Bridget - learning to dance

Heel, sit, down, stay, here - droll, droll. droll. So what to do when you've accomplished those simple tasks?
While necessary and beneficial, they're just not that useful in daily life nor that fun to practice, especially once your dog has a handle on them, which leads to dogs "forgetting" because ... use it or loose it, and no one in their right mind is going to run those drills everyday once the goal of them is accomplished. My solution is to move forward with them and have an end goal other than just walking in a park, visiting a store or competing - I like to dance, and for dogs, movement is dialog, so I am refining those seldom used in everyday, real life 'commands' to have bigger meaning for Bridget so we can 'dance' together, because parks and competition aren't everything, hell they're hardly anything compared to the hours and days we just spend together.
This was day 1.
I will post subsequent days as we progress together, so you can see my vision of how this will all come together.
Bridget is an enthusiastic dog so I'm teaching her to focus while encouraging her to remain enthusiastic. Precision will come in time and with practice and remembering the 3 D's
Duration, Distance, Distraction and not jumping ahead.
The goal with any training should be to give them the most fulfilling life WITH YOU, but if you can't have fun with your dog then ... why have them? Adult life is a royal pain in the ass, and while there are many things people can do to relieve the stress of that, if you've got a dog, then you've got just about everything you need to smile every day.
Take those basic commands you've trudged through and make them something bigger!
ThePracticalDo...