I am splitting my monthly email in 2 this month because there is just so much! This email will be an update on the household, next one will have my normal monthly videos.

Goodbye Vaughn!

We said goodbye to Vaughn this week. We had Vaughn for just over 2 months to evaluate his temperament as a service dog and then put some skills on him! And he made it easy for me as with a little bit of patience and knowing how to break things down, he blossomed. Not the fastest learner at the start, but very eager! We actually really mastered most of the skills he needs as a service dog, and all were taught from scratch!

The hardest past for Vaughn will be continuing to work on offered focus in public. As a service dog, "acclimation" time is a luxury they don't really get as they need to be ready to respond/alert as soon as they get out of the car. Luckily Vaughn is still quite young at just over a year and will get plenty more time to mature! Maturity, training, and genetics will help a lot!

I have a ton of his videos on my social media this last month and will likely continue to drop out stuff the next few weeks. Make sure to check out YouTube playlists too or just search for Vaughn on my channel!

UKI Midwest Classic

In my own dog news, the UKI Midwest Classic just wrapped up and was a blast!

Ginny was a bit more subdued in the more intense environment, but actually improved day 2 and 3 which I thought was a great sign! And by subdued, I mean just a tiny bit slower and having her listening ears on instead of completely feral. She occassionally did a few rolls coming into the ring to roll off her stress and then would snap to setup easily. She ended up on the podium for Master Series!

Loot I was worried about due to his recent noise sensitivity and worry about dogs barking. But, with the help of meds, we had a great routine of waiting in the "crating area" until the last minute and then running up to the gates right before entering. He was always so excited to enter!

Loot ended up tied for 1st for the Pentathlon overall, but since that isn't how it's acutally awarded, we didn't make the podium. (Winner take all on the last course and we had 2 refusals there.)

Now the big decision is whether I can bring Loot to the Midwest Cup in 2 weeks. This is the event I look forward to each year, but I am thinking I need to keep him home. I won't have an easy way to keep him feeling safe as we wait our turn in the bigger 2 ring trial and I don't want to risk poisioning his belief that the ring is a really fun and happy place to be...

Duration of Work?

In case you've missed it, I have a Ring Confidence training group on Facebook!

This last month I posted some about duration of work before the reward. This post looks at training for obedience and doing flow sessions to get in a lot of cues in a short time!

Click here to join the group and read!

And this post on acclimation before working with Vaughn. First what it looked like as a dog new to working (at least actually keeping focus without checking in and out!) and then what it looked like as he got more excited about work

Click here to join and read!

This video from the Classic shows the one NFC run I did with Ginny as I kept getting lost in my walktrhough! And spoiler, I got lost for a split second when running! But it shows how I do NFC/FEO with that toy reward left at the startline. This is ring sustainable because in UKI I could even leave the toy at the start for real and the leash runner will move it with the leash! I am always careful I tell the leash runner on these NFC runs to not take the toy!

June Class: Bye Bye Cookies

Class starts June 1st! Don't forget to register!

Are you frustrated? Feeling like you’ve put a lot of time and effort into training the skills your dog needs to be successful, but training still feels very transactional and you're struggling to make it into the ring and keep your dog's focus when the food is gone.

In this class, we will help your dog develop the ability to work and focus even when there is no reward on your body. We will build up your dog's ability to work no matter where the reward is located and without any type of lid to prevent stealing!

Bye Bye Cookie: Hello Remote Reinforcement

Follow me on the social media platform of your choice to try and catch all my daily training videos. I hope they inspire you to try something fun with your dog! And join my free facebook group on building ring confidence for dog sports!