Obedience Classes

I have been taking online obedience classes through the Fenzi Dog Sport Academy for a year now.  I audited a couple classes and also have had working spots with Rundle in Puppy Foundation and Obedience Skillbuilding classes.  I just signed up for another working spot in the "Precision Heeling" class.  Denise Fenzi's dogs have amazing heeling so I am excited to get feedback from her as I start Rundle in his heeling foundation work.  The timing for this class is perfect as Rundle has a decent attention span now when it comes to working and he has the focus and coordination now to begin learning the complex skills that go into creating a beautiful, accurate competition heel.  This will probably be my last working level spot for a while as my budget will not allow me to keep taking classes at the gold level.  I will still take auditing classes though, as there is lots to learn from watching others and reading all the great lecture material and the price level of those is reasonable.

I have also been taking a real life obedience class with Rundle.  It is a Drive, Attention and Motivation (DAM) class taught by my friend Amanda.  It is an awesome class!  Probably the best obedience type class that I have ever taken.  What is so great about it is that it is not just an hour of obedience skills and drills - that can be boring for handlers and dogs alike.  Rather, it is a class geared towards creating dogs who think obedience is a fun game.  We play with our dogs as well as work on attention.  We play fun recall games and teach our dogs silly tricks.  We also work on foundation obedience skills.  This class fits in perfectly with what I have been doing in my online class work and gives Rundle a chance to practice what he has been learning in a much more distracting environment than our livingroom or back yard.  He gets very excited when other dogs are moving and playing, so this class is great for him to learn he still has to focus on me no matter what the dog next to him is doing.  So, lots of fun and work for both of us.


Now, continuing with my 52 Weeks project, here are the photos from the last couple weeks:

3/52  Being Still

4/52  Seize The Day