- Location
- Herefordshire, UK
This is by way of a reflection of our afternoon "walk", just to see how I could improve or do differently on today's happenings ! There's always something!
Since our recent gundog training lesson, I've finally ditched the idea of going for a walk on daily basis, but now see them as training sessions since it was said "this is a dog that wants to work", not really a surprise given Cassie's background and maybe the trainer was just being nice but in any event it has focused my mind on giving her "work" to do and I would say it's effective. So I've been incorporating everything we've ever done into our exercises - sit/wait, searching for rewards, a bit of tug, retrieving , loose lead, heel work., stop whistle, recall games . And some free play but depending on the excitement level where we are she spends more and more time looking to interact with me -- the exception being rabbit zones, where frankly, she becomes a different beast and I'm the last thing on her mind.
Any way to get to today. I was feeling lazy, it was raining and I wasn't very prepared but still chose to go into the field where we mostly see hares. And sure enough one popped up, I'd kept her on the lead while we walked across to assess the situation. It was just a few yards ahead and we both saw it at the same time and I'm thinking oh heck what do I do now! Anyway I expected her to lunge as it motored off but she didn't, the lead didn't go tight at all, and she sat
Highly aroused, and I know if loose she would have gone, but she sat! Looked at me. Which I marked and rewarded heavily, and then tried to use the scent as part of reward, which was a bit chaotic as it is rough ground and she was very excited, but I think we did alright. Not sure how I could improve.
So she could have some off lead time we went to another field, and this time a heron took off from the dip in the corner, because of the contours of the land it seemed to be flapping just above the ground, much to Cassie's interest, she was about 50 yards away when she turned to look at me, without thinking I just called out "sit" and used my hand signal, thinking this is probably daft! But sit she did, and I was so pleased I yelled out good girl as reward, and then she legged across the field! But ran straight back to me. I probably should have told her to wait when she sat in this case, generally she's pretty good at that.
Plenty of food for thought but I think over all things could have been worse.
Since our recent gundog training lesson, I've finally ditched the idea of going for a walk on daily basis, but now see them as training sessions since it was said "this is a dog that wants to work", not really a surprise given Cassie's background and maybe the trainer was just being nice but in any event it has focused my mind on giving her "work" to do and I would say it's effective. So I've been incorporating everything we've ever done into our exercises - sit/wait, searching for rewards, a bit of tug, retrieving , loose lead, heel work., stop whistle, recall games . And some free play but depending on the excitement level where we are she spends more and more time looking to interact with me -- the exception being rabbit zones, where frankly, she becomes a different beast and I'm the last thing on her mind.
Any way to get to today. I was feeling lazy, it was raining and I wasn't very prepared but still chose to go into the field where we mostly see hares. And sure enough one popped up, I'd kept her on the lead while we walked across to assess the situation. It was just a few yards ahead and we both saw it at the same time and I'm thinking oh heck what do I do now! Anyway I expected her to lunge as it motored off but she didn't, the lead didn't go tight at all, and she sat
Highly aroused, and I know if loose she would have gone, but she sat! Looked at me. Which I marked and rewarded heavily, and then tried to use the scent as part of reward, which was a bit chaotic as it is rough ground and she was very excited, but I think we did alright. Not sure how I could improve.So she could have some off lead time we went to another field, and this time a heron took off from the dip in the corner, because of the contours of the land it seemed to be flapping just above the ground, much to Cassie's interest, she was about 50 yards away when she turned to look at me, without thinking I just called out "sit" and used my hand signal, thinking this is probably daft! But sit she did, and I was so pleased I yelled out good girl as reward, and then she legged across the field! But ran straight back to me. I probably should have told her to wait when she sat in this case, generally she's pretty good at that.
Plenty of food for thought but I think over all things could have been worse.
.
