Little bits of this and that today. I woke up with a sore throat and it has steadily gotten worse through the day. Swallowing is now very painful 😒 urghh. We managed some very good tug games and couple of sendaways, some "left" and "go on" cues (which seem to have improved with a break for sure) and some really good contact heeling for her dinner. She was much firmer pressing her shoulder to my leg this time which is good, i also made sure to release her to the bowl quicker as i think i ask too much sometimes and she starts switching her focus to me.

I'm still desperate to get this reporting out the way so I can focus more on training! I had a little bag of home made dog treats that my friend baked for her pack and she gave me a packet of them. I used them in a food search this morning after going through the list of possibilities for a morning session and deciding on this. Does anyone else do this? Basically my morning is a conversation in my head with myself on what might be a good idea to do/train. And it's usually like: We could do with training hol...we need to train faster dow...we got those exercises from agility to focu....we should just go for a walk...nah CBA talking to the neighbour..what about some S flow, nahhh not feeling that this morning...we should play, but what? Lets work on tug, yeh but we've done loads of that lately I'll just let her chase the ba....no we need to be careful to not do too much of that... need to work on those pivots, backslides? Not feeling it. A food search. Yes! ahhhhhh, food search, that will be fun 😁 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️is this why people make proper weekly training plans?!🤣 Anyway, suffice to say they enjoyed the search but not with nearly as much gusto as if i had used raw food 🤣 I did do all of two sendaways to the contact mat with Aster (which were very good with other dogs as distraction) and one "around" the barrel from a distance with zero hand signal. Just the cue word which took me by surprise! Nice ride out in the sun this afternoon 😎 👌 🌞 ☀️ 🐎 🐴 video of a load of sheep loose on the road and dogs not giving a toss. They are good girls sometimes!!

I have a win I just have to share. I recently moved to a large farm and it gives me the luxury of allowing my dogs off leash to run/play. I had my Dutchie out without her leash and she suddenly took off. I thought bunny or squirrel but looked up and saw a coyote. I called for her to return but was so scared with her territorial attitude it was futile. It took more than one call (I didn't have my whistle)but she stopped and returned to me!

Had a visitor so was busy visiting didn't do training 😒 for a couple days Today trained my girl Naughty at the farm. Some heeling. Some rewarded check ins as she was off leash. Some voice and some whistle recalls. Also some moving sits and downs. Also worked on Angel's contact heel. He seems to be not 100% understanding that it's the touch that gets the reward but starting to offer it more so progress.

I'm a bit chained to my desk at the moment until the end of March but Aster and I got a nice walk around the block for an hour and a bit at lunch time, which is largely through fields. Nice now the weather has dried out. Just some holds this evening with a length of alcathene pipe. Going back to having her hold it and getting some distance so she has to bring it to me and hold. Her holds are lovely, it's the picking up/bringing that she's a right nube at. I kinda don't want to transition to a dumbell until she's nailed that although she does need something that she can pick up easier from the ground.