Ready for training

There's been no official club training for a month now. It's set to start again on Sunday and we're getting antsy for it. I've been working with Tristan a bit every day so he doesn't regress. Last year during the time off we got very raggedy and I've been determined that it doesn't happen this year. We've even made some progress on our own as we've been working on the dumbbell retrieve. Mostly I've worked on the bring command in preparation for it. This took all of one second for Tristan to get it. I just wanted him to learn that this is different from throwing the ball for fetch. He has to wait until it is thrown and "bring" means he returns the item directly back to me with a calm and pretty sit in front.

I've been a bit hesitant to work too much more on it. We've worked mostly using a ball as I want Tristan to learn from the start that the dumbbell is not for chewing. It's going to be tricky and I need the trainer's help with it. When I first presented the dumbbell to Tristan, he started to mouth it and I told him no and held it steady. He immediately thought he was not supposed to take the dumbbell in his mouth when sitting there. So now when I present it he sits there calmly with his mouth clamped shut, very sure that it's a test and he's being a good dog not to take the dumbbell!

Another thing we've started on is the send out with down. My first step has been to make sure Tristan's platz is very reliable and that he will down at a distance. We've always done the platz at my side or in front of me. Now I have him platz when he is at a distance from me. He did it fine the first time and now I'm extending the distance at which I give the command.

It will be good to get back to club training so I can get more advice and we can start to connect the dots.