Thank goodness I haven't entered Devon in any Utility classes yet, as things have taken a bit of a dive .  A few days ago he just couldn't do a Signal stand no matter what.  Kept sitting.  Last week it was Utility articles: kept grabbing the one next to the scented article.

Amazing how at one point in the learning curve most dogs will have a melt down, especially in Utility where the dog must work away from you for many of the exercises.  They become confused and make mistakes. Their confidence is shot. It's really critical at this point that you help them build back that confidence before ever subjecting them to competition.  And of course I do no proofing during this stage.  Train, help, succeed.  That's how we proceed.

This is where Devon and I are now.  Yesterday in our training session Devon did wonderfully, but today?  Who knows what surprises lie  in store?

In the following video Devon and I are practicing the Utility Moving Stand for Exam. This is basically my training approach for this exercise.  (Training, not teaching!) I am not doing anything special for Devon in the video.   As yet, he's fairly stable on this exercise.  Fingers crossed!