What a change

This fabulous, wonderful, chocolate dollop of mine never ceases to amaze me at the moment. This isn't a training related post, so apologies, but I think his demeanour today is all tied in with unlocking something in him those few short weeks ago.

We went on a group dog walk today at Yeovil Country Park with Sophie and Moss, plus my friend Mandy and her dogs Blue and Thomas. At the walk, we met up with Liz and her hubby and her 2 dogs, Jake and Tess, who we've never met before.

Only yesterday, I was saying to Mandy that I would like to get Bran to a point where he voluntarily swims rather than just looking at me, sighing and resigning himself to having to go in.

On the walk today, there were a few wonderful pools, but they were quite deep and the edges were quite difficult for the dogs to get out on. The water wasn't clear, so the dogs couldn't see how deep it was.

As I watched Liz's fabulous dogs leap into the water after balls, I hadn't noticed that Bran had just got in! I was rather gobsmacked, especially when he came back, couldn't get out and had to be dragged out by his collar.

He promptly turned around and went back in again! He did it again and again and again so was clearly enjoying himself.



He enjoyed the whole walk so much that every time we stopped still for a moment, he would do his excited dancing and bouncing on the spot and give me great big kisses.



It is just lovely to see the confidence ooooooooooozing out of him now :o)

And we're back in the saddle!

We had visitors and busyness yesterday so never got anything done, but today is quiet so once Bran and I had dropped Sophie off, we had a couple of training sessions - indoors thanks to the rain!

I put the mat down for the first time in a few weeks and Bran got into the dog bed. I tossed a treat to get him out of it, he fetched the treat then got back in the dog bed.

Grrrrrrr.

I put the dog bed in the kitchen and moved the mat closer to me.

Bran got straight on the mat and went into a down :D I hand fed him several treats whilst telling him very excitedly what a good boy he was, then tossed the treat away. He then came back and offered a sit, so he got 1 treat then a tossed treat. He then gave several sits so he just got the 1 treat before a tossed treat.

And then he offered another down so lots of hand fed treats and excited Mummy voices. That was it. I almost heard the penny drop! Every single time he returned to the mat (and I moved it to different places a few times) and went straight into a down. Fabulous!

I decided to leave it on that very positive note and try something else with him.

We have an interactive dog training toy. This one, in fact:



It has a peg game on one side........



....and a slide game on the other.....



....but given Bran's history with this game I decided to stick with the peg game for now.

The last time that I tried this out with Bran, I used one treat for one hole and one peg to partially cover it. No word of a lie, half an hour later he STILL didn't have the treat! I would hold the treat under his nose so that he would follow it all the way down to the hole, then quickly place the peg over it at an angle so that he could still see where the treat was and just needed to nudge the peg out of the way to get to the treat. Bran would follow the treat down to the hole and the second that the peg went over it he would look at me and go "where did it go???" over and over and over again. Meantime, Flora would be screaming at him from the crate to be let out and show him what to do. She could remove all of the pegs and take treats from all of the holes in 17 seconds flat. Bran just didn't get it.

I have tried to re-introduce him to this game at various times over the last few years and each time it has just been beyond his comprehension. Again though, maybe it is all tied in to the fact that he has never had to think for himself so he just couldn't work out what was expected of him. Bless.

Anyway. Today I repeated the process as I had previously but was fully prepared (after discussing this actual game with Morag during our earlier conversation) to break it down into very tiny steps if needed.

I popped the treat in the hole, put the peg on it at an angle, Bran flicked the peg out with his nose and got the treat! I jumped up and danced around the lounge. Bran was so pleased that I was pleased that he got up and danced with me!

So we settled back down and I popped the treat in the hole and put the peg right on top of it. Bran tried to flick it out with his nose, but obviously that wouldn't work now that it was settled in the hole. He then started mouthing the peg so I gave him lots and lots of excited encouragement whilst telling him to "fetch it" and he eventually pulled the peg out! Then proceeded to chew up the peg with the treat forgotten about. Sigh. I pointed out the treat and he was SO pleased that he had a new toy AND a treat. Bless.

We did a few repeats with just one peg but I put the treat in different holes each time. He was doing it so quickly that I introduced another peg, so he had 2 to remove. No bother at all. So I introduced another peg and gave him 3 to remove and he just did it with no bother :D

I decided to leave it there for now, but I would love to build it up so that he has treats under each of the pegs for a while, then reduce the amount of treats whilst keeping all of the pegs in so that he does actually have to use his nose to find the treats. All in good time....

Apology

Vast apologies for the lack of posts on such a new blog *blush* but we have been getting over the lameness, then stomach problems brought on by swallowing two whole ice lolly sticks >:o( as well as celebrating Bran's 3rd Gotcha Day (which involved no yummy food thanks to the lolly stick incident) and dealing with other busyness, but I hereby pledge to get back to the training.

Tomorrow.

Bigger Blip

So we had the weekend off of mat training and I've just been doing a bit of obedience with Bran to reinforce what we're going to need to be covering for the Kennel Club Bronze.

The plan was to try him with the mat again last night after his early evening walk.

On walks Bran generally expects to be chasing a ball the whole time - which never does his elbows any good - so I've been tweaking his walks so that he has other things to think about as well as the all important ball and last night was no different. I'd throw the ball for him, then do a couple of recalls with the whistle, then do a few sit- or down-stays, then throw a ball and repeat until we've completed a circuit of the park.

Except that when I went to Bran's lead back on he heavily limped over to me :o(

Fortunately, he is due to see Joe at Highcroft on Wednesday evening as he is due his meds review anyway, so I think it'll be onlead exercise and resting until then, but if somebody could tell Bran that it is NOT a good idea for him to be racing through the water in the back garden with the puppies and then charging into the house onto the laminate I'd be very grateful....