigger and stronger than her). She did not do well with the toy poodle who is her size and easier to bully.
Tomorrow we are going to do more of the same obedience. I am determined to get her laying down nicely tomorrow. I am also going to get her running next to the bike. As of now I have not been able to get her exercised well enough and I think a good sprint around the property will do wonders for her nervous energy.
All in all, she is doing fine for a young Jack Russel Terrier. She still has some growing up to do but she won't finish that until she turns 2...if her owners are lucky.

This boy is so goofy. We had a good time today. We took a long walk today in the nice weather and had a good group of work outs. He is starting off leash (using a long line) and his biggest problem is when he gets frightened. Any time he purposely ignores a command or purposely does the opposite of what I asked him to do he immediately acts frightened and then tries to run. I correct him for this and then have to build him back up with some confidence building work. He is also still shaky on the recall. There is a great deal of inner turmoil going on between his longing to want to do the right thing and get some praise and wanting to run in the opposite direction and make me chase him. We aren't going to try true off leash until I can trust him to come back routinely.
Tomorrow we are going to do more long line work and work on the Come command.
Today Loki discovered the Kong Wubba toy. He spent 10 minutes tossing it to himself, "killing it," and play bowing and barking at it. He is such a funny boy.

Pearl had a pretty easy day today. This morning I was in church and I had to go to Kansas City this afternoon. So she got a long exercise walk and 2 mini work outs. She did very well, however, even though she did not work very much. She is getting Heel/Autosit nicely and we started the Implied Stay. She is doing okay with the Implied Stay with low destractions but all bets are off if she sees a potential adventure. We also started the Down which she hated but did start doing on command during the last workout.
Right now she is zooming around the living room like she has a firecracker on her tail. What a happy girl.

Other than walks and practicing the basics Loki had a pretty low key day. I was busy with church this morning and an appointment in KC went a fair bit longer than was expected.
The break seems to have been good for his attitude, however. He has been in a very bouncy, happy mood all day today. Right now he is acting very dopy with a kong toy. He is playing keep away with little Pearl and taking full advantage of the fact that he is 4 times her height.