Almost through Level 2!

I've been wiped out lately, so we've been taking it easy and just puttering along on some level stuff here and there, nothing major.

I also took Reyna to a friends house about a week ago and got to play in their agility tunnel, Reyna had a blast with that. So much so that I signed her up for a private at The Dog's Place in Canton. It's not for a couple weeks, but I can't wait.

I've been really all over place lately, which generally means we both need to take a break and walk in the woods for a few days in lieu of training. Too drained from the rest of my life to be In The Game right now. So I figured it's a perfect opportunity to work on Relax. I sit down with some kibble next to me and read or write, or whatever and whenever she forgets I have kibble sitting there and slumps to the floor Yes/Treat. Which meant that she would immediately get back up again and we'd start over.

 The little smarty pants got the idea faster than I thought she would. The first evening she got the general idea that I was marking for non interaction, and the second night I started shaping our specific "cool it" position...laying down on one hip, front legs wide and head stretched flat on the floor. It took 1/2 cup of kibble and on the very last piece she got the whole thing....

But after doing that a few times I decided she looked much more relaxed like this....

So now that is our new standard. You may wonder why we don't follow Sue's example and teach her to flop all the way over onto her side...it's because when she is overexcited/stressed and I tell her "down" she goes all the way over to her side but completely rigid, giving us the whale eye and pretty much looking like she was shot or stabbed, it's not becoming. I'd rather not do anything to encourage her to assume that position until I can get her relaxing on cue in a different one, and then hopefully I can transfer those feelings to "all the way over".

Tonight we got to the point where even if I tossed the treat across the room she would trot right back and offer the relaxed down so I started to name it "cool it"..."CHILL" is already in regular use, and supremely ineffective, so "cool it" it is! 

And for the daily dose of awww...

 Here is Reyna doing her favorite and most important job...munchkin guarding....

 

So sweet....so loyal...so.......

hmm...I'll pretend I didn't see that...