I went to dog training today--left at 9 am, got home at 6. It was COLD out there Well, ok, mostly it was that it was windy and everyone was a wee bit underdressed. Iapos;ve been cold for 9 hours, though. BRRR. Now Iapos;m home, trying to warm up, and Iapos;m finding that Iapos;m completely exhausted from being so cold for so long. I just might have to crawl into bed soon.
I took Coal and Jubilee, and left Hunter at home--she still has staples in from a nasty fight she had with Danca 11 days ago.
I did obedience with Coal, then bitework with him and Jubilee. Well, calling it "bitework" with Jubilee is generous--she played tug with a rag. Both dogs did well, and I really like the way the trainer interpreted Coalapos;s training needs. He talked about how the situation made the dog FEEL. Like he actually cared what headspace the dog was in and wants to work to modify it so the dog will feel strong in doing what we want him to do, as opposed to him being beat down and only having ONE option of how to react. He talked about building confidence and strength in a situation, so if stressors come along (and they always do), then the dog will be comfortable in falling back to acting out of strength instead of fear and insecurity. I LIKE.
Jubilee lit up right away as soon as the first prey movement of the tug rag. She did great except she didnapos;t want him to touch her (pet her) while she was tugging. But sheapos;s got so much drive that she should work through that fairly quickly and fast become appropriately obsessed with the game of it.
The only thing is that it costs $50 per dog, per day. They usually training 2-3 weekends a month, Sat/Sun.
Iapos;m trying to figure out what I can afford. For sure, I canapos;t afford to train 3 dogs at once. Not unless they cut me a deal.
I have 3 new goals for now, though:
[b]1) Do a BH title on Coal at the clubapos;s trial in December. [/b]
A BH is a combined obedience/temperament test. Itapos;s a LOT of heeling with changes of pace and turns, heeling through a crowd, a sit out of motion, and a down out of motion with a recall, and finally a down stay for approximately 15 minutes while a 2nd dog works. This will be a moderate amount of work. He knows all the basics, but I need to extend timeframes, ask for a bit more precision, work for longer periods without rewards, and teach him how to sit and down out of motion (that means weapos;re heeling down the field and without stopping I tell him to sit and he sits and stays while I continue walking for another 20 paces.) The entire heeling routine is 50 paces up the field, 50 back, fast, slow, left turn, about turn, halt, right turn, then a figure 8 through a "milling" group of 4 people. After all the dogs doing this title do the obedience portion, we do 1 by 1 temperament tests, checking for calmness around a moving car, a biker with a bike horn passing, and walking out of site while the dog is tied. The dog is also expected to remain calm while a strange, neutral, dog walks past about 10 feet away.
[b]2) Do a BH on Hunter in December.[/b]
[b]3) Do a Schutzhund 1 on Coal in the spring. [/b]
Other good thing from today--I liked the people We laughed a lot and lots of talk.
Some of you may have heard me say that only one dog of mine has ever drawn blood on a person. Much to everyoneapos;s surprise, that "vicious" dog of mine is.... Nike. Little 55 pound, sweet, loving, couch potato Nike. Well, when I was working her, there were two times she bit a person hard enough to make them bleed. The first time was well deserved--the decoy decided to hit her in the muzzle for biting on the sleeve when she was supposed to be just guarding. This was a STUPID thing to do, both in action and "theologically" (as in it was counter productive to the training if it HAD worked)--and so she sliced open the webbing between thumb and forefinger. Nothing drastic, but Iapos;m sure it didnapos;t feel good.
The second time was when a friend of mine,John, had asked me if he could work Nike in bitework (as in put the sleeve on and let her bit him) so he could get some experience. Well, heapos;s a BIG guy--like 6apos;7"--but he was pretty inexperienced in being on that end of the leash. So I sent Nike in for a guard, and she decided he was too big and needed taking down a notch. She charged up to him and chest bumped him, and he must have done something to make her mad, so she jumped right up again and bit him in the upper arm above the cuff of the protective sleeve and kind of ripped the skin. No hard feelings and the guy knew exactly what had happened and why.
To my surprise he showed up today--it was fun to see John and his wife again--and we enjoyed talking. Then he went to work his dog in obedience. She was this tiny female Malinois, and when he corrected her for something, she turned and corrected him--she bit him in the groin. No, correction... She bit him in the nuts. We didnapos;t know about this at first, he did more obedience, but shortly after he finished, we found out John had gone over to the training director and asked him to look at his wound and tell him whether he needed stitches. So the two men went off into the woods to check out Johnapos;s wounded scrotum.
Verdict was: stitches are probably going to be a good idea. We had a fun time coming up with stories he could tell the ER doc about how he got a laceration on his scrotum. "Cut myself shaving." "Wife showed up at a bad moment." "I was climbing over a barbed wire fence." "My wife bit me." ...
Yay, training
eyeballers counterstrike, eyeballers cs.
