The results are in....

Things were not looking good :o(

Bran had been sick on and off through the night and seems to be having some problems with his back left leg so he's due at the vets tomorrow morning. As I know that the sickness is because he's uncomfortable with his leg, I decided to go ahead with the test.

He's really not himself and didn't perform anywhere near as sharply as he usually does, but he did everything that was asked of him, so it was all down to the examiner's decision......














WE PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so so proud of my boy and we're looking forward to starting in the silver class on Thursday :oD

Penultimate Bronze Class (Hopefully!)

Thursday night's class went really well :o)

The class consisted of everyone taking the bronze and the silver tomorrow and Bran was thrilled to see the lovely lady from our clicker class only she had her very handsome boy dog with her and not Holly. He was so thrilled, in fact, that he had to do his special Bran dance whilst wuffing at her. She laughed at the fact that he has learnt 'bark' so well that he can even command himself now!

We were split into relevant classes and we had 6 of us in the bronze class, including Janie and her mum from our usual class. Bran was not in the least bit fazed by all of the other dogs and I was so proud as we "performed" under exam conditions and he was absolutely spot on with everything.

Although I would have earned us a fail on the recall :o( I put him into a 'sit', told him to 'wait' and headed off down the paddock, then turned and recalled him. He bombed up to me and into a perfect 'sit' at my feet, and then our faux examiner said "I didn't tell you to recall him". Oh the shame!! I set him up again then headed off, turned and he started towards me. Instinctively I put my hand up and shouted "Stop! Sit! Wait!" and he did it all. Miraculous as I haven't taught him 'stop'!! This time, faux examiner slipped a slip lead through his collar so that he didn't set off on the basis that we'd broken it twice and a third was inevitable. After a third, spot on, recall she did say that he hadn't needed the lead though as he'd not moved a muscle and had just glanced at her as if to say "My mummy told me to wait - I'm not going anywhere, silly lady". LOL!

We have been up to the park this morning to do a bit more work on waiting before I recall him and after 2 pre-emptive recalls, he got it and just sat and watched and waited for the command - even when Jacob and Casey were chasing balls right behind him or when Casey was dancing in circles around him and barking, trying to entice him into playing!!

Deep breaths and fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow now.....

Fiddlesticks!

Apologies for the delay in updating but we've put the more exciting clicker training stuff on hold so that we can concentrate on perfecting the things that Bran will need for his bronze award on Sunday morning.

Training is going well and it's all commands and behaviours that Bran knows very well so it is really a matter of him being in a good, focussed mood on the day.

We had training this morning and ran over all of the exercises that will be needed and Bran was as good as.....well........bronze ;o) We have a second training class tonight as Jo runs a bronze class one evening a week as well as our morning class and we'll all be taking the test together so the dogs need to meet up and get that initial excitement out of the way.

Unfortunately, I was trying to get a silly photo of Bran this afternoon posing with the car bonnet up when the dopey monkey decided to leap right up and towards the engine! I grabbed him and got him back down safely but fell awkwardly and twisted my ankle - yowch! Training should be entertaining tonight, but at least I got the photo....