Fetch #1 & #2

After all procrastination about whether Rio would even want to play fetch, she did. I used her mini Space Hopper (her puppy present from Emma!) and she had a great time. She will fetch dead toys and will actually retrieve them, which is something she wouldn’t do until now.

I definitely need to work on her focus though. She’s a lot more easily distracted when we’re playing with toys compared to food/clicker, and now I’ve realised this, I’m thinking this is probably the main problem at training. So, a slight adaptation in our plans is now to continue playing fetch games, but to also work on getting her to maintain her focus even through distractions when there isn’t a treat up her nose.

We played today with her giant raggy toy, which she adores and I’d actually forgotten we still had. I focused more on getting her to do something for the toy, she was very keen about, and then either tugging or throwing the toy as the reward. Excellent stuff, super focused, but we did work at home today.

Tomorrow I’ll get Dylan to be a distraction, he can sit on the other side of the fence and try and tempt her away. Speaking of, it’s Drax this weekend! I’m really looking forward to seeing how Dylan’s team runs. The lineup could either be great or terrible but Dyl and I feel comfortable with all the dogs in the team so it will be a positive experience either way.