In the shadow of her mother

Lark is an amazing Toller. She is social and curious and loves to play with other dogs. She sailed through puppy obedience and agility classes with many compliments from her instructors. At home, Lark has proved to be an easy keeper, always eager for a retrieving session or a walk, but equally content to cuddle up on the couch and watch TV. Lark is adept at getting her much more serious mother to play with her and it is very entertaining to watch them wrestle or tug on a toy together. Because Lark's mother June has so much drive and requires so much of my attention, it’s taken me some time to realize Lark has been standing in the shadow of her mother. She’s been left to simmer on the back burner while her mother enjoys the power burner spot.

It’s not that Lark never gets out. She has both majors for her AKC championship, as well as five agility titles and a first leg toward her Rally Novice title. But I’m starting to recognize she is capable of so much more, if only I would spend a bit more time and attention on her. Lark’s achievements to date have all been accomplished in a somewhat offhand manner compared to the amount of resources I focused on June at the same age.

Last week I decided to take Lark to my progressive obedience class instead of June. June is working at the Open level in obedience and is about ready to trial, though she could use some additional fun match experience. Lark hasn’t been focused on obedience since completing a basic obedience class following her puppy class, though she does go to agility class regularly,  conformation class sporadically and we manage a bit of field work now and again as well. We actually do train outside of classes, though not as much as we should. It was only this fall I finally focused enough on Lark to teach her to retrieve a dumbbell using clicker training methods. I wasn’t sure this accomplishment was yet transferable to a class environment, let alone any other obedience skills, but I was pleasantly surprised. She readily fetched and held the dumbbell in class, with only her front needing work at some future point. Her recall was fast and straight, though her finish was a bit wide and crooked. I forgot Lark is better at a “swing” finish, while June shines more on the “around” variety. Lark’s attention while heeling was pretty darn good considering it’s not something we’ve practiced much in quite a while. She did have a tendency to swing around to face me in her best self stacked conformation pose while the instructor talked. Obviously it’s something she learned, whether I intended to teach it or not. “We aren’t in conformation class,” I admonished her, though she persisted. Something else to work on, but overall I’m pleased. I’m starting to get excited about what we could accomplish together if I approached her training with more purpose and intent.