Sammy's progress: You CAN train alone when you need to.

As you know, we've missed the last two water practices. So, not wanting to fall too far behind, we've been doing some land training.

First the paddle - I have been working on Sammy picking up the paddle and then retrieving the paddle in the yard. At first he couldn't seem to figure out how to pick up that flat thing on the ground. If it was on a rock, a bump, or laying on a tree root so it was elevated even just an inch - no problem. But on the flat, he just couldn't figure it out. But little by little, he got the idea and for the last two nights he has been shaking in his boots waiting for me to toss that thing so he can run and get it. He loves it. He grabs it, holds it high, and prances right back to me with it.

And as for the boat - as all of you who were at the first water practice this season saw, Sammy was very suspicious of that noisey boat and platform. So I started setting it up in the yard and having him jump up on it (it was more like a crawl actually). And then I laid a ground pole down and got way back and told him to jump! The jumps were great, but he did not like getting up on the platform - even when it was perfectly still. But again, little by little, and with lots of treat reinforcements, he is jumping up on that platform just great. I can even lay it on a little incline so that it wobbles a bit as he gets on and off and he seems to be just fine with that now. In fact, sometimes he jumps up all by himself when I didn't ask him to.

We've still got work to do - but I'm hoping that progress translates well when we get to the water. That was a very fun progression to watch.