Timber

I have the day off, and I have SO much to do--and I'm sitting here blinking like an owl in the sun because I didn't sleep well last night--too much noise from outside and too warm--plus my darling Mr. T woke me up at 6:30 this morning because he REALLY had to go. I had sort of expected it--he drank a lot of water last night because it was so warm and they really haven't had time to acclimate--but I thought it would be around 3 or 3:30. Anyhow, I'm waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

Over the winter I taught Timber to come to heel (at least in the house--we need some work on doing it anywhere else), so I decided now I'd teach him the "swing" variation. In a regular heel, the dog starts out sitting square in front of you and, at the cue, he goes around behind you and comes into heel position on your left side; for "swing," the dog goes directly to your left side and turns into heel. There's a spectacular show version called the flip finish where the dog leaps into the air and turns while in the air, and comes down (more or less) in heel position (or there used to be--I don't know if it's taught any more--I ought to see if I can find it on You-Tube), but a plain swing finish is fine by me.

Anyway, I'm using luring for this, where he's supposed to follow the treat in my hand, but he sees my hand start to move and thinks "Oh, I know this one!" and goes around me. I just turn in place, so he winds up in front of me again, and his expression is so priceless--"Wait a minute--this isn't right--Mom, you're not supposed to move!" So I get eye contact, then nose contact (here's the lure, silly boy), and we try again. I can tell he thinks this is really dumb, changing the rules on him to get the same effect.

After 2 or 3 repeats, I let Taenzer do it. Taenzer's like, "Here, you do it like THIS. Right, Mom? I can do it, right, Mom?" I love her enthusiasm and eagerness, bless her heart. She's not precise, but she's definitely enthusiastic!