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Video of Alot, 4 months

We’ve been travelling a bit in the past week. First, we went to the west coast for herding trials. My parents live close by the , so we could stay there and spend some time with them. I also had time to visit my elderly grandparents (94 and soon 98 years old!) in Gothenburg. My grandmother just moved into a retirement home, and seemed genuinely very happy with that. My grandfather is still in their old apartment, waiting for an apartment to open in the same home. Herding trials were difficult, but Thomas managed to get a decent placement with Sarek on Saturday (8th out of 61 dogs), which gave him some points towards national championships.

Bud seems to get better and better with travelling. He’s been very car sick and has almost panicked when being put in the car. A combination of a bigger dose of meklozin, age and more exposure seems to have helped. He still doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t throw up and he sometimes even jumps in the crate on his own with some bribing. He was very good at my parents house, where he had to stay with the grown up dogs in the laundry room. He was quiet and relaxed all the time and slept all night.

Weather has been unusually cold for the past month. It has been the coldest May in 50 years, and June hasn’t started much better. It’s either cold and rainy, or sunny and very windy. This is what my agility field looks like most of the time:

Windy...

Yesterday, I shot some video of Thomas training Alot. She is 4 months old and looks really nice. She has a lot of own opinions and is very forward. At the same time, she is very focused on her work and learns very quickly. In this video, Thomas is working on some retrieving (he started with having her take the dummy to get sent to a bowl of food, then we tried having her take it from me and run to Thomas for the first time. It was hard to handle dog, dummy and camera at the same time… I’m very impressed with Alot’s heeling. I wish my dogs were heeling that nicely! She also has an impressive sit when she’s distracted by other things (my dogs, in this case).

Do you want to work on the skills that Alot shows in the video and learn more about how to build great rewards and structure your training sessions and daily life to build a great relationship with your dog?

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Bud learning to wait for his turn

This morning, I made plans to show some video on how I work with Bud on him waiting for his turn in training. This is something that I get a lot of questions on, and something that usually isn’t much of a problem around here. At least not when it comes to training in the house (self control around agility handling training can be more difficult).

In the first session, I tried setting up a training situation where he got to work on his stay-at-station behavior with some other dogs around. Kat and Alot LOVES the dog beds and you have to drag them away from there if they think there’s food, so they were good dogs to include in the session. Bud has had some sessions on the station behavior, but we haven’t done that much in formal sessions. I got frustrated because he would get up and leave the bed and then get back in it quite often during this session. We obviously need to work more on clarifying criteria in formal sessions. At other times, when I’m working on the computer (and want some peace and quiet) for example, he’s really good at staying in his bed for longer periods of time and it often ends with him falling asleep.

So for my second session, I decided to not “train” Bud at all. I would direct all my attention to Squid, and let Bud to whatever he wanted to do. This is how training often is done around this house. I don’t tell the other dogs to get out of the way, they know to mind their own business when I’m training another dog because thats the only way they’ll get rewarded. So I just made sure there was a bed nearby, and then I trained Squid (Very poorly, as you’ll see in the video. I didn’t have a plan for anything we did…). When he was in the bed, I gave him food. If he got up, I just kept ignoring him until he went back. I was much more pleased with this session. He still had some failures, but they were much less frustrating when I never asked him to stay in bed in the first place…

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If you (like me) can’t get enough of Bud, I recommend that you start following us on Instagram. I post a lot of cute pictures, and short updates on our training. Like this one from tonight, where we tried the lateral step up on platform again.

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I haven’t engaged in much other training today (some herding though). Wilco and I went for a walk along the stream. May really is beautiful here:

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Bud trying the platform

Yesterday I decided to start some body awareness exercises with Bud. I have shaped some backing up (he got it very quickly!) before, and shaped him to put front feet on a perch for rear end awareness (as seen in the last video). He’s also been rewarded for putting all four feet on a dog bed.

Getting up on the platform was hard! I could really see him struggle with the rear legs. Once he was on the platform, he gave me a very nice stand in perfect form. In all body awareness and strengthening exercises I like the dog to work in good form with a strong back, so this is something I always encourage! Later, he gave me a nice sit and I rewarded that as well. He did get better att organizing his back feet at the end of the session.

In our second session we worked on backing up onto the platform. He’s never done anything like that before (except backing up on the flat), so I was considering starting with a lower object when he was struggling. But then he just got it, and we had some really nice repetition. I’m concerned with good form and that he stretches back instead of roaching his back here as well.

We did have a third session too, where we worked on getting on the platform from the side with the front and back foot from the same side at the same time. It was hard, but we made progress! I didn’t include this session in the video because it was already a long enough video, the light was much worse (dark outside) and we didn’t have any really nice repetitions. I’ll get back to it!

We’ve also been on two walks with Squid and played with toys outdoors. He does chase me if I move away when he gets to have the toy, and I can switch him to a new toy. But he won’t come to me with the toy without the prompt of me moving away. Will try to work in a much smaller area and see what he does.

Bud and Alot

Playing with his crazy friend Alot

Bud in his bed

Relaxing in bed

He’s the one!

It’s been a few months since my latest update. Thomas is finally done with his masters degree in ethology, and I hope that means that he’ll spend more time at home. Our puppies are growing and showing their personalities. They are all awesome, which makes deciding what to do with all that talent difficult (five puppies is a lot of work if you’re going to train them all…) I’ve been very slow in making a decision. My puppies were mostly just hanging around, and I didn’t do much training with them. Bud showed lots of promise on sheep very early (here’s an example from a few weeks ago), while Nicks took a little more time to show interest. She is very keen now, and looks promising.

A month ago, I brought Nicks with me on a trial road trip for some time with me. She was perfect! Friendly with everybody. Calm in new environments and around the agility ring. Happy to work for play and food. Great with walking on a leash, sleeping in new places and being tied to a tree while I walked the course. I love easygoing, bold, friendly dogs that aren’t easily excited by movement – Nicks is perfect!

Nicks 19 weeks

Nicks at 19 weeks

Bud has generally been a little weirder and more careful with new things than Nicks. He’s also been more easily excited by dogs moving. He did tug like crazy when he was 8 weeks, but after I introduced treats he was just crazy for them and wouldn’t play with me without a big effort (remember that I didn’t train him much at all, but I did try to play a couple of times). After my road trip with Nicks, I was convinced that I probably should invest my time in her and maybe look for a great herding home for Bud. I did feel like I wanted to spend some more time alone with Bud first, to get to know him better. So I did – and I fell in love!

Bud 4 months

 

Bud playing with me

2 weeks ago, I was ecstatic when I got him really playing with me! I started introducing food in our play sessions, and he kept tugging like crazy, even though it sometimes took a few seconds to get him back in tug mode after food. Last weekend, I brought him with me to his first agility trial. He hasn’t been out much (he’s been very carsick, so it’s not that easy to just bring him in the car) and there were a lot of things to look at that he hadn’t seen before. He would engage very enthusiastically in play, he loved getting food, and he did get a little excited about dogs running. He was worried about things too – people approaching and especially children running past us. I didn’t make a big deal out of it, but I was a bit concerned.

Yesterday, eight days later, I brought him to another agility trial. He was absolutely perfect. He could engage fully in training right beside the ring, he would relax beside me, he was happy to see both people, children and dogs. When something was especially distracting in the ring, his reaction was to turn to me for food (otherwise he just ignored the agility).

He is more sensitive than other puppies I’ve had, but he seems to get over things with very little exposure. He is easily excited by things, but fortunately even more easily excited by tugging and food. He also seems much easier to calm down than I originally thought. He learns things quickly and is very focused in everything he does. He is also very cuddly and loves to be near me. He relaxes very well in the house, when he’s not being attacked by Thomas’ crazy GWP puppy…

We just started training things other than recalls and not running away to herd sheep on his own. He’s 5 months old, but we’re three months “behind”. I decided to share some of our training even though it’s not advanced at all. And to get over my fear of publishing videos of my unkept house/garden/hair/clothes… There’s also probably music in the background, as there always is here. Here’s what we did yesterday:

Nicks? She’s been with a friend for a couple of weeks to see some new things and get a little training. They’ve had a great time and she’s been mostly perfect as usual. She’s coming home next week, and maybe we can start a little herding training with her soon.

Other things that happened – Epic became jumping champion and got a certificate in standard agility too. Squid got another excellent score in obedience – with Thomas handling her when I was teaching. Wilco and I are having fun with basic agility handling training. Both Thomas and I are doing some herding trials and it’s been a lot of fun even though I rarely get everything to work perfectly in the same run.

Update

Short update, since it’s been a while. It’s still very busy here. Thomas is still in Norway for a few days every week. I just got back from a weekend of teaching in Switzerland. It was a very nice three day seminar with many fun dogs and handlers. Unfortunately, there was no direct flight and I live 2,5 hours away from nearest major airport, so travelling took one full day (around 12 hours) each way. I’m exhausted! But Squid and I have obedience trials coming up this weekend, so there’s no time to rest. We drove 2 hours (one way) to get some quality indoor training today, and tomorrow we have another indoor training date.

Deerstractions

Switzerland had interesting distractions. A deer farm surrounding the training field.

We really should have trained more regularly this winter, but I was pleased with her performance today. Most parts are really good, but achieving consistency in performance in trials will probably take a lot of effort. Good thing we have many years left. We’ve trained obedience for 6,5 minutes daily on average during the past month. That’s 6 minutes more than our daily average during the three months before that!

Our puppies are growing and developing all the time. Leet, 6 months, is with our friend Rebecca to experience some city life. Volt, 5 months, is starting some herding training on a long line and looks really nice! My puppies – Nicks (14 weeks) and Bud (12 weeks today) are mostly just hanging out with us, sleeping, eating, playing and running around on the farm. Just being puppies. They are such nice puppies – very attentive and loves to be close to you. I haven’t had much time to do more that have some short tugging sessions with them. There’s no hurry. They’re having a great time just being puppies, and I think they’ll catch up on the reversed luring and release commands and rear end awareness in no time when I start training them. On Friday, Thomas picks up his GWP puppy. The house has been missing something since Paxa tragically passed in January, and now we’re finally getting another bearded lady in the house!

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7 week old GWP puppies. I think the puppy closest to the camera is Alot, Thomas’ new puppy. 

Bud 9 weeks

Bud is such a funny puppy! I’ve had so much to do this week, with Thomas away in Norway (leaving me with all the collies) and Nicks arriving on Monday. Bud has mostly worked on his potty training skills and bonded with Nicks. They are so cute together, almost so much that I don’t want them to grow up.

Today, I had two sessions with them each. Nicks had two short sessions of just play. She’s so social and really wants to cuddle when you sit down and praise her. I had to be fairly quiet and just move the toy around to get her engaged in play. I couldn’t help but cuddle some as well…

Bud is very intense in tugging now, but when I brought food out he was not interested. Here are some clips from today’s session. All sessions are posted to the online foundation class for my students to see. You can still join, we’re only on lesson 1!

So many puppies!

The ice and snow is finally melting, and it’s actually possible to train herding on the bigger fields now. And very soon the roads will be clear. It was worse on Wednesday, when I slipped and fell on my hands while dragging the trashcan down our driveway. My left hand is still bruised and hurting quite a lot. I’m glad that I’ve had friends here all week that have been able to help me out while Thomas is away.

We’ve had some great agility sessions in the riding hall, and some training sessions in the house. Sometimes I publish short clips of our training on Instagram, so make sure to follow me there – @fannyftw

Fay and Epic’s puppies turned 8 weeks on Tuesday, and four of them have moved to their new homes. The fifth one leaves tomorrow, and little Bud will stay with us. I’m very excited about finding out what kind of dog he is. Tomorrow is also the day when my new Scottish puppy Nicks will come to Sweden to join us! She’s 11 weeks, so will probably be a better play partner for Bud than Volt and Leet who are bigger and tougher. So many puppies. Expect lots of fun training videos. Some of the videos will be exclusive for our online classes (and you can still join!), and some will be saved for later projects, but I’ll post here as well.

Volt, Leet, Nicks, Bud

Volt, Leet, Nicks and Bud

Obedience dreams

Last night, I dreamt about really wanting to do an obedience trial with Squid. I even tried entering her in one that had already started and I didn’t have time to warm her up at all. I don’t know how that went, but when I woke up I was still really motivated. We haven’t done much obedience at all since our last trial in the beginning of October. She was in heat, then I went to the U.S. for many weeks, then I just didn’t feel motivated and now it’s just snow and ice everywhere. I still log every minute of training that I do with the dogs, and for the last 4 months, Squids daily average of obedience is 40 seconds…

I don’t really feel motivated to do obedience in freezing cold or on hard or slippery surfaces where she could hurt herself. The time I spend in indoor arenas (all that are heated and with good footing is more than an hour away from here) is spent on agility. So that leaves my living room! I’ve compiled a list of things that I can train at home in a small space, and I’m going to pick a few of them every day. Today was scented retrieve (2 min), long sit stay (2 min) and stand/sit/down from heel with focus on stimulus control (2 min).

Here is a video of scented retrieve and stand/sit/down from heel. Sit stay was too boring to include.

I was asked why I’m so strict in the scent work, not allowing her to work until she finds the correct item. In competition, they do have a minute to find the correct item, but you can get points taken if the dog sniffs the correct one and then doesn’t pick it up immediately. I’d like Squid to start at one end and be systematic even when she’s aroused. She knows the exercise, so our winter indoor training will be focused on getting all the small details right.

What are your best ideas for indoor obedience training? Please leve a comment and give me some inspiration!