I lost track of what we did on Saturday 🙈 I think that means we need to freshen things up a bit. It will have been more reps of our usual stuff I expect. I follow this pet gundog trainer (bound ahead dog training) that puts up really nice exercises on her socials and she has recently put up one I think will be perfect for Lyon. Plus there's the conditioning challenge here this week 💪 On Sunday we left for an adventure. We are visiting a friend in Arbroath and as Lyon isn't house trained we have used it as an excuse to car camp. It's on the coast so I've had Lyon on the beach to see what he thinks to that. He found the sand very exciting and the waves a bit loud and unpredictable. Lots of ignoring other dogs and recall from distraction practice and he has been brilliant. To keep it real; he drank so much sea water and then normal water that he pee'd in the car....twice 🙄 🤪

I always post for previous day as a little diary so here is our Sunday. Day started with a social walk for both dogs and it was such a lovely little group. I observed something interesting, with Oreo being super friendly to other dogs Frank seems to observe and be nicer also. I wonder is that a thing? Do dogs learn how to like other dogs because their mates do… Then we took Oreo to a cafe for brunch and he met a group of dog walkers with massive dogs. They were all lovely and calm so I let him mingle and be part of the “big boys”. My partner counted that he met over 8 dogs that morning. It was all calm and controlled so I think it’s a good thing. PM was bit of luring with Frank before I took Oreo to group class. In there we worked on luring also and loose leash walking past each other plus retrieves. Class finished with a lovely off leash play where I could practice whistle recalls with distractions. Huge day for everyone. Can’t wait to get into conditioning later today 🙌

AM was spend on social interactions. I have a hoodie with a dog pouch so Oreo came to the markets. He was ok most of the time, but got bit overwhelmed with heaps of kids trying to pat him. We then picked up a mate from airport and he couldn’t care less about noise. It’s nice to have a chill dog like that because Frank can be anxious with noises. Recall practice continues using Jo Rosie’s method - pay for proximity always, recalls from distractions. After the river saga I’m putting most of my eggs to recall basket 🙈 Nice sunset swim for Frank and Oreo running a muck on the beach. I’m blown away of his energy levels I think I really should try and keep him calm more but our lifestyle is pretty active. Fun fact I’ve done hardly any retrieves during retrieve challenge 🤣🙈

Feel like I'm being a bit repetitive but that's training I suppose. Snippets of training on our walks, taking advantage of our environment e.g. strengthening waits while going through gates. Recalls when he is lightly distracted. His recalls are pretty solid, waits we had a few failures. Inside we did some hold reps, I added the cue. And I had a wee shot at luring from middle to heel inspired by @Ave Paasuke I couldn't figure out my mechanics to go from heel to middle. Then I saw I should maybe have started with heel to front?

Nice little recall practice in the morning. This has given me false confidence that he actually listens when out and about. Oh boy how wrong I was 🤣 Lunch time was luring the usual stuff- heel, front and also added position combos which are coming along nicely. After work I had to go and get my photos done for the next photography challenge. Convinced my partner to come and off we went…. What unrolled was an absolute chaos. Someone had cleaned fish next to the river and left all the scales etc behind. While I was sorting out the camera Oreo managed to eat about kilo of them while my “helpful” partner stood and watched 🙈 He took off with a fishing line and we both had to chase him around to get it back. Thankfully it didn’t had a hook. He then decided to launch himself into the muddy river for his first ever swim. Freaked out and got the worst zoomies with zero care about our recall. Then of course a car came so we had to tackle him down like a rugby player while screaming at each other and the driver to stop. Car full of muddy dogs covered in fish, and I’m actually surprised we didn’t get divorced 🤣🤣 Here are couple of quick snaps of our “fun” river trip 😅