Control Unleashed Class Night Three

We were a little smaller for this session since Janet (TTouch trainer) and Mirri couldn't make it. However that did mean we could try out some more demanding exercises because Max is pretty familiar with both of my dogs.

We revised look at that and the 'leave' game - Max is happily ignoring several treats even when thrown past his face so we're starting to add in the verbal cue now. Farah is pretty good and Finn is getting there - moral is that I need to practice more!!

We spent much of the night doing variations on parallel games - hopefully there are a couple of pics showing the set-up we used: basically we set up the trellis' to divide up our hall longwise.

Activities we played with

• relax on mat - one dog either side of gates, getting progressively closer, playing Look At That each time the other dog moved


• one dog relaxes on mat, other dog works on stationary active attention (tricks/targetting etc)


• Both dogs work on relatively stationary cues


• one dog on mat, other dog heeling


• one dog active attention on the spot, other dog heeling


• both dogs heeling


• moving towards barrier simultaneously


• one dog relaxes and watches while other recalls slowly, then faster: swop tasks

We mixed up short bursts of these activities with the other CU games, plenty of breaks for dogs and handlers etc.

Max coped incredibly well and is doing well learning his on/off switch at long last. Farah was a little star as always, totally unfased by anything anyone might be doing and just so keen to work its like she has lasers instead of eyes. Working a lot on send-to-mat activities with her just now.

Finn was superb, chilled out in his crate when he wasn't needed even though Max was running around (a major trigger) and watching calmly while Max recalled when Finn was on his mat. *super proud mum moment*

Next week I hope to increase the parallel games to two dogs running simultaneously and help Max do more off leash work too. Will be interesting bringing Mirri back in, but this is definitely the work she seems to need so fingers crossed.