Prompted by Beanwood's post "Working with Bramble"
On the shoot, yesterday, the landowner asked me how I was getting on with Poppy and when would she be ready to bring out. I said I was aiming for the season 2027!
It's going to be a slow old path to being competent, I'm afraid. I'm having to train a whole new set of behaviours and commands starting really from scratch with a nearly 2 year old stubborn lab with few boundaries, huge amounts of get up and go and the jury is still out on the question of intelligence.
I've had 2 one-to-one training sessions and I had to report at the start of the second session that it had been all uphill with not much progress. We agreed at the end of the second session that I'd have to take things in absolute baby steps. Homework this week is "Hold" to pick up and carry the dummy, "Release" to let go, clenched hand and arm raised for sit (discovered by accident - clenched fist and arm across chest and she promptly sits). Also to practice putting things down and "Leave it!". Do exercises only once if she succeeds first time.
We "discovered" during the lesson that she already knows "release!" to hand over the goods having tried things like "dead", "drop", etc. We said "release" and bingo! It would have been SO much easier if the police had tipped up info on her basic commands but for some reason they were very evasive about that.
Poppy and I are joining a puppy class on Wednesday with two 6 month old labs. We hope she will pick up some ideas by watching - I certainly will.
Next Saturday is our end of season shoot. I'm not going to shoot that day but I will be taking Poppy to do a spot of on-lead beating. It will be interesting to see how she gets on and also see how she reacts to gunshot. She doesn't bat an eyelid to a starting pistol so I guess she'll be ok.
On the shoot, yesterday, the landowner asked me how I was getting on with Poppy and when would she be ready to bring out. I said I was aiming for the season 2027!
It's going to be a slow old path to being competent, I'm afraid. I'm having to train a whole new set of behaviours and commands starting really from scratch with a nearly 2 year old stubborn lab with few boundaries, huge amounts of get up and go and the jury is still out on the question of intelligence.
I've had 2 one-to-one training sessions and I had to report at the start of the second session that it had been all uphill with not much progress. We agreed at the end of the second session that I'd have to take things in absolute baby steps. Homework this week is "Hold" to pick up and carry the dummy, "Release" to let go, clenched hand and arm raised for sit (discovered by accident - clenched fist and arm across chest and she promptly sits). Also to practice putting things down and "Leave it!". Do exercises only once if she succeeds first time.
We "discovered" during the lesson that she already knows "release!" to hand over the goods having tried things like "dead", "drop", etc. We said "release" and bingo! It would have been SO much easier if the police had tipped up info on her basic commands but for some reason they were very evasive about that.
Poppy and I are joining a puppy class on Wednesday with two 6 month old labs. We hope she will pick up some ideas by watching - I certainly will.
Next Saturday is our end of season shoot. I'm not going to shoot that day but I will be taking Poppy to do a spot of on-lead beating. It will be interesting to see how she gets on and also see how she reacts to gunshot. She doesn't bat an eyelid to a starting pistol so I guess she'll be ok.
Yes Poppy still does that on the rare occasion we come across a "person of interest". She promptly sits in front of them looking and wagging her tail. 
Despite my firm belief that an 'old dog' (past puppyhood) can still learn plenty of tricks, I do also recognise that there are some things that may never be solid with Carbon that were 100% solid with Brogan because I had Brogan from a puppy. Or who knows...maybe because Carbon is just a different dog, and I am an older trainer? In any case, I like your attitude of 'good enough'. 
