Friday 23rd February 2007

I have spent the last 2 days working on Molly's recall and sit. As I said in previous posts Molly has been 100% on the recall. Over the past 2 evenings she has remainded 100%. I have been slowly increasing the level of distraction that Molly is engaged in when I give the recall and she so far she has come running to me at full speed. I am very happy with this.
Her sitting however is another matter. She is not taking to the sitting as well as the recall. Other dogs I have owned have been sitting readily after a day or 2 and my last springer took about half an hour. Molly though is a different story. I have had to put her into position every time so far. I have only been doing it for about 5 - 10 minutes at a time. Once last night did she sit on command and I gave her loads of praise. The very next time she was back to 'normal'. I know it is only a matter of time and patience and I have buckets of both so we will get there in the end. I will crack it over the weekend. Watch this spot on Monday ha!
As I said before, Molly is a natural retreiver and I have been doing a small bit every evening by holding her and throwing the dummy (rolled up sock) then releasing her when the dummy lands. She started with a tendency to run past me on the right hand side but by using the kennel wall at my back I have just about cured this. She still passes me the very odd time. If she does I go back to the wall. Last night I gave her a retrieve in a dark area of our lawn. She was not able to see the dummy landing but she ran in the direction I had thrown it and searched the area really well using her nose until she found the dummy and came straight back to me proud as punch. She was very determined to find the dummy and spent about a minute searching until she found it with no sign of giving up. I am very please so far apart from her sitting. Taking things nice and slow at this stage.