Well sweet Bella goes back home tomorrow. I am pleased with the progress she has made. She now has a strong foundation for an obedient life, however, because of her stubborn and independent personality she is a dog that I would urge her owners to be strict with. She will backslide into old unwanted behaviors if her people are too lenient with her new rules. She craves discipline and praise but needs her balance of both coupled with a lot of exercise.

I took her video yesterday and tomorrow will take her glamour shot tomorrow when we will hopefully get some sun. I will miss this girl. She has been a challenge and all good teachers remember their challenges most fondly. She knows it all and just needs to be expected to do it.

Not a whole lot to report today. Bella is now well into the practice stage of her board and train. She knows everything she is going to learn with me and now we are just cleaning everything up and making sure she is more or less distraction proof. She won't be perfectly distraction proof until this obedience has been her way of life for a few months.
We kept all her workouts short today. It was just too hot to expect her to last very long. Luckily the heat made her pretty calm so she didn't miss her second bike ride of the day. 
Tomorrow we are hopefully back to a real work day. If it is still really hot again we will just work in the training room. Oh the joys of Kansas summers.

Loki is doing a great job. As I mentioned earlier he is here for some behavior modification and some refreshing of his obedience. His obedience is great and he is also doing much better on Placemat. He stayed on his mat for an hour this afternoon without needing any correction at all. 

Today was such a roller coaster for Bella. We started with a very difficult morning and it ended on a nice high note. It is not uncommon to have dogs get an attitude halfway through a board and train. My theory is that in the beginning of a board and train dogs are nervous and a little stressed and so they are on their best behavior. After a few days they realize that they aren't in danger, they will be fed and kept clean and so they relax a little and so they can get a little snotty. Usually it just takes a good argument (that I make sure to win) and they get back in line.
That was our morning. Bella acted like she had not had any training at all. She was not even Autositting properly. After some correcting and insisting that she get it right she grudgingly would lay down on command and Autosit nicely. As soon as she was doing what she was told again I put her away for a nap and to maybe rethink her stance on things. 
Later today we took her on a bike ride and a jog and then played with her for a while and she was much happier. We then had two stellar workouts. She did all of her commands perfectly and then we worked on Placemat and she stayed on her mat for 45 minutes before I ended it and let her go process. 
So even though the morning wasn't great I am very happy with where we were able to end her day. She is now in her kennel fast asleep and gearing up for a new day tomorrow.

Bella had a solid day 2. She is now Autositting nicely and her Implied Stay is coming along. I would call it 60% right now. Her Down is so so. Not bad, not great. She sometimes argues with me and other times slides down with just a little coaxing. She doesn't want to stay down, however, and we will be working on her self restraint in later days. We also introduced the Come command and she enjoys it very much. Only once did I have to bust her for running into me and jumping up.

She had her first run next to the bike and did okay. She kept crossing in front of me but never got hit. She certainly enjoyed the exercise but it didn't really put a dent in her boundless energy. She is, however, a bit less hyper. What I mean is she is still go! go! go! but not to the point that she is frantic, or overly rude.

Right now she is wrestling with her new boyfriend, Loki, but bedtime is fast approaching. Another big day tomorrow.

This afternoon we welcomed Bella to Free State K-9. Bella is a delightful young lab with energy to spare. She is here for 7 days of obedience training and general tuckering out. She has a classic Lab disposition and she knows no strangers. She has become fast friends with Loki, her kennel neighbor, and they had a very bouncy play session this afternoon. 
Loki hasn't yet met a dog who he didn't figure out how to play with and he figured out Bella's playing style right away. He prefers the chase-me game but Bella is more of a rough and tumble girl and so they played that way and had a great time.
Bella is pretty sure that if she barks at Angela the kitty loudly enough Angela will come over and play. Angela is so far unimpressed with these misplaced attempts at getting her attention.
We took a walk this afternoon and Bella picked up Heel very quickly. We tried Autosit but didn't get very far. That is our goal for tomorrow. Tomorrow we are also going to introduce the Implied Stay and the Down command. 
Right now the dogs are resting after some dinner. After about an hour the dogs are going to come inside for some house time. 

Loki is such a happy boy. We had fun playing fetch this morning and he helped with the horses in the afternoon. He had the very important job of holding a Down/Stay by the fence and he performed admirably.

He has gotten quite good at Place. Sometimes he scoots or rolls off but he does try to stay put. I found him today stretched with the tips of his back toes barely on the mat and his front feet reaching like superman desperately trying to reach a bone that was just inches out of his reach. I took pity on him and helped him out.

He hasn't eaten his last two breakfasts but has a good appetite for dinner so I not concerned. Overall he is a wonderful houseguest.

Hayes had an easy day today. I let him relax on his placemat all morning because I noticed yesterday that he was possibly developing a slight cough. He seemed to be clearing his throat more often than usual. All dogs who come to FSK9 are up to date on shots so I am not worried about anything serious. It is dusty out here and sometimes if a dog isn't used to it it can tickle their throat. Anyway, just in case he had a scratchy throat I let him rest up this morning.

However, the morning was not totally lost. He practiced Place for over 2 hours with very few mistakes.

The afternoon was more or less normal. We practiced all of his obedience and he did not clear his throat at all that I noticed. His obedience is coming along nicely. He gets distracted and forgets to sit maybe 2 of 10 tries. He also still makes mistakes with Down at the side (from te front he is better) but is getting better with every workout.

Tomorrow is more practice and we are also going to take his video and glamour shot because he goes gone on Friday. I am sure his owners will be pleased with his progress. I am proud of him, that is for sure.

Hayes had a productive day today even though I had to run around to Saturday lessons. We got even better at Heel/Autosit and we introduced Down and Implied Stay. Implied Stay is pretty good, he sometimes panics that I am going to go have fun without him but by his last workout I was able to walk all the way around him without him getting up. 
Down is pretty silly right now. He won't go down without being very goofy and flopping around and then he pops back up immediately. For now we are just working on him getting down and staying down while I stand up straight. We call dogs like Hayes "pop tarts" because as soon as you stop praising them they just pop up and want to play. Eventually I will get him to the point that he stays down while I walk all the way around him. But that is going to take some perseverance.
Tomorrow he gets the morning off while I am at church but then it is right back to work. We are going to keep working on the above things and also introduce Come and possibly Place if he has gotten far enough with Heel/Autosit, but I doubt he will have the self control yet for Place. That might come later.
Right now he is drooling on my arm rest hoping I will scratch his nose. He spent the better part of the last hour pestering Kylie to play and she is having none of it. They chased each other around for maybe five minutes and then she decided it was quiet time. I will have to get Rocky the German Shepherd out here for some good rough and tumble play later this week.

Loki is back for a few weeks because his owners are going out of town and he could use a refresher of some of his obedience and behavior modification.

We have taken the last two days to make sure he has retained his obedience and he certainly has. Intact, his recall has even improved since he has gone home. His owners have done a wonderful job if expecting a lot of him.

Where he has back slid is with Place Mat. We are going to restart him with this command because he has taken to simply refusing to stay put.

He has a few problem behaviors that I will try to work on while he is here. He tends to gulp items (like socks) he is not supposed to have instead of dropping them on command. I am trying to decide how I am going to tackle this without allowing him to take a sock or bit of bedding. I may use the game of fetch to instill the Drop command a bit more strongly but stealing and playing fetch are two very different head spaces.

A challenge but one I am glad to puzzle out. Loki is a special dog with a little bit if baggage and an overload of heart. Right now he is sucking on his peanut butter Kong and getting ready for bed.