Day Six, Week Two

Realized yesterday that I'd been doing the sit placement wrong all week...whoops. "Chewy" as the right foot stops, "sit" as the left foot stops. Not "Chewy, sit" while we're stopped and I'm standing there looking at him like an idiot. If I was watching somebody else do it, it would've been obvious, so much easier to notice what's going on physically when you are the observer. He also wasn't making the connection between collar pressure and sitting down, probably due to my being heavy handed on the sit placements and putting more emphasis on my hand on his butt than my hand applying collar pressure. But, thank goodness, he got it pretty quickly once my trainer helped me out. It's very different training an adult dog rather than a puppy, especially a puppy that is possibly even more dog-oriented due to being the only pup in his litter and so is very ramped up about dogs/doesn't have an off switch with them. One right turn and run when Chewy goes wide to investigate Pagan, and he's no longer interested. Wow! Catfish took plenty of passes before calming down and committing himself to heeling. Also, Catfish was never one for lagging, whereas Chewy is lagging to one degree or another most of the time. I am so, so thankful to have the guidance and help of my two trainers! It'd be so much harder to learn how to do it right without them.