He is a 9 week old broken coat Jack Russell Terrier. He already loves to play fetch and tug. Taz is not fond of him yet but we are working on it! Taz definitely likes Decoy's back end instead of his eyes. Every day we see Taz accepting him more and more. Decoy is going to be my next flyball star. Taz is going to be a very long work in progress and Pepper is going to be 5 years old this year. Riki and Rebel are curious as to what he is exactly. Gizmo started off being not fond (hissing, growling, swatting) and now he is absolutely fine with him.
Taz had his first private lesson with Shirley last night. We had decided at the end of the last set that working in a class setting was not working for him. There is sooo much for him to learn, that will take awhile and is better suited one on one. Collection and extension. Taz only knows about extension. He only knows one speed... super sonic. Last night he learnt how to read my collection queues and my extension clues. By golly, I saw my boy actually think!!! It was amazing! I would rather see him go slower and think about what he is being asked to do, than blast through everything doing his own thing.
One thing became clear though. He has never learned how to jump properly. He thinks about jumping two jumps instead of one. He usually takes off about 5 feet in front of a jump instead of collecting to take off nicely. We had quite a few quiet jumps last night. It was awesome to see him think about where he needed to take off from. I was able to put him in extension and then to collection on the next jump!
Then we decided to push the envelope,,,, We had two jumps in front of a tunnel. Let me tell you one thing.... Taz LOVES the tunnel. I asked him to collect over one jump in front of the tunnel, instead of taking the tunnel..... he took the jump, went a few feet (cause he was thinking) and turned right into me!!!! He made the correct choice and got a jackpot! I thought for sure he was going to take that tunnel. Nope! He proved to me over and over, that he was understanding collection. For a bonus, I put him into extension into the tunnel and he barked going in! Needless to say he was happy to get a chance at the tunnel and got to repeat it.
We have a long way to go but now I see that Taz can really think. This should help his anxiety in the long run. Stay tuned for more tails!
