photo

JessiH sent me this photo yesterday, it was funny I thought. This is what my dogs are like sometimes. Often at walks lately I’ve always got one walking on heel, and then they switch according to some invisible schedual. But when switching, it looks something like this…

Photo: JessiH

Finally seen some sun!

When I woke up this morning the sky was blue and I really felt like going for a long walk, and so I did. The dogs have been a bit restless lately because they’re used to training a lot more than I do right now… But today we were out for 2,5 hours and training and walking. Super nice!

I was practicing the same thing as I have been lately. The “down”, “sit”, “Stand” in different situations. It was working really well. Aila is so cute with her head down hidden by the leaves. I managed to get Vazy to lie down quickly as well, but she stopped doing it by the end of the walk, maybe she got tired..

Anyway, here are some photos (I’ll save some for some other time when it’s shit weather again, and I can’t take any pictures).

Wow!

Can you guess who took this picture?

This morning I went for a walk and I had the dogs off the leash. Anyway, I was walking and they were nice and keeping close. Vazy likes to walk on heel now days so…Then all of a sudden I see 3 deer like 50 meters from us. I can see that Aila sees them to, so I shout quickly, and she comes back! I was so happy, and then she got lots of treats. Anyway, I continue walking, and I thought I would practice some more, so I continue, and I can still see them a little further, but less than 100 meters away. Aila sees them again, and starts running, but I shout again, and she only runs 2 meters and turns back! Wohoo! Second time. So I continue, Vazy has seen them too now. They both stare at them, but none of them are running after them. Aila even takes up the track, but comes back when I call her.Great! After all this time with Aila being a hunter, it seems as if I have finally managed!

So nice to see some progress in this field, because then I can keep them off the leash more safely..

I also put the anti-barking collar back on, and she only barked once now… So bad that I didn’t start with that earlier, before it had acctually become a problem, it would have been so much easier! I have to think about that when I get another laponian (will probably take a few years since I will have an Aussie first. Always have to have one of each ofcourse!)

Now I have to rest and study.. hmm.

Agility again..

Yep. Just came back from agility training. I’m tired.. It was hard to drive then… Vazy got to do 2 runs, but I could see that her leg wasn’t the best, so she didn’t get to do more.. She was really good though, she still loves it.

Aila was doing good, but she’s sooooo slow right now. She’s got a false pregnancy and that makes her slow, and she just wants to smell stuff and make her bed all the time.. I think I’m gonna skip next week’s training, because it’s no point when she’s like this, and Vazy will not do any more agility this season, maybe this spring.. we will see how she’s doing…

Anyway, not in the best mood right now. Aila is barking a lot again.. So annoying.. But that’s laponian herders.. they easily bark, and I think I should have taught her calmly that it wasn’t ok already when she was a puppy.. I regret that now a bit.. Because I really think it’s possible to get them quiet, but it’s important to start young… Hmm.. Gotta put back the anti- barking collar. she’s always barking more when I’m tired and not feeling good,that’s when I don’t have the patience either. And her barking makes me focus on her, when I should really be focusing on Vazy…. I never learn either.. oh well…

Tomorrow I have to study..

Back from the north..

I celebrate that with one of Matilda’s photos.

The dogs are happy and tonight it’s agility training…

Indoors training

I have to write  bit now, because in the morning I’m going up north for the weekend.

Tonight was really fun, again. We had two new people in the group. I’m always a bit nervous when it’s new people, because I never know what they will think of it all… But we learnt a lot as usual. More about the tips will come up on the HI-blog.

Vazy was in the mood for training tonight. She had quite some energy, but got tired pretty quickly. I guess it takes a bit of extra energy to train around so many dogs close by, and all..  I managed to get her to lie down fast, and that’s what I wanted. Now I just have to get that all the time, which is gonna be hard! I was also practicing Stand to down, where she has to stay completely still with all paws and fold herself down. It went pretty well, but she just wanted to lie down all the time… She went straight to the square as well, but somehow she didn’t wanna stand, but sat down every time. It was weird… I also tried to practice heelwalk in moving sideways. it’s alright to the right, but impossible to the left. Don’t know how to do it…. we’ll see later on..

With Aila I was practicing the same as I have been the last week. Head down that is, and sit.. It went pretty well I think. She can lie down for a longer time now.. I also practiced the square, but I notice that she turns before the square and backs in to it.. Hmm.. not so good. I have to rethink how to move on from here….. Aila was a bit barky, since I’m out of spray for the anti-barking collar… but she’s alright. She thinks it’s so much fun and all..

Now I have to go to bed. I have to get up around 4…

 

Have fun!

Area Search

Yesterday it was time for course again. On the way there I regretted going out the door even, it was hell on the streets!

Anyway. When I got there they had already started, but it was alright since we took one at a time. Today it was time for “finding” exercises. Vazy was doing super well already and she loves it! I have to continue with this.

But I have to think about always putting the people straight out at 50 meters, in the beginning. Because she has a tendency to make circles and take the easiest path..

Maybe she got something in her eye yesterday, because today it’s not looking too good. Gonna see what they have at the pharmacy….

I don’t really feel like writing any more about this. But Vazy’s area search carrier might start sooner than I think….

Have fun today!

project films no.3

another session today. We’re getting somewhere, eventhough it’s very slow! Vazy can now freeze on the post-it for 2 seconds.. I still always vary the time, so that she gets her reward at a varied rate, otherwise she will try something else pretty quickly!

Film 1 is with the post it on the wall. It was easier for her to put her nose on it, but harder to freeze.

Film 2 is on the ground. It was really hard for her to put the nose on it (she put the paw, lay down, etc etc..), but easier to freeze. Next time I hope to get up to 3 or 4 seconds. At 5 seconds I will start putting it on the sticks.. As you can see I give more than one treat sometimes, it’s a jackpot because she’s doing it extra good. I think that is really important! Because just before I filmed this, she wanted to put her paw on it, and retrieve it, so when she held her nose that nicely, she got a jackpot. That makes her distinguish what she’s doing from good to better.. She always continues with what she gets jack pot for, but not always what she just gets a click for… If you see what I mean?

Aila can lie down with her head for 10 seconds, also here I vary, sometimes there is a reward after 2 seconds, sometimes after 6 and so on.. The sit is not getting anywhere. She sometimes needs double command, and she also focuses on my treats, and not on my face. So I have been working on that today. She is still a bit frustrated sometimes. as you can hear on her little noise, but that will go away when she knows what is expected of her…

Film 1 is Aila lying down, and sitting. She still tries something else if the reward is not coming, but then I restart again.. I want her to be able to stay in the position until I say something else. That is why I’m rewarding several times in the same position, before I tell her to do something else. In this case it is several things she has to think of.. When lying down she needs to put her head down to get a reward, she has to stay down until I say something else, and when sitting up, she has to look at me, and she has to stay sitting until I say something else.. You will see later how I decrease the reward frequency, by testing it. But if she can’t do it, I go back a step, and then try again just a bit later… Hopefully you will see a bigger progress in the next 2 or 3 films..

Film 2 is Aila putting her head down for a little longer. The longest is 10 seconds. At one point she gets frustrated because she doesn’t get her reward, then she sits up. Then I have to back up in my training and reward more often again. It is natural that I have to try to see if she can do it, otherwise we will never advance. I just ignore and restart…

Fun huh? I think I can get the whole scent discrimination ready for spring if I continue like this

Agility

Yesterday it was time for agility training again. It is so muddy and slippery now that I need to take it easy. Vazy got to train a little bit too, it was fun! She always get so happy when she gets to do some agility training, but frustrated if I do something wrong so we have to stop in the middle of the track. Then she’s running around in circles all frustrated. Ofcourse it’s always me that makes the mistakes still. I really have no idea what I do with my body, I don’t think I will ever learn. That’s why I will probably never go far in agility… But we’ll see. There were a few difficult turns and stuff in the track. The hardest one for Vazy was one jump, like this:

The thing was that the line went straight att the second “stick” in the slalom, and Vazy was too fast, since I’m not working anything with the contact zones any more. So I was only half way through, when making  a change before the teeter-totter.. it was hard for her to break her line to get into the right hand slalom.. but we managed to do it, but never when we ran the whole track, because eventhough I run the fastest I can, I never run fast enough.. hahaha..

With Aila it went well too. She was less tired than last time. I still reward her a little bit here and there. But you can still see that I’ve rewarded her too much on the dogwalk (bommen), because she really wants to run there. Same at the tunnels at first… She has some trouble with understanding that I acctually show her where to go, because eventhough I sometimes show her with my right hand, she runs behind my back, and comes up on my left (obedience training problems in agility?). Well, we’ll continue like this, and hopefully we can start competing this spring/summer. I want to start quite early with her, so it won’t become like with Vazy, where I waited 2 years before starting. Then it’s much harder to dare to do it…. The thing I was the most impressed about was her contact on the A-frame.. It was amazing! She ran fast the whole way and stopped 2 on 2 off leaning back a bit. And she did that all the time, no matter if I continued to run.. yay! But on the dogwalk it was different, because then she didn’t wanna continue afterwards, but rather stopped and went back up again. ARgh! My fault though, haven’t practiced enough.. I have to reward the stop, and the continuation… Something to think about for next season… Got a lot of stuff to practice with Aila, that’s for sure!

This is what her A-frame looks like, but this picture is from this summer, so now I can continue running and don’t have to stop in front of her..

Matilda took the photo.

Now I’m gonna practice some more of my projects, i’ll put up some videos later if I get any further than last time…

 

Vazy’s pedigree..

waited for me on the floor when I got home.. Nice!! Now I just have to contact SKK, and see if I can transfer all the titles and results from my competition licence..

Tired tonight too… But I’m still gonna go to the agility training, maybe that will get me in a better mood…