More LLW Success

DH and I were out working on one of the fences yesterday. Initially we had Molly with us off leash. She was so good. She didn't have a ball or other toy, but she still stayed near us and behaved excellently. When people walked by, she did alert a few times, but quickly quieted down again.

Once we had a lot of things done, we had to take down a board that kept Molly out of a more open section of fence. We put her on a leash to make sure that she didn't run off anywhere--it wasn't somewhere we were used to having her and it is leash law season in the area.

But at one point walking with her, I noticed that she was leaving her leash loose even though it was connected to her collar. It isn't something we've trained a whole lot, but I have worked some on it.

So I decided to try the leash behavior test for Level 2. She had to stay on a loose leash for 30 seconds while I stood still. She did it without a problem.

Then I helped DH some more with fence work. When we moved to another part of the fence, I let him go well ahead of us as a distraction (she usually wants to keep up with him or, better yet, ahead of him on walks). Then I walked with her on her leash in a straight line. She kept her leash loose for more than 20 meters!

So Molly has now passed the leash tests for both Level 2 and Level 3 on a flat leather collar as well as on her front lead harness.

I don't have any pictures (it is raining now and I couldn't take pictures last night when I was supposed to be helping with fences).

I'm just really proud of my girl and of me and DH. DH says that a lot of the reason she's getting so much better with everything is that she's gotten older. But I say it is a lot more than that. Her age may help some, but I think most of it is all the positive training we've both been doing. She knows what we want from her and she gets so much positive feedback for doing it. She enjoys the training and the challenge of getting better at things all the time. It gets her thinking and keeps her thinking. Plus being my SD gives her a job--she feels needed and has a role in our family. It's a good thing.