Earthdog practice!

Today we had earthdog practice in Gardner. Of course, I was too tired to show up at 9, so I rolled in around 10:30. Thankfully a few other people arrived after me, but the early arrivals were a little peeved, I could tell.

First I tried Shelby in IQ. In the past, she hasn't wanted to go around the corner in the tunnel, so we started with a straight piece and she went in no problem. So then we just added the corner piece. She was hesitant, but when she backed out a little I gave her a little push and encouraged her to go back in, and she did. She was really working the rats well. She barked, dug and bit at the bars, which is great.

So then we added another piece to the tunnel, and she went in and hesitated just a second and then went around the corner all on her own. We did that twice to make sure she was good with it. I'm very excited-I hope this is the breakthrough she needed. Hopefully we can practice again next Sunday if it doesn't get cancelled.

Spot was last. I actually took him to the IQ tunnel because we just needed to work on taking him out of the tunnel. So we took all the pieces out except for the end piece and had someone stand in the tunnel so he couldn't back out. He worked and I took him out, then put him right back in, and we did that about 5 times. Hopefully it reinforced that getting taken out means he gets to go again, not that the fun is over. We'll see what he does next week!