The Spaniel Annals

I was very pleased yesterday to get a great practice session with Brian in a local park that he has struggled in before. At our last visit, for instance, pretty much all we accomplished was some focus work and work on platforms and pivot disks. He’s a young, environmentally aware spaniel (as his genetics say he should be), and so outdoors is challenging. It doesn’t help that I tend to depend too much on training in our little building! But this session, with Brian now at 15 months, shows his growing maturity. After an acclimation period (walking him around on leash to let him check out the area), then back in the car, and then back out again to start on his platform and pivot disk, he then gave me about 7.5 minutes of solid focus and effort. Below are excerpts from his heeling, pivots and freestyle work. His heeling has moments of head dropping and inaccuracy, but I’m rewarding for his effort. You can see at the end of the freestyle work with twists and laterals he’s losing some focus or perhaps just getting mentally tired, so we revisited his right-side pivot on his disk to wrap up. As I look at the full video, I see I should have played more often as we trained, but for his part, I’m thrilled!

Sorry about the poor vantage point. I’m ordering a portable tripod today!