Ole learns some new tricks

Ole has been concentrating on catching the tennis ball when I throw it to him. He's getting a lot better at it . At first he would wait until it hit him in the face and then grab the ball as it rolled onto the ground. BTW, I wasn't trying to hit him in the face! Now, he is actually catching it. I tell him to "Wait"' then i step away from him and lob the ball to him. He even seemed surprised the first time he caught it but I made such a big fuss over him when he did that now he does a victory lap after he catches it. Cheers and clapping are expected. Yesterday we found an old forgotten Frisby laying on the grass in the park and I started tossing that to him after he had been fetching the ball a few times. He seemed to kind of like it but had a very difficult time picking it up off the grass . He finally figured out that if he pressed down on one end of it the other end would pop up and then he could grab it. After that he had a great time with it. Tonight I alternated getting him to fetch the ball and then get the frisby. Next we played catch the ball. Catch the frisby he doesn't quite have yet. i think I will introduce him to a soft cloth frisby tomorrow and see if he does better with that. We've been meeting up with a female German Shepherd named Luna and her owners every morning and together she and Ole chase tennis balls until their tongues hang almost to the grass. Luna's owners get a big kick out of Ole as he is so careful with his manners around Luna. All Luna has to do is give him a look and he backs way off and gives her as much space around the ball as she wants. Whatever Luna wants, Luna gets!

We met Donna and Ginger today and a local rec center& with all 4 dogs and practiced nose work. For Ole, we hid containers with Birch scent and placed treats on top of them. For Shelly, Ginger, and Elmo we hid 6 different containers, 2 of each of the 3 scents. We picked some bleachers to hide most of the scents around and the dogs did really well. Ginger boldly climbed up and around on the bleachers to get to the hides which is something she never would have done 6 months ago. Her confidence has really soared with nose work. Ole had never seen bleachers before but he willingly climbed all over them to get to his hides. On one of the 3 sets of outdoor bleacher a big old bulldog was laying about 2 steps up the bleachers none of the dogs initially knew he was there but they all handled his presence really well. At most , Ginger and Elmo barked at him once or twice but then went on about their task finding that precious scent. he just lay there and watched them. There were a lot of people walking around , a few bums were crashed on the lawn and a dodge ball game was being played right in front of the bleachers but the dogs ignored all the distractions and stayed on task. All in all it was a good session.

Today was suppose to be dog bath day for Ole and Elmo but I just didn't get to it. I had a private lesson at 10:00 then did a bunch of house work and just couldn't get motivated after that to scrub them up. Tomorrow will have to do I guess.