We Aaaare the Champions My Frieeends...

Jilly rocked puppy class tonight. The first half was spent talking about doggie health care. Then we got right to heeling and about turns, she did great. Then we did some puppy push ups...Jilly was *amazing*. We did 23! The next closest dog did 17, a few were still in the single digits. She was on fire. We got an extra few in because I only gave her a treat for every other full push up, instead of every push up (tonight's push ups were sit, down, stand, in that order, as many times as possible). Even the instructor was impressed. Our only real problem was whenever she stood up from the down she would take a couple steps toward me, so I had to back up (though I couldn't back far because I was so close to the fence), so instead I had to have her back up instead. Next time we'll start further from the fence so that I have room to back! I also think that next time we'll do sit, stand, down because the instructor pointed out that going from stand to down is harder when we first added the stand.

After the puppy push ups we worked on a fastest down contest. The previous week we had done fastest sit, where a small group of dogs just walked around aimlessly until the instructor said sit your dogs and we would stop and have them sit. Jilly tied for first last week with it. This week we were supposed to have our dog lay down as soon as he told us to stop. Jilly won her heat again, and tied for first as well.

After that we did a recall exercise, which Jilly did very well with. She would stay sitting while held by the instructor as I walked away, but she did run straight to me and sit a couple feet away, right in front of me. The instructor had the rest of the dogs start working on sitting a couple feet away instead of running all the way to the owner, so it was nice that Jilly already does that.

We did some more heeling after that, and then worked on staying while the dog was in the down position. Jilly did awesome at that, didn't move at all. Then class was over.

After class we worked on her trick for the last class (which is next week!!!!). Her trick is to get up on a little stool, turn one circle, jump down, and then crawl under it. She doesn't like doing it with her harness on though, so I'll have to bring her collar for that segment of the class so that it's not interfering with her (she scrapes the clasps of the harness on the bottom of the stool and she hates that).

We also worked on our stay and recall a bit before heading home. Overall she was terrific. I think this time was better because I practiced more with her leading up to class. Last class was right after our house shopping trip, so we weren't able to work with her Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. And just didn't have the time on Tuesday.

Next class is the last class. We'll have a puppy push up contest, fastest sit contest, fastest down contest, and demonstrate the trick we've been working on since class started.