Recall practice!

So the boyfriend started helping me work on recall drills with our puppies. Friday and Saturday we took both the dogs out to a field and called them one at a time while one person held both dogs and the other called the doggie to them. It was a total blast and weather permitting, we'll do it again tomorrow:)

Tonight, I just took Lucy out to practice because I was alone and since she's the puppy she's the one that needs the most practice. So I took her to the field and there was this young girl age 10 or so who loved Lucy so much and wanted to help me train her. So she helped me practice recall with Lucy. And Lucy got practice "to come" to a stranger!!

Then Lucy and I practiced some down stays for the first time. Before it's only been sit stays. So she's starting to generalize the behavior. I've also learned my lesson to do these stays for very short periods of time at short distances in new circumstances so she's 100% successful. I can get her to sit stay for food no distractions for 3.5 minutes no problem but any distraction and all bets are off. So time to start working on lots of short stays in all kinds of scenarios.

But the best part of tonight was the walk home. She was bouncing off the walls so happy and pleased with herself. She would run 4 feet straight ahead and at the last second before it ended up with her pulling on the leash I would say "Lucy come!" And she would stop mid hop and bounce straight back to me! It was so great to see that even though she was super over stimulated happy bouncy she came when called every single time! So having turned it into a game is obviously working already! And of course lots of good treats.

I feel like we have the beginnings of a solid recall :) and with Josh's help, both of our doggies will become pros at this!!