Well this girl does not give a hoot about rain. We were just finishing up a walk when the sky burst open and we were soaked by the time we (all the pups were out on this walk) got in and Matia was the only one not grumpy about it. She just wanted to play and in fact she dove into the kiddiepool and splashed around a little before getting into her kennel.
We had a completely off leash workout in the training room last night and she did nicely. She got a little bit goofy at one point and I had to get her back to work but for the most part she did really well.
We are now working on a 30' grounded tether which means the leash is completely out of my hands. However, if she bolts or decides she isn't working any more (as she is apt to do) I can still easily get a hold of her and give her a correction and back to work. She is able to do all of her commands now without me holding the leash. Her remaining issue is that she is still has a very hard time focusing. Something as simple as a leaf can completely derail her working mode. She will grow out of this, according to the Newfoundland people I have talked to but it does make work a little difficult right now. Her focus has improved a good deal over the course of her Board and Train but it may take a little bit of patience on behalf of her people once she is home. Patience and well timed corrections and praise are the key to keep her working.
She has all but stopped jumping up on me and my family. Once she is let out of her kennel she is ignored until she calms down. She is allowed to walk around and sniff but no jumping up is tolerated. I am going to see if I can get some strangers to come over this weekend to work on this some more with her. But she is doing well overall.
We have also started Placemat. At first this was kind of a disaster. She wanted to play with her mat, chew on her mat, or roll around on her mat but not stay on her mat. After a few minutes of practice she was able to stay on it for 5 minutes and then I ended the workout so that we could end with a success.
She is always happy to try what I've started calling "the fetch thing." She will chase a ball, pick it up, and bring it back if I have a second ball to throw right away. Her most favorite thing is when I throw the balls into the kiddie pool for her to root around for. I would say she brings the ball back about 60 percent of the time. Other times she drops it half way back to me because she gets distracted. She knows she has to sit before I will throw the other ball. Fetch is something that typically comes naturally to water dogs and fetch into water is a very fun game because of all of the splashing.
She isn't exactly what I would call coordinated but she is getting there. At least I know that "the fetch thing" will make me laugh every day.
We had a completely off leash workout in the training room last night and she did nicely. She got a little bit goofy at one point and I had to get her back to work but for the most part she did really well.
We are now working on a 30' grounded tether which means the leash is completely out of my hands. However, if she bolts or decides she isn't working any more (as she is apt to do) I can still easily get a hold of her and give her a correction and back to work. She is able to do all of her commands now without me holding the leash. Her remaining issue is that she is still has a very hard time focusing. Something as simple as a leaf can completely derail her working mode. She will grow out of this, according to the Newfoundland people I have talked to but it does make work a little difficult right now. Her focus has improved a good deal over the course of her Board and Train but it may take a little bit of patience on behalf of her people once she is home. Patience and well timed corrections and praise are the key to keep her working.
She has all but stopped jumping up on me and my family. Once she is let out of her kennel she is ignored until she calms down. She is allowed to walk around and sniff but no jumping up is tolerated. I am going to see if I can get some strangers to come over this weekend to work on this some more with her. But she is doing well overall.
We have also started Placemat. At first this was kind of a disaster. She wanted to play with her mat, chew on her mat, or roll around on her mat but not stay on her mat. After a few minutes of practice she was able to stay on it for 5 minutes and then I ended the workout so that we could end with a success.
She is always happy to try what I've started calling "the fetch thing." She will chase a ball, pick it up, and bring it back if I have a second ball to throw right away. Her most favorite thing is when I throw the balls into the kiddie pool for her to root around for. I would say she brings the ball back about 60 percent of the time. Other times she drops it half way back to me because she gets distracted. She knows she has to sit before I will throw the other ball. Fetch is something that typically comes naturally to water dogs and fetch into water is a very fun game because of all of the splashing.
She isn't exactly what I would call coordinated but she is getting there. At least I know that "the fetch thing" will make me laugh every day.
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