Arrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh!
Ok. So. Last week we went in armed with a perfect 'STOP' that could be performed in the house and in the park with distractions, plus a 'go round' in one movement if Bran was paying enough attention. We didn't do either exercise at class - typical! However, we did lots of recalls with distractions: Bran had to first be recalled from a group of dogs and he came straight out; then he had to be recalled whilst Jo was feeding him treats and he came straight away; next was recalling down the paddock with toy distractions dotted about - first time recall; recall down the paddock with toy distractions, bowls of food distractions and a set of weave poles - perfect recall; recall to heel and continue to walk at heel for 10 paces - spot on!
I've continued to work on the 'STOP' at home and at the work. And at Mandy's house after I moaned about him not doing it at class and he executed it perfectly.
His elbow was sore during class last week and he is back on a rather hefty dose of tramadol to manage that, but all the same he continued to execute the perfect 'STOP' at home on laminate flooring so of course he couldn't fail to perform at class - yet again! - could he??
Today we've done recall to heel and continue to heel whilst weaving through cones - brilliant; recall then finish at the same time as another dog - marvellous (even with a barking collie beside him!); paying little attention to someone eating food - interested but not bothersome and distractable; sending to bed - lovely (although he offered a 'sit' instead of a 'down'); 2 minute stay - great until he got up to come to me at the end of the exercise instead of waiting; 'leave' with food in a bowl and then in an open hand - fab; and then we had 2 'STOP' exercises - the one we've been practising with the dog recalling to you and starting to teach a 'STOP' whilst the dog is moving away from you.
Jo offered to give Bran some leeway because of his elbows but I insisted that if he can do it perfectly on a laminate floor at home, there should be no reason for excuses on a grassed paddock.
Did he 'STOP'?
Did he bugger!!!!!
He didn't even shuffle a few paces and then stop like some of the others did - he just kept coming at me slowly! 5 times he was given a chance to sort it and EVERY SINGLE TIME he just kept walking at me.
Then we had to try the stop whilst walking away and, again, he just refused to halt!
Jo told us to keep practising but I feel like banging my head against a wall now because I don't know how I can keep practising when he does it perfectly everywhere except at class.
Oooh I could swing for him right now!
Oh and an added bonus: we're taking our silver test on 8th January and Jo's enquiring about whether we can do our gold on the same day!
And extra exciting news - Moss and Sophie are moving up to the bronze class next week!!
Thursday 24 November 2011
Tuesday 15 November 2011
Having fun
Well both Bran and I are having lots of fun learning our new exercises.
Having managed to get to a point where he was pre-empting the new 'stop' command by stopping and immediately turning on his heel and running to fetch the treat that I hadn't yet thrown behind him, I decided to bring the clicker out and use that to capture Bran's 'stop' BEFORE he had a chance to turn on his heel. By last Wednesday, he was reliably stopping to every hand/vocal command and holding it for a good 20 seconds before having the treat thrown. On Thursday we went to class and I got the old 'Are you speaking English? What is this 'stop' you speak of?' from him. Swine ;o)
Today, we took the 'stop' command to the park and I used a squeaky Kong ball instead of treats and my boy was perfect. Just perfect. Of course, we'll see how he performs on Thursday but at least now I have it on record should he call me before a jury doubting my training again!
Learning a finish has been........ermmmm...........entertaining. I've been trying to guide Bran round to my right with one treat, then offering a treat in my left hand to bring him round to my left and into a sit. Nightmare. Not fun. Hard work. Every single time without fail as I remove the treat in my right hand to guide him with my left, he would follow the right hand back out and get himself in a right old tizzy! Clicker to the rescue again! I started clicking him just for following my right hand to halfway round my back. Once that was nailed, I commanded him to go that far then lured him round to my side and a sit. He can now do a finish in one movement to the command 'go round' and a brief hand signal, although we do need to make it quicker and get his 'sit' a bit closer. Mucho progress though :)
What else have we been doing?
Changing pace with onlead walking: 'steady' warns him we're going to slow it down; 'come on then' warns him we're going to get much faster.
All of a sudden he seems to know 'heel' for perfect offlead heelwork which bemuses me as I don't remember ever teaching him 'heel' as a command. We've done a lot of heelwork both on and off lead but I've never given it a command so am amazed that I suddenly have a dog who can 'heel' like a pro!
Recalling whilst I'm still moving and keeping him to heel and in pace for 10 paces is just beautiful. For some reason he just "got" this exercise the very first time that we tried it at class and continues to nail it every single time.
'Mat' is being dusted off and solidified so that I can reward him on the mat and he doesn't come off of it, even if there are distractions around. He did this brilliantly on Saturday night when he was on his mat whilst Sophie and I practised 'mat' with the puppies.
I still need to start clicking him for having 4 feet on the floor when people come through the door as I think that's going to be his hardest exercise for the silver exam. I also need to do some more work with getting him to focus on me if we are walking around someone with food. He pays no interest if we are eating at home but apparently it's very exciting if someone is eating at class!
Anyway. That's where we are for now. I feel happy with the progress that we're making and was delighted when an older couple who had obviously seen us training at the park came up to me to tell me what a lovely, obedient dog Bran is. I absolutely agree!
Having managed to get to a point where he was pre-empting the new 'stop' command by stopping and immediately turning on his heel and running to fetch the treat that I hadn't yet thrown behind him, I decided to bring the clicker out and use that to capture Bran's 'stop' BEFORE he had a chance to turn on his heel. By last Wednesday, he was reliably stopping to every hand/vocal command and holding it for a good 20 seconds before having the treat thrown. On Thursday we went to class and I got the old 'Are you speaking English? What is this 'stop' you speak of?' from him. Swine ;o)
Today, we took the 'stop' command to the park and I used a squeaky Kong ball instead of treats and my boy was perfect. Just perfect. Of course, we'll see how he performs on Thursday but at least now I have it on record should he call me before a jury doubting my training again!
Learning a finish has been........ermmmm...........entertaining. I've been trying to guide Bran round to my right with one treat, then offering a treat in my left hand to bring him round to my left and into a sit. Nightmare. Not fun. Hard work. Every single time without fail as I remove the treat in my right hand to guide him with my left, he would follow the right hand back out and get himself in a right old tizzy! Clicker to the rescue again! I started clicking him just for following my right hand to halfway round my back. Once that was nailed, I commanded him to go that far then lured him round to my side and a sit. He can now do a finish in one movement to the command 'go round' and a brief hand signal, although we do need to make it quicker and get his 'sit' a bit closer. Mucho progress though :)
What else have we been doing?
Changing pace with onlead walking: 'steady' warns him we're going to slow it down; 'come on then' warns him we're going to get much faster.
All of a sudden he seems to know 'heel' for perfect offlead heelwork which bemuses me as I don't remember ever teaching him 'heel' as a command. We've done a lot of heelwork both on and off lead but I've never given it a command so am amazed that I suddenly have a dog who can 'heel' like a pro!
Recalling whilst I'm still moving and keeping him to heel and in pace for 10 paces is just beautiful. For some reason he just "got" this exercise the very first time that we tried it at class and continues to nail it every single time.
'Mat' is being dusted off and solidified so that I can reward him on the mat and he doesn't come off of it, even if there are distractions around. He did this brilliantly on Saturday night when he was on his mat whilst Sophie and I practised 'mat' with the puppies.
I still need to start clicking him for having 4 feet on the floor when people come through the door as I think that's going to be his hardest exercise for the silver exam. I also need to do some more work with getting him to focus on me if we are walking around someone with food. He pays no interest if we are eating at home but apparently it's very exciting if someone is eating at class!
Anyway. That's where we are for now. I feel happy with the progress that we're making and was delighted when an older couple who had obviously seen us training at the park came up to me to tell me what a lovely, obedient dog Bran is. I absolutely agree!
Thursday 3 November 2011
Silver training commences and a bit of a surprise!
So finally we made it back to training today!
Bran was thrilled to see "his" Jo again and Jo was happy to have us back in the class.
The class was so different to what we've had before! There were only 2 other dogs there today and they are both training for their KC Gold so the standard was much higher than we've been used to working to. It felt as if the owners were more relaxed than they've been at our starter and bronze classes and I suppose that may be down to the fact that they've already done a fair bit of training with their dogs and are more confident with them.
Bran seemed to be really happy to be "working" again and was really attentive throughout the class, although his favourite bit was when Jo had to examine his ears, eyes, paws, etc and he rolled in his back and wagged at the same time! LOL!
Jo told me that she has no doubt that Bran will be ready to take his silver test fairly shortly and then said that she would also be expecting him to be taking his gold test at the same time as the other dogs in our class, as we're practising the gold exercises alongside them anyway. This means that he should have both his silver AND gold under his collar by Christmas! Blimey.
I'm fairly confident that Bran will be able to fly through both exams but that means that *I* have a lot of studying to do so that I don't let him down!
How exciting!
Bran was thrilled to see "his" Jo again and Jo was happy to have us back in the class.
The class was so different to what we've had before! There were only 2 other dogs there today and they are both training for their KC Gold so the standard was much higher than we've been used to working to. It felt as if the owners were more relaxed than they've been at our starter and bronze classes and I suppose that may be down to the fact that they've already done a fair bit of training with their dogs and are more confident with them.
Bran seemed to be really happy to be "working" again and was really attentive throughout the class, although his favourite bit was when Jo had to examine his ears, eyes, paws, etc and he rolled in his back and wagged at the same time! LOL!
Jo told me that she has no doubt that Bran will be ready to take his silver test fairly shortly and then said that she would also be expecting him to be taking his gold test at the same time as the other dogs in our class, as we're practising the gold exercises alongside them anyway. This means that he should have both his silver AND gold under his collar by Christmas! Blimey.
I'm fairly confident that Bran will be able to fly through both exams but that means that *I* have a lot of studying to do so that I don't let him down!
How exciting!
Good excuse for being AWOL
Huge apologies for the big gap, but a lot of you will know why we've been AWOL.
As intended, Bran was taken to the vets on the day after passing his bronze test and I was fully expecting to be told that he needed to be booked in for hip x-rays. However, I was told that they suspected he had Auto-Immune Hemalytic Anaemia and that they "could save him if we've caught it early enough". As you can imagine, that pulled the rug out from under us a little :o(
Bran was immediately admitted to the hospital and underwent a battery of tests. He ended up being in and out of the vets for 2 whole weeks and had many blood tests, several CT scans and an endoscopy. He went from 25kg to 22.7kgs in just a few short days, developed a horrid cough, was very cold and pale and horribly lethargic :o(
Thankfully, it was eventually concluded that Bran was *just* suffering from Lymphocytic Plasmacytic Enteritis - one of the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases - and he was given medication to soothe his stomach and allow his body to start drawing nutrition from his food again.
His Zubrin was also stopped (this was managing the pain of his elbow dysplasia) and he is being given cartrophen injections instead. This seems to have worked wonders as Bran is cheekier and naughtier than I've ever seen him! He's put back on all the weight he lost and is looking fabulous at the moment :o)
Due to being so poorly, Bran missed his first three KC Silver classes, but we finally made it back today.....
As intended, Bran was taken to the vets on the day after passing his bronze test and I was fully expecting to be told that he needed to be booked in for hip x-rays. However, I was told that they suspected he had Auto-Immune Hemalytic Anaemia and that they "could save him if we've caught it early enough". As you can imagine, that pulled the rug out from under us a little :o(
Bran was immediately admitted to the hospital and underwent a battery of tests. He ended up being in and out of the vets for 2 whole weeks and had many blood tests, several CT scans and an endoscopy. He went from 25kg to 22.7kgs in just a few short days, developed a horrid cough, was very cold and pale and horribly lethargic :o(
Thankfully, it was eventually concluded that Bran was *just* suffering from Lymphocytic Plasmacytic Enteritis - one of the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases - and he was given medication to soothe his stomach and allow his body to start drawing nutrition from his food again.
His Zubrin was also stopped (this was managing the pain of his elbow dysplasia) and he is being given cartrophen injections instead. This seems to have worked wonders as Bran is cheekier and naughtier than I've ever seen him! He's put back on all the weight he lost and is looking fabulous at the moment :o)
Due to being so poorly, Bran missed his first three KC Silver classes, but we finally made it back today.....
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