Another exciting video version of MacNews -- this one shares his draft progress and you have to watch on YouTube.
When he started a month ago he was afraid to even walk between the shafts to eat treats from the cart -- very common for a beginner dog. So keep that image in your head to be able to gauge his progress.
Some points and things to notice:
1. I do not train with a leash at this point -- I need one hand for food and one hand to just keep contact with the harness in case he gets worried (that allows me to stop him and prevent more scary adventures :) and that takes up all available hands so no leash.
2. The stay is such a hard thing. First he has to sit and then he has to hold it until the release word. There is a lot of motion in a stay -- I leave, I come back, I get in heel position -- and motion cues motion so Montana Mac has had to learn to hold that stay in the face of all those motion cues -- you will see he is doing very well!
3. I keep things within his abilities and move up the difficulty only as he masters previous small (VERY small) pieces.
4. His enthusiasm is what I expect and get from all of my dogs. In fact, I have to separate whatever dog is being worked because getting out the gate or door with just one is impossible!
5. He does sometimes still worry about the cart but I just stop him, let him settle back down (takes about two seconds) and go on like nothing happened. I do not give him treats when he is worried -- only when he is moving confidently. And notice that I have already spaced those treats out -- he used to get one after the other, and now we have time lags.
Let's all thank Galen for filming in the freezing cold! And here is the video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG8ep8xRPfE
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