train my dog

Here are some well trained dogs getting prepared for Christmas.

Now starting the retrieves. HPJ was all for running off with the dummy and initiating a game of chase – but once he realised that was not going to happen he stopped fetching the dummy at all. Ha, fast learner!!!

Anyway the trainer now says he is learning so fast we might miss out Grade 1 and go straight to Grade 2 in the Summer, by which time he will be taking things a bit more seriously being more mature.

Since his lesson on Sunday DH has been doing some more retrieves and he is starting to get the idea now.

HPJ was an absolute star. He is now learning to respond to the whistle, and the trainer reckons that he should be able to achieve his Grade 1 within the programme of lessons we have booked. This will actually then put him ahead of where we were planning to be.

He says HPJ has the makings of an excellent working dog, and we should work towards trialling him in competitions, rather than just work through the grades. I just hope our inexperience will not hold him back.

After the training lesson he went and lay in his basket and had a kip, he had done so much thinking.

We have arranged to start HPJ’s gundog training earlier than anticipated, and we have a trainer coming up today. The foundation class wasn’t working for us, and since my accident I can’t travel anyway for a while now.

Anyway we’ll see what this guy says is the best route today and hopefully we can get him started on his Grade 1 training.

Oh dear—we’re not sure that this class is really working for HPJ. This week he and Lily had to be split up as they were both working each other up. Once separated HPJ was reasonably well behaved but Lily continued to be a problem.

The worrying thing is it was her last week, she was by far the worst behaved dog in the group, but her handler did not get any guidance for how to control and correct the behaviour, and she still ‘graduated’.

It seems that attendance is the thing, not performance. So we are seriously considering whether to continue with this class or go somewhere else where we can move onto dog training rather then puppy training. HPJ is already enrolled for gundog classes starting in January and he needs to have reached a basic level before then.

What to do???

Heelwork (oh my will he ever get this one…too many interesting smells)
Stay – both in sit and down
Down – This is coming on now, but he is starting to anticipate :)
Recall – continue the good work

We looked at heeling after presenting in a sit – it will take a while I think for this one – we have enough on for now, I think we need to put this on the back burner for now.

Right now HPJ is snoring – he is very good at that.

Week 1 and he did very well considering it was his first week and he was the youngest in the class. Lots of new dogs to meet and again he was very distracted and wanted to play and have fun rather than the serious school work.

He was not too bad at his heel work, good at sitting, but now we need to work on down, and stay. He still insists on carrying/ chewing the lead when we practise in the garden which we are trying to cure him of, and then we can do some serious homework. Already this morning he has done some good sit/stays but not for long, so we have to build up the time, (he needs to do 10 seconds for this class.)

So this week concentrating on stays, more heelwork (sitting when we stop walking) and down.

Was yesterday, and HPJ is now moving onto the ‘proper’ obedience class next week.

We have done a lot of heel work practice, which he is quite good at when there are no distractions, and he is good at sit and his recall. A good start.

Today we have had our first trip to the woods and introduced him to water. He was quite happy to paddle about, and watch HP swimming out to fetch sticks. I think he will be a swimmer before too long. However now his very muddy and very tired.

We also met lots of other people and dogs in the woods which was excellent for him.

AND he has now been introduced to the delights of Norwegian Liver Paste as a treat :)

...that the Alpha Dog asserts his authority by sitting in the other dog’s beds. ^{This is one reason why your dog should not be allowed on the sofa or your bed as it asserts his position as pack leader, when of course you should be pack leader}

However it seems that it also means that the Alpha Dog, however large, will attempt to shoe-horn himself into New Pup’s bed however small, and however ridiculous this actually is.

^{I apologise for the lack of quality but the sun was backlighting the subject and I just had to get a piccy of this}

HPJ went to school for the second week. This week instead of being shy and hiding under the chair, and just wanting to sit on my knee, he went berserk and wanted to play with all his new friends.

^{I think people thought I had brought a different dog along, as he is about twice as big as he was last week too}

Anyway after disrupting the class we tried to learn all about ‘sit’ ‘down’ and ‘stand’ and we now have homework for next week.