Pictures from the river

The dogs and I went to the river the other day.
A place of sandy shoes, wet knees and leaping water creatures.

Indi is perfecting her dive. It started out more of a crash and has turned into a very neat leap up and out into the water.

Rye, always a gentleman. He puts up with this big black attention hog very nicely. When I ask her to stay for a picture or a dummy, Rye stays too. He does not have to look happy about it though. 

Practicing stays on the bridge.

My duck billed dinosaur.

Pointing, pointing. So far Indi only "sight points". I have not seen her go on point for a bird out of sight. She is becoming more interested in ducks and quail in general though. Rye is teaching her to watch...

  

We practice many things by the river. Stays are very hard while the dummy is drifting down stream.  I alternate between calling her to "come to front" with her dummy and letting her run around with it. She holds it by the bungee cord at the end and swings it back and forth while running, sometimes she shakes it so that it

hits her in the ribs, hard. She likes that.

 

A good citizen

Indi and I have been taking a CGC class the last six weeks. The first two classes were really hard. It seems to take Indi a little bit of time to be comfortable in a new setting with dogs and people all around. Somehow, agility is different. Agility is definitely it's own reward for her, but being on leash and focusing on me is just not. After those first two weeks she settled in and did really well, heeling nicely, giving me very good attention. She could heel right next to another dog and human team looking up at me, it was awesome.

The hardest thing in class has been the approach by our instructor and then the "handling". She has to stay semi still and let a person run their hands over her, lift her feet, check her ears. A simulated vet visit. She is super wiggly when she knows someone and just wants to be in their faces. Holding still is very very hard. It is even hard for her to heel up to and then stop next to the instructor so that I can shake hands. I was honestly not sure that we could pass the test.
So I am VERY proud to say that she did pass! She wasn't perfect but she completed each section of the test well enough to pass. On the stand for exam she flopped over on her side and started rolling in the grass and biting her leash. I got her up again and then she did well. She heeled beautifully! Heeling through a crowd and around other dogs without a second thought. The obedience portion was easy.
The other part I wish she had behaved better on was the supervised separation. The instructor takes her leash while I go out of site for 3 minutes. I watched her from behind my hiding spot and she stayed in position for about a minute before getting up and sniffing around, jumping up on the instructor, pulling a little towards another dog. But still, she passed. The point of this exercise is that your dog is comfortable with you leaving them for a period of time.

So here she is, my "good" citizen!

I realize she is still very young so I shouldn't expect her to be perfect. I was a little surprised we passed but proud of the good moments!
I really am very proud of her in general. She is so good off leash and listens to me so well. The thing she needs work on is meeting people she knows without leaping on them!