2 Years Old - Sept. 16, 2025
As Dylan begins his 2nd year he is learning herding, scent work, obedience and rally. From this picture you can see that he enjoys hikes several days a week.
HERDING: He took the AHBA Junior Dog (JHD) test in August 3 times and passed each time. He had lovely runs. He also took the AKC pretest and earned his PT in November. He has been doing so well with his sheep herding that he entered novice sheep in AHBA and ASCA this fall and qualified with several placements.
SCENT WORK: Dylan competed in the AKC popup trial on Sept. 14 2025 in 2 Advanced Interior searches. He qualified in both runs and got a 2nd place in his second run. He is currently working on his Advanced Elite (10 qualification runs for each element - interior, exterior, containers and buried). We are applying for NW2 in Tucson and the NW2 element containers which will be held in November with the draw for acceptance being in 2 weeks.
OBEDIENCE: Dylan has shown great improvement both at home, at our Cottonwood training field and at our distraction and proofing park in Flagstaff. He has had trouble with heads up heeling and gets distracted by other dogs. He is however very nicely working on his open and utility work and his heeling today was very good. The goal in Flagstaff where we practice twice a week is a lot of different distractions.
RALLY: We are currently working on his 3rd Q for intermediate rally.
The next show will will be indoors in Tucson for the Old Pueblo show where we will have the opportunity for a practice show the day before and a practice ring. He will be entered in Beginner Novice and Intermediate rally.
HERDING: He took the AHBA Junior Dog (JHD) test in August 3 times and passed each time. He had lovely runs. He also took the AKC pretest and earned his PT in November. He has been doing so well with his sheep herding that he entered novice sheep in AHBA and ASCA this fall and qualified with several placements.
SCENT WORK: Dylan competed in the AKC popup trial on Sept. 14 2025 in 2 Advanced Interior searches. He qualified in both runs and got a 2nd place in his second run. He is currently working on his Advanced Elite (10 qualification runs for each element - interior, exterior, containers and buried). We are applying for NW2 in Tucson and the NW2 element containers which will be held in November with the draw for acceptance being in 2 weeks.
OBEDIENCE: Dylan has shown great improvement both at home, at our Cottonwood training field and at our distraction and proofing park in Flagstaff. He has had trouble with heads up heeling and gets distracted by other dogs. He is however very nicely working on his open and utility work and his heeling today was very good. The goal in Flagstaff where we practice twice a week is a lot of different distractions.
RALLY: We are currently working on his 3rd Q for intermediate rally.
The next show will will be indoors in Tucson for the Old Pueblo show where we will have the opportunity for a practice show the day before and a practice ring. He will be entered in Beginner Novice and Intermediate rally.
We practice at a lovely park in Flagstaff during the summer: it is 15 degrees cooler than Sedona, its shaded, has grass and on any day the distractions and proofing can be awesome.
We were training on a morning in September at the park in Flagstaff and just when I had our GO OUT and Directed Jumping set up several hundred school children starting arriving to watch a big parade for the high schools home coming.
I decided since it was set up I would just try Dylan and he was not phased by all the activity. His go out was toward the children and asking for his sit is new and he did both without any problem. Then I tried the directed jumping with his back to the children and noise and again …no problem.
For each obedience exercise I asked of him… again no problem with focus or ability to correctly do the work. I guess all the times we have trained here is paying off. So proud of him.
Since I did not have my camera with me that day with all the children I decided next time I came to bring a white fence with stantions and also the camera. The video shows where Dylan is with his GO OUTS. The DIRECTED JUMPING exercise in competition obedience is one of the most difficult exercises to learn and perform. If taught by breaking down all of the parts and then slowly chaining them together the dog's confidence and skill will grow. Dylan has been working on parts of this for some time. We have never combined the GO OUT with the DIRECTED JUMPING as we did in this video. I wanted to see how he would do and thought of doing it for the video.
We were training on a morning in September at the park in Flagstaff and just when I had our GO OUT and Directed Jumping set up several hundred school children starting arriving to watch a big parade for the high schools home coming.
I decided since it was set up I would just try Dylan and he was not phased by all the activity. His go out was toward the children and asking for his sit is new and he did both without any problem. Then I tried the directed jumping with his back to the children and noise and again …no problem.
For each obedience exercise I asked of him… again no problem with focus or ability to correctly do the work. I guess all the times we have trained here is paying off. So proud of him.
Since I did not have my camera with me that day with all the children I decided next time I came to bring a white fence with stantions and also the camera. The video shows where Dylan is with his GO OUTS. The DIRECTED JUMPING exercise in competition obedience is one of the most difficult exercises to learn and perform. If taught by breaking down all of the parts and then slowly chaining them together the dog's confidence and skill will grow. Dylan has been working on parts of this for some time. We have never combined the GO OUT with the DIRECTED JUMPING as we did in this video. I wanted to see how he would do and thought of doing it for the video.
How Dylan is learning GO OUTS and DIRECTED JUMPING: first we broke this fun exercise into pieces and from a very early age practiced GOING STRAIGHT to a lid with food. We have done this many times and then moved to learning he will go straight to what is shown to him with 4 containers. Then we changed the center container to a black harder to see lid and then a transparent disc. We also did running straight using baby gates with different stantion colors and types. Sometimes we used just a fence made of poles. All this to focus on running straight. We are now using a transparent lid with a treat on it. At a much later stage the lid will remain with no treat. I have found with Beckett that I occasionally reintroduce the lid with food to motivate and remind him of running straight to the middle of the baby gates.
We have then added the sit at about 5 feet from the baby gate using a pole on the group to sit behind. You will see this pole at the bottom of the video.
Making a tight turn with a sit was taught by running to his pad and saying SIT. This creates the motor skill for turn tight and sit.
The directed jumping was done separate and not chained yet (except in video) to the go out.
Other parts to this exercise are the fronts and finishes.
We have then added the sit at about 5 feet from the baby gate using a pole on the group to sit behind. You will see this pole at the bottom of the video.
Making a tight turn with a sit was taught by running to his pad and saying SIT. This creates the motor skill for turn tight and sit.
The directed jumping was done separate and not chained yet (except in video) to the go out.
Other parts to this exercise are the fronts and finishes.
Dylan enters Beginner Novice and Intermediate Rally at Old Pueblo show - Dec. 12 and 13th in Tucson.