The collie is called "Q". She is amazing already, and clicker trained, I think she is bred for agility. All the pups are doing really well, and the owners are lovely too!
Control unleashed wasn't written for spaniel owners it was written for owners of highly strung, utterly obsessive about anything and everything Collie owners
Sounds as if Bramble is doing really well with her training and that your training classes are well organised and controlled .
Our placeboards arrived yesterday...how on earth have I ended up so excited by a bit of wood and fake grass??? Armed with high value sausage, cheese,and new fab treats I took Bramble outside. For the first few minutes I just C&T for just touching the board, so she starts off with a really positive association with this strange new thing. Bramble started very quickly associating the board with her mat training and became very eager to jump on and sit nicely! I have uploaded a quick vid. I haven't attached a cue yet, just marking the behaviour...and yes I think my clicking might be a touch too slow? If anyone has a really good resource for placeboard training I would be really grateful!
I don't know of a good resource for placeboards, I did mine with an instructor. The difference between what you are doing and what I did is that at the stage Bramble is at, I wouldn't be rewarding on the board. I'd still be doing rapid reps returning to the board from the 4 quadrants and I wouldn't move on until she was quick, fluent etc. Then I'd work on a dead straight sit. And only after that would I start feeding for stillness on the board, once her position is near perfect.
I have seen a video demonstrating the 4 quadrants, tbh I would at this point being getting a trainer involved before I go any further. This morning was supposed to be rewarding Bramble for touching etc the place board, but she preferred to just sit on it! I am hoping to book a few sessions with SWMBO....once I pluck up enough courage!
There is only so far I will go.....although I guess watching SWMBO expression might be rather amusing.... actually you might very well see Bramble in action soon...she is going to the clicker gundog training seminar..gulp!!
Started working on quadrants today..seriously I am wondering whether she goes on line and works things out for herself...
Bramble is now 6 months old. So a recap on where we are on training and our priorities over the next few weeks. I guess I have been focussed on pretty basic stuff for a while now, recall, lead walking, off lead walking. We are also very careful with how much she exercises, particularly as she is very leggy and as tall as Benson. So we don't ask for anything which means a sharp turn of speed/abrupt stop start. So most of our stuff has been around behaviours as well as careful socialisation. She had a very good start with puppy class, and some good early meet and greets with dogs we know. Generally speaking, she is not a dog who needs to meet lots of dogs, she is a little shy so we are careful with this. We are not over protective, just aware that there are some bullies out there, and some dog owners need a little gentle managing themselves! Having Benson and Casper is lovely, she gets on so well, and Benson is incredibly gentle with her, never, ever gets too boisterous with her. So far we have a very good recall, even with distractions. Saying that she is just 6 months old, and just recently I have detected a little bit of independence sneaking through, so we will start on reinforcing recall with high value treats for a bit in anticipation of things going a bit "awry". We have broken down the recall into two parts...recalling back is one, and the other is her position at the end...sat neatly just behind on my left. This is so when we move off, Bramble is always is a good position to clip her lead back on, or walk close to me. Retrieving: We started from scratch with a clicker retrieve, this has worked really well, Bramble is very good at bring back to hand. We are still using toys that are sausage shaped and easy to pick up, really need to introduce a training dummy soon! Most of her retrieving is just playing, and not too serious, although she is a very serious pup, I have to be very careful with tone and language, she does tend to get upset easily and that can be a problem sometimes, she knows when something isn't quite right and can get a bit stressed. Other bits and bobs, she has a lovely settle, hand touch, sit...she doesn't mug or jump up. Struggling a bit with a "sit stay", but something to work on, she is fine in settle which she goes into by default, ho hum! She doesn't pull on the lead, well not yet anyway! Next we will work on a little speed with the retrieve, make it a bit more exciting, more recall...to get that sharp early response, as well as off lead walking. We have a 2 hour training session with SWMBO in three weeks, with both Benson and Bramble, just to make sure we are on track, so that should really help. Plus looking at adolescent classes hopefully in the summer. My aim with Bramble is to get her through her stage 1 before she is a year old, bit reaching I know, but I think good to have a goal in mind. Will try and get a bit of video of her training soon!
Wow, hadn't she grown! Sounds like she's coming in really nicely Kate Look forward to seeing her again soon x
You are doing really well with Bramble I love reading your training log. When I next get a puppy I am going to follow your training log for Bramble as I think you have taken things easy not rushing her especially with meeting other dogs, retrieving etc. . Have you trained her differently to Benson? She certainly is beautiful Kate xx The boys are very handsome
Lovely pics Kate, and it sounds like she's coming along really well. I have to take a very gentle approach with Willow, too, and take things in really tiny steps to set her up for success, because she gets stressed very easily. I'm getting better all the time at noticing her ways of telling me, but not getting a reward for something that's not right is really hard on her, so when I'm after precision, I really need to make sure I'm doing everything I can to help her. It's so hard sometimes! It's made me really mix up my sessions more recently, and involve a lot more learning-through-play than more traditional exercise-based learning. This is great for getting the initial bigger picture, and then we can work on refining it afterwards. By approaching most things as a game, it also helps me not get frustrated, which she picks up on really quickly. She really laps up all the cheers and clapping, too, which I don't tend to do when I'm being more serious about things. Willow loves Whipit games - have you tried this with Bramble? SWMBO will be able to give you some tips if you're interested in it - she helped me.
She is beautiful, despite her odd sticky out ears and funny lanky legs I think we have socialised her very differently compared with Benson. With Benson we really got a bit caught up with "he must meet everyone, and everyone's dog". Now that isn't helped much with most dog walkers thinking it is perfectly OK for dogs to say hello and play with every dog out there, and I guess in a lot of cases this is perfectly fine. With a naturally very sociable labrador...hmmmm maybe not. With Bramble we started off with very structured puppy classes, other puppies but very careful interactions and lots of working around other dogs. Having 2 dogs here, plus family and friends dogs has meant she has has lots of opportunity to socialise with other dogs, I just don't let her meet many dogs on walks in public areas. We have encouraged any retrieving, whatever the item was, shoes, bags, post etc....and gently with praise swapped for something else. Benson was not exactly scolded, but he probably got a bit confused in the early days when he did nab things, but there again he usually ate them, so quite hard to be bright and cheery when brand new sandals were reduced to bits of leather in his crate.
