Bringing things back into balance.

Yes, it was rather slippery out in the pasture today, so we were confined to the walk. Actually not a big dissapointment since Gingy wasn't actious to go faster LOL.

On our way to the pasture Gingy was having a little attitude about z3 driving which I traced to his dominant need for treats! I backed him all the way to the end of my 22'(which is more like 19') with the purpose 0f getting him to touch the ledge with his back foot. Eventually he did an licked his lips so then he got to come in. I had to use this strategy of turning his games into my games a lot more in this session.

Once we were in the pasture I had him go to the bucket and get his back feet in it. The communication between us we a lot clearer this time and he had no trouble with this task. Then I backed him into the bucket from a good distance, he had no trouble with that either. He got treats for both of these tasks and he was very happy.

We did traveling circle between the two cones that are set up in the pasture. One thing I noticed on his circles is that they don't really resemble the thing we call a circle in that they are not round! Gingy would drift out to the end of the line and come so close I could touch him. I didn't worry about it this time because I only wanted him to maintain gait, which he did well. This is where the ice comes in, it was so icey I didn't dare work on a gait any faster than the walk because we would probably both brake something!

All in all it was a nice session although the weather wasn't great. Gingy did all of the things I asked him fairly well. The one thing I noticed was that we lost a little balance with the treat incentive thing. He was on the dominant side and I was not consistently asserting myself the alpha. The upset of the 51-49 relationship used to really bother me. I would blame dominance problems on the treats and therefore stop using them. I think I've finally realized that Gingy's domimant behavior is just feedback requiring a slight ajustment.