I’d say Kairo’s social play has improved, as she’s engaging more with less movement from me. She was particularly mouthy today, but I’m not sure why. I’ll put her collar on for the next session and go back to collar grabs to pause the biting. Any thoughts? @Alex Lato

Sorry for the lack of videos lately - I promise we’ve been practicing daily, just haven’t had a chance to set the camera up. In the meantime, I do have a question: Kairo’s first obedience competition is coming up this weekend, and I’m planning to ask for a training round. This means that we’ll be able to bring a toy into the ring and reward during/between exercises. How would you recommend using play to give Kairo the best experience in the ring? Would you play at the start, before asking for any behaviours? During the exercises themselves, would you break it down and reward more often, e.g. every few steps in heelwork? For context, the exercises are: - Heel on lead - Novice recall - Heel free - Retrieve But I think I’ll ask to only do one set of heelwork and skip the retrieve this time. @Alex Lato

This time, I tried to give quicker wins to encourage her to tug immediately upon grabbing the toy. I should’ve kept the whole session shorter, but I always forget! What would you change here? @Alex Lato

The goal remains the same - building a pushy retrieve (or, initially, any retrieve at all). This time, following @Alex Lato’s advice, I tried to give quicker wins and avoid pulling her towards me. This session felt a bit janky, so how can we improve the flow of the game? @Alex Lato

Another (rubbish) attempt at improving Kairo’s retrieve. Probably should’ve kicked Amigo out the room, but we’d already started the play before I realised. Think I’m going wrong in a few places, but not sure exactly what to change? @Alex Lato