Our
8 week course starts on July 8th and runs through the end of August. Since I've never done a class with them before, they wanted Red and I to come in and make sure we could place out of the Beginniner class and get up to speed on their style of training.
It was a one-on-one session with just me, Red and the instructor. She does Rally and Obedience with her dogs, and since I may be interested in pursuing Rally later on, her advice and critiquing was very helpful. She was very impressed with Red and how far along he is without any formal training, and just me (a novice) training him. We definitely placed out of the Beginner class!
She had Red doing all sorts of cool stuff. He's got sooo much potential, it's amazing! I learned that I need to step up the intensity of my training sessions, make them more fun and exciting, and encourage more eye contact. And use more treats and talking. I have been cutting out a lot of the treats in preparation for the CGC test (tomorrow!) and I tend to only give the command once and don't use bridges. So I am going to work on that.
She was also nice enough to spend extra time and take me through all the CGC steps. She knows the evaluator who will be testing us and said we'll do fine
The only part we're worried about is the meeting another dog step, because Red wants to approach the other dog and sniff, but the dogs are not allowed to approach the other dog for the test. We tried it with one of the owner's dogs and Red just kept breaking position and play bowing. She said to get there early and practice with treats, and during the test just use "heel", "sit", and "leave it" in my most authoritative voice (since I can't use treats to lure him). So we'll see how it goes... Please wish us luck!!
I'm going to use this thread to keep a "journal" of our weekly training sessions once they start. I find it helpful to write down thoughts and updates afterwards so I can refer back to them later.