How time flies! Poppy has been part of our lives for well over a year now, and my, how she has come on in that time. She’s just 2 years and 8 months old and has started that transition that also happened in Lady, going from a juvenile to an adult. In Lady it happened quite quickly over a two week period just before her third birthday. She quite noticeably stopped being wild and puppyish and became a steady adult. Poppy is doing the same thing a little earlier. It’s apparent in quite subtle ways. She’s pretty much stopped ranging away from me on our walks and sticks close by. She no longer runs at a hundred miles an hour all the time but tends to walk with me a lot. And meeting other dogs she’s pretty much stopped flattening them and just says hello politely and breaks off – most of the time. It was a nightmare when she was at her wildest, but in many ways I know I’m going to miss that aspect a lot; I did with Lady, and I’m sure it will be the same with Poppy. On the other hand, our walks should become much less stressful.
We have settled into a routine now. I love her morning greeting. As soon as she hears me coming she pops up the stairs curls her body round and through my legs with her tail wagging so hard that her whole frame sways from side to side. In fact, in general, her greetings are wonderful. She has a funny way with her where she puts her ears slightly back and narrows her eyes as she waddles up with that tail of hers going hell for leather and with what looks just like a smile on her face. I think I mentioned earlier we had to take her to the vet with tail ache because she was wagging it so much. Our vet remembers that too with “Oh yes, the dog with the tail!”.
Walking is a real pleasure these days. The Pop dog has a pretty solid recall now on two pips of the whistle. I still try and avoid failure and keep the recalls to when I know they will work, but she comes back like a train and sits in front of me – waiting for a treat of course. I’ve been clicker training her and it’s been a game changer. Our trainer, Judy, suggested it and it’s been a huge success. I can click the right behaviour and the treat can follow in due course. Pops is very food focused so treating is now the norm although purists might roll their eyes at this point.
On the training front I’ve been limiting things to walking at heel, recall, sit/stay, and the stop. Retrieving is all blinds to make her work as she’s been used to doing as a sniffer dog and use her nose. It’s all transitioned from absolute depression on my part to a joy to train with her. She used to run off and play with the dummy but she suddenly got the idea and I actually saw the moment it clicked in her head! A couple of weeks ago I was laying a blind and Poppy was too near and heard the dummy drop. She scooted over and picked it up and immediately made to run off with it. Then quite unprompted by me she stopped, thought about it and turned and trotted back to me with a good delivery. This was all happened within a few yards of me. Since then she has been rock solid in bringing the dummy back and delivering.
I love watching her use her nose. This afternoon, for example, I laid two blinds about 50m apart unseen by Poppy. We walked on about half a mile and then returned so we were approaching the lie from the front. When we got near enough I called Poppy to heel and we walked slowly forward together. I clapped my hands (to simulate a gunshot – well made a noise anyway) and stopped. Poppy sat. We walked and repeated then I sent Poppy out with “Get it”. The first dummy she found straight away and delivered. We walked forward and I clapped, stopped and Poppy sat. This time she had trouble tracking the dummy down, but that’s when my heart skipped a beat, you know, when you see a loved one doing what you know she’s going to be good at. Poppy raised her nose and picked up the scent but got the direction a bit wrong. She went a few yards then checked, turned and came back to the spot where she’d picked up the scent and tried again. She did this a couple of times always coming back to the spot where she’s first scented it and at the third attempt she got it right and found the dummy, picked, returned and delivered. The only point of criticism really was she insists on picking the dummy up by its toggle. I’ll do a bit of hold work to sort that out.
She’s a lovely dog, but then all our dogs are lovely, aren’t they!
We have settled into a routine now. I love her morning greeting. As soon as she hears me coming she pops up the stairs curls her body round and through my legs with her tail wagging so hard that her whole frame sways from side to side. In fact, in general, her greetings are wonderful. She has a funny way with her where she puts her ears slightly back and narrows her eyes as she waddles up with that tail of hers going hell for leather and with what looks just like a smile on her face. I think I mentioned earlier we had to take her to the vet with tail ache because she was wagging it so much. Our vet remembers that too with “Oh yes, the dog with the tail!”.
Walking is a real pleasure these days. The Pop dog has a pretty solid recall now on two pips of the whistle. I still try and avoid failure and keep the recalls to when I know they will work, but she comes back like a train and sits in front of me – waiting for a treat of course. I’ve been clicker training her and it’s been a game changer. Our trainer, Judy, suggested it and it’s been a huge success. I can click the right behaviour and the treat can follow in due course. Pops is very food focused so treating is now the norm although purists might roll their eyes at this point.
On the training front I’ve been limiting things to walking at heel, recall, sit/stay, and the stop. Retrieving is all blinds to make her work as she’s been used to doing as a sniffer dog and use her nose. It’s all transitioned from absolute depression on my part to a joy to train with her. She used to run off and play with the dummy but she suddenly got the idea and I actually saw the moment it clicked in her head! A couple of weeks ago I was laying a blind and Poppy was too near and heard the dummy drop. She scooted over and picked it up and immediately made to run off with it. Then quite unprompted by me she stopped, thought about it and turned and trotted back to me with a good delivery. This was all happened within a few yards of me. Since then she has been rock solid in bringing the dummy back and delivering.
I love watching her use her nose. This afternoon, for example, I laid two blinds about 50m apart unseen by Poppy. We walked on about half a mile and then returned so we were approaching the lie from the front. When we got near enough I called Poppy to heel and we walked slowly forward together. I clapped my hands (to simulate a gunshot – well made a noise anyway) and stopped. Poppy sat. We walked and repeated then I sent Poppy out with “Get it”. The first dummy she found straight away and delivered. We walked forward and I clapped, stopped and Poppy sat. This time she had trouble tracking the dummy down, but that’s when my heart skipped a beat, you know, when you see a loved one doing what you know she’s going to be good at. Poppy raised her nose and picked up the scent but got the direction a bit wrong. She went a few yards then checked, turned and came back to the spot where she’d picked up the scent and tried again. She did this a couple of times always coming back to the spot where she’s first scented it and at the third attempt she got it right and found the dummy, picked, returned and delivered. The only point of criticism really was she insists on picking the dummy up by its toggle. I’ll do a bit of hold work to sort that out.
She’s a lovely dog, but then all our dogs are lovely, aren’t they!
