Beanwood
Administrator
Today was the day Otter went to her first "proper" gundog class. Much later than originally planned but never mind! We did go early in December, but that was more for Otter just to get the feel of the training environment. On that day, we spent most of the session working on the outskirts, and monitoring how she was feeling. A balance between not "overfacing" her at this stage, plus a bit a challenge in terms of mastering some of her emotions. Using a training class is ideal as all the dogs are under control, so you have an easier job of managing any stimulus whilst providing some nice opportunities for reinforcement.
We kicked off by a lovely friend popping over and introducing her gorgeous puppy, who was just a couple of months younger than Otter. They both shared a crate while we joined the rest of the handlers for the discussion around the mornings' session. As this was Group 1, the dogs are under a year, and most hitting adolescence with a bang! Lots of issues arising were around managing their dogs distracted behaviour, such as sniffing, keenness to meet other dogs, and the usual "early good behaviours" going to pot. As good foundations of gundog work are largely around managing these, it was decided that we would look at activities based on working on some lifeskills, and looking at how they relate to gundog work later on.
We all got ready, grabbing a marker pole and heading off to the training field. SWMBO had already said we could work at our pace, being sensitive to the specific issues with Otter, but what the heck I thought, picking up a marker pole headed out with Otter to join our first group session. With some trepidation I might add.
Warm up exercise - We all stuck our poles in a rough circle, ensuring plenty of space from the next dog and handler. All we did was mark any attention from our dogs to get them in the swing of things. Having a sniff? That's OK...wait then mark for attention, a little encouragement was OK to get this, but the aim was really to mark a nice bit of voluntary focus. Nothing too hard. Then....
Intro to "Go Sniff" Cue - for really "sniffy" dogs, even if they are not distracted at this stage, this is a really useful cue to get on board early. Dogs that are motivated by the environment, get enormous reinforcement by sniffing, and one thing about gundog breeds is that they are bred to do just that. In this exercise we started to work with a release to sniff, moving from pole to pole - allowing our dogs to absorb the scent of the other dogs safely, like reading loads of interesting post it notes left at each station!
Did I mention heel work? Yup..always worth revisiting, especially at this age. When you are working in a largish group, moving from station to station...having a dog at your side, calm and in control makes for a much less stressful class! We had an interesting discussion around "pressure on, pressure off" in the context of the lead...who controls the pressure? Yup..you guessed it, mostly the handler. In this exercise we worked a bit differently, and looked at the dog having more control on the tension. It was very similar to the method I had used with Otter, but actually preferred SWMBO's technique.
Summary, Otter quite simply blew me away! She was calm and focused. We had the very occasional wuff, but each time this was self-limiting, or easy to distract. Her lead work was good, she managed the exercises incredibly well. I think everyone was surprised by how far she has come! Her new little friend was simply amazing.. and so was the owner, Otter even let her give her treats, after offering a nice sit... my jaw actually dropped at this!! A huge thank you..you know who you are!
. Both pups had a bit of free time at the end...think they enjoyed stretching their legs after such a long morning!
We kicked off by a lovely friend popping over and introducing her gorgeous puppy, who was just a couple of months younger than Otter. They both shared a crate while we joined the rest of the handlers for the discussion around the mornings' session. As this was Group 1, the dogs are under a year, and most hitting adolescence with a bang! Lots of issues arising were around managing their dogs distracted behaviour, such as sniffing, keenness to meet other dogs, and the usual "early good behaviours" going to pot. As good foundations of gundog work are largely around managing these, it was decided that we would look at activities based on working on some lifeskills, and looking at how they relate to gundog work later on.
We all got ready, grabbing a marker pole and heading off to the training field. SWMBO had already said we could work at our pace, being sensitive to the specific issues with Otter, but what the heck I thought, picking up a marker pole headed out with Otter to join our first group session. With some trepidation I might add.
Warm up exercise - We all stuck our poles in a rough circle, ensuring plenty of space from the next dog and handler. All we did was mark any attention from our dogs to get them in the swing of things. Having a sniff? That's OK...wait then mark for attention, a little encouragement was OK to get this, but the aim was really to mark a nice bit of voluntary focus. Nothing too hard. Then....
Intro to "Go Sniff" Cue - for really "sniffy" dogs, even if they are not distracted at this stage, this is a really useful cue to get on board early. Dogs that are motivated by the environment, get enormous reinforcement by sniffing, and one thing about gundog breeds is that they are bred to do just that. In this exercise we started to work with a release to sniff, moving from pole to pole - allowing our dogs to absorb the scent of the other dogs safely, like reading loads of interesting post it notes left at each station!
Did I mention heel work? Yup..always worth revisiting, especially at this age. When you are working in a largish group, moving from station to station...having a dog at your side, calm and in control makes for a much less stressful class! We had an interesting discussion around "pressure on, pressure off" in the context of the lead...who controls the pressure? Yup..you guessed it, mostly the handler. In this exercise we worked a bit differently, and looked at the dog having more control on the tension. It was very similar to the method I had used with Otter, but actually preferred SWMBO's technique.
Summary, Otter quite simply blew me away! She was calm and focused. We had the very occasional wuff, but each time this was self-limiting, or easy to distract. Her lead work was good, she managed the exercises incredibly well. I think everyone was surprised by how far she has come! Her new little friend was simply amazing.. and so was the owner, Otter even let her give her treats, after offering a nice sit... my jaw actually dropped at this!! A huge thank you..you know who you are!
. Both pups had a bit of free time at the end...think they enjoyed stretching their legs after such a long morning!
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