Bentley's back! Earns a blue ribbon, and DH joins the dark side!

Here's an update on Lexi's rear end awareness/using her back legs to rotate around a target trick.  She's quite good at going this way (not so much the other way!)


And because I can't leave him out anymore, Bentley is back!  We have been doing a lot of the ball work, and walking, and slowly allowing him to do longer and longer sequences.  It has now been 2 months since his surgery and he's doing great!  He does seem to get tired a bit faster, but it's an endurance thing that we are building on.  Here's a video of the most he's done in awhile, and he was so happy about it!


I should also add a few other notes here.  This past weekend there was a local pet expo where some of our friends were doing a demonstration.  We went for fun (it was a lovely fall day) and the dogs really enjoyed it (though they were bummed that they couldn't participate in the agility demo!!)

Jonathan was asked to run our instructor's dog since she was injured, and here he is "joining the dark side"!!

Also, our babies were so well behaved!  Bentley won the "Simon Says" contest.  Really, it was just a competition of what dogs could do what tricks.  Lexi was eliminated because we never taught her to shake.  Here are a few pics of Bentley's big win! :)

Rear end strength

You'll remember that we had been trying the 2x2 weave method with Lexi. I think the method itself did help her to see the weaves, but she was still was having trouble making tougher entries, and just didn't seem able to hang on if she did get them.

After speaking with our instructor, she confirmed what I've suspected is the issue...Lexi doesn't know how to use her rear to slow down and collect/shift her body weight. So, we've started addressing this issue on the flat to build rear strength AND awareness.

In the past week or so, I've been working with Lexi to teach her to back up and to teach her to rotate around a target with her back legs. I'm very pleased with the results so far, and documented our week in a few short videos (these videos are not all of our sessions, but the majority of them).

Backing up:



I need to continue to work her backing up to add more distance, and I'd eventually like to teach her to back up steps.

Rotating:


As for the rotation, I am only able to get her to rotate one way...I'm not sure why. I have tried and tried but can't get her to turn the opposite direction.