What we've been working on?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Well, that's not totally true. Most of my focus has been on Jun's disc work lately. We had our first comp of the season last weekend and sucked it up big time. Jun was off. Really off. But, this is life with Jun as I know it. When she's good, she's very, very good and when she's bad . . . well, you know the rest.

But the next day we went to play at the park and she redeemed herself. Looking forward to the next comp a week from Saturday, then our first big comp of the year in Kokomo, IN, which is a UFO local and a Quad! I've been throwing pretty well this year, but was really off myself last weekend at the the park, so hopefully I can reel that back in.

Oh! I DID work the other day on some impulse control. I first had Lok and Elo down-stay on mats while Jun and I played the "find-it" game. Then I put Elo in a crate and had Jun down-stay on a mat while Lok played find-it. Then I alternated Jun and Lok with mat work for one while the other played tug. This was quite a challenge for them, but they did well for our first time! Elo is not quite there yet. He sat in a crate and watched and worked on being calm in the crate while watching other dogs play.

I have learned that I can't work my two hearing dogs at one time, especially when I'm also trying to work my deaf dog! Lok and Elo both assume the verbal commands are for them and get really confused, so I try to help them out with gestures, which Jun thinks are for her and it's a whole big mess.

Elo is doing well with windshield wipers still. I can run them on high for several seconds and am increasing the time between treats, sometimes running them briefly without treating at all. He will react if they are on for a long time--it seems to take a lot of effort for him to control himself if they've been running for awhile. I am hoping that with more work on this, the wipers will eventually be completely irrelevant to him.

And finally, the other day I decided to try loose-leash walking with Lok again. Why I continue to torture myself with this I have no idea, but I had borrowed an easy-walk harness to try and so, I wanted to try it (FAIL). I need to give up on this idea of Lok walking nicely next to me. It will never happen and I just get frustrated and upset with him. I also worked it a little with Jun and Elo and they both did a decent job. Now if only I could find more time to train . . .