Since I'm stuck at home today I decided to work with the dogs on a few things. This week has been the best week for progress by far with the dogs. I'm reading the Control Unleashed book and starting to work on some of the exercises. Today I worked on Go to your blanket with all 3 dogs. I want to get Lily and Dakota to go to their blankets when someone comes to the door. Lily is reactive when someone knocks on the door and Dakota looks for a way to escape. So, if I can get them to go to their blankets and stay there until I release them that'll be much less stress when people come over. Dakota is slow to learn things unfortunately so it's taking time. Lily is really quick. I could not believe how fast she picked up go to your blanket. She's so subtle and quiet when we train. I'm not used to that at all. Neiko already knows this behavior as go settle. I need to get him his own blanket though for when we travel.
I have been working with Neiko on the balance ball hoping for 2 results - 1) that he builds up some strength and balance and 2) he gets used to working off the ground and on things that move. He's really coming to like that ball! I have to keep it out of his reach now or he'll try to jump on it himself (bad). The results are already showing. He is getting much better about working with me off the ground. Today while playing frisbee he was actually TRYING to use my body as a vault to get the frisbee. This is leaps and bounds progress because before now he just totally refused to work in close with me like that.
From there I worked in the house with Neiko and Lily on a back stall and knee stall. I had both dogs on the bed and asked them to touch my hand on my back. This had them climb on my back and hold the position. yay. This has been impossible to get neiko to do up until today. He even stood on all 4's on my shins/knees when I asked him. On top of all that, he was catching the most air I've seen yet when catching his frisbees. This restores my confidence that he just might make a good freestyle dog.
Now, if I can only get Lily interested in the disc. She's great about learning tricks and has no problems jumping all over me but so far she won't bite or catch the disc. I think I'm going to get her a soft one and see if that helps.