We had so much fun with Arrow today. We spent most of the day at the farm and she had 3 off-leash walks/work outs. She did well. There were some mistakes, sure, but she never needed her leash put back on in order for her to get the right answer. Her biggest mistake was when Angela, the cat, popped out of the woods for a while. Arrow has a very strong prey drive (luckily she isn't stealthy and Angela is very dog savvy. She was never in any danger) and she lost all focus when she saw the cat. I hat to turn her remote up to tap her and turn her around. She didn't run very far, just to the garage door where Angela has a cat-door through which Arrow doesn't fit. She did eventually come back to me and I was determined to make her come back to me instead of me walking to go get her. She needs more experience off the leash before I would consider her trustworthy but today was a very positive day for her. She really impressed me with how smoothly she transitioned to off-leash work.
Tomorrow we are practicing more of the same as we continue her training and transition to off-leash.

I'm afraid today was a bit boring for poor Arrow. The weather was crummy so we decided to wait on the farm but we did do some off-leash work in the yard and some long-line work around the block. She is doing fine but I can tell is a little stir crazy because she doesn't really want to be outside in the wet but there isn't a ton to do inside. But she is trying hard to be a good house guest.
Tomorrow we will be doing more off-leash and pushing her a little harder around distractions. She frequents down town and so there isn't a lot she hasn't been exposed to. The weather is keeping a lot of distractions inside and so we have not seen much on walks, which is too bad.
Hopefully it dries out for a little bit tomorrow and we get to really work her out.

Arrow is here for 6 days to help her move from on to off-leash. She is a sweet and intense Belgian Malinois who has proven herself to be a capable working pup and an enterprising mischief maker.
Today I worked her mostly on-leash with some very basic off-leash heelwork in the yard. I am going to try to beat the weather tomorrow and get her to the farm for some proper off-leash play time but I might not be successful in that.
She stayed on Placemat in the house with normal household activity levels for 3 separate, hour-long stretches today and she was quiet for the most part.
We have kind of thrown her into the deep end and given her full run of the main floor (supervised) and after the initial storm of chaos she has calmed down and been a polite house guest. I had to correct her for barking at Ace who wouldn't wrestle with her and for jumping once onto the babies high chair after some abandoned pizza. She is pretty good in the house but will take advantage if she thinks she can get away with it and her energy level ebbs and flows. She will calm down but not for long. I was impressed with how well she did on Placemat.
As I said, tomorrow depends on the severity of the weather but I hope to get some off-leash work done with her in the country. If not we will use the long-line in town.
She is a fun dog to work with and I am excited for this week.

The house cat is not impressed.

Jersey is coming right along. He has spent about an hour on his Placemat without making a mistake. He still struggles when new people come into the house but he resets pretty well. With practice and patience (and time, he is still quite young) he will get better about restraining himself.
He has had some off-leash workouts at the farm and done pretty well. I have not been able to get him out there as much as I prefer because it has been SO muddy. But when we have gone out he has done a good job. Today we went to Massachusetts Street and worked on all of his obedience. It wasn't as crowded as usual because it was later in the day but still lots of people walking by and plenty of traffic. He was distracted but didn't need any big corrections to keep him on task. He just needed a vibration here and there and lots of verbal cues about what to do.
He is working very hard and enjoying the work (when it isn't raining out. He will thank you to not walk him in the rain). Today my two year old told him to go to Placemat and Jersey hopped right on his bed and laid right down. It made Noah very happy that Jersey listened so well. Right now Jersey is sound asleep and snoring rather loudly.

We had fun with Jersey today. We went to the farm and took a walk without a leash on. His Heel was a little spotty but all his other commands were pretty good considering his excitement and distraction level. He still flops onto his back and wiggles his feet for Down. He is so silly but we are working towards laying down without the theatrics.
He enjoyed he farm. We were not able to spend as much time as we had hoped there today because my son came down with a fever and needed to be picked up early from school. But tomorrow we plan to head out again and get some more off-leash experience.
Here in town he is still doing well on the 20' line. We will move towards having him off leash in town once he is a bit more reliable around sudden distractions like cats and chickens that are so common in North Lawrence. He did a good job today and he is sleeping well right now which tells me he had a good workout as well.

Jersey had a bit of a quiet day today. Saturday is my busiest day for weekly lessons and so he got most of the day to sleep and play. His afternoon workout went well and he is no longer wearing his pinch collar but he still needs lots of reminders. He gets pouty about his corrections sometimes but it is easy to build him back up. We are still working on Down. He gets it in the house about 80% of the time but for some reason outside he really struggles with it. When he does eventually lay down he flops dramatically over onto his back and waves all of his feet in the air with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. I can't do anything but laugh at him since he is, technically, laying down. But we will work to give his Down a little more dignity as he gets smoother with it in general.
I am moving him to a 20' leash tomorrow to start getting him ready for off-leash. I still worry about his tendency to bolt and so the long cord will be a good stepping stone to ensure he knows what to do.
There will not be a blog tomorrow so look to Monday for another update on Jersey.