Hee hee cheeky Charlie!!! I put my flinger through a belt loop on my trousers then it just hangs by my leg when I'm not using it. Seriously impressed with the first one!!! I can't throw anything by Obi's side at the moment or he's off so I'm haiving to take a few paces away from him. Inspired by you I was rolling tennis balls round the garden while he was on his placeboard at lunchtime
We had good fun tonight. After giving Charlie a long lecture about enjoying tennis ball launchers responsibly, we set off to the smelly field. I asked him to sit nicely on the left, and clipped his lead on leading downwards (this is his settle cue) and put my foot on it. This worked, he didn't put any tension on the lead as I flung the ball, but it was a sort of safety thing as I don't trust him not to run after the ball (even though he promised he wouldn't ). It was great fun because I could get the ball far enough away so he couldn't see it, and in medium length grass had to hunt for it. This was good - because he slows down and hunts, he doesn't do the slamming on of the brakes thing that is so bad for joints. I didn't do many throws. Perhaps 5 or 6 over a hour, but the hope of a throw was definitely enough to keep him practically glued to me, so no silly run off following scent. Very pleased with that. Although I had the tuna left over from lunchtime training too. On the way back, we saw 3 Collies repeatedly running in on tennis balls thrown from a launcher, he was off but turned round on his change direction cue (a bit stronger than my recall in that situation), but then dashed back towards the dogs and stopped again on a verbal recall, third time he tried to go I used my emergency recall, stuffed his face with all the left over tuna, and then put him on lead (the previous two times he hadn't returned close enough for me to put him on lead). Feel like I've entered the arms race of tennis ball launchers....on balance, I think I'm better off having my own, even if I wish everyone would disarm.
Everyone has to start somewhere....and it is Choc Charlie boy.... Dummy Alley. [click pic for vid] dummy alley by Julie T, on Flickr
We have one...and I can sort of use it for rabbit balls as well. I only use it for steadiness...and it works a treat, much less hard for me!
Cheese clearly wins out over the purple rugby ball. (As long as it is stationary...) He's doing great
Oh yes. They are not moving, for sure.... Still, it's progress. There was a time when he couldn't think if a purple rugby ball was stationary and in the same room....he still couldn't if it were a NEW rugby ball. Or a stolen one - that tops everything.
On that video he looks as though all those dummies and toys are really not that interesting! Your steadiness trainibg is clearly working. What will your next step be?
It's interesting - when you say that he isn't interested. The whole steadiness thing with Charlie has just been a bit strange. I managed a bit of a breakthrough a while back when he was on rest - by constantly having dummies and balls around but ignoring them (except at first with my foot very firmly on them!) - and we've been able to build on that. But it is like I've sort of got a grip on an obsession, and relaxed that obsession a bit, rather than him building control. I hope that make sense. His behaviour while retrieving has changed as a result. There was a time when hell would freeze over before he'd do anything else if he could fetch a ball - but a few times now he has continued to sniff when offered a ball. And he has had a pee on the return a couple of times. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw that. So I'm sort of re-training retrieving without the cloud of the obsession...it feels like that, anyway. It really seems to me that the previous problems have been about this obsession over the articles, and not about retrieving. Outside, I can now drop a dummy, tell him leave it, and he'll walk away with me. I can throw things if he is on a place board or I have a finger on his collar. I can leave a dummy out and he is able to do other things. It's fragile though, I can easily make a mistake and push it a bit far, so I've made mistakes. But I am able to now work through standard steadiness exercises. At a snail's pace..... I doubt he will ever really be steady, and if another dog is involved it all goes out of the window. He still can't be trusted if someone is playing with a ball and another dog. But, we are slowly clawing our way....
As an addition to progress..... Charlie has been back on Wimbledon Common for the last few days, and has been absolutely fine with other dogs - the density of dogs on Wimbledon Common really has to be seen to be believed.....not been nervous at all. He has met several large "dog walking packs", which are a bit of a nightmare (5 - 10 dogs who walk with each other all the time just sort of "swarm" over a dog on his own) but he's been really ok, much more his full of beans confident self rather than seeming nervous. So pretty pleased with that......
Today we've been working on handing over more interesting retrieve articles, this is a good few steps back from where we were pre Op (sigh....). But anyway. Canvas dummies are not such a big deal now, although I have to watch his excitement levels carefully, and we'll still have build up to retrieve at gundog training without a mishap. But back to basics, in the kitchen, with the clicker, and things that flap with rabbit skin. We'll move this outside now, then to the Common. [click pic for vid] flappy stuff by Julie T, on Flickr
That looks great though, pretty much straight handover. I go back to this every time Obi does a run around. Found myself in the back garden this morning doing exactly this after (for some unknown reason) Obi decided a canvas 1/2 lb dummy was tooooooo exciting *rollseyes*
Dummies are sometimes just too good to give up! Charlie seems a lot better than he once was, yes, but the behaviour is most definitely still there....my options outside are more limited than they once were. No switch retrieves for example. So we'll take it in baby steps....doesn't matter how long it takes. No rush.... He nicked a football last night (I just didn't see the chaps with the football in time, my mistake) but he gave it up quite quickly. Which was quite a surprise, really.
One thing that I have long wished to be able to do is use dummies for my directions - casting and lining. Charlie's steadiness is fragile, and we have a long, long, way to go before we have much at all outside the garden, very familiar field etc. Or around water. I have watched Pippa's video on back cast enviously - thinking I'd never get my dog to sit still while I threw a dummy over his head. Welll.....ta-da! Only in the garden, with a placeboard, and not throwing very far...but still. For us, this is progress. [Vid] back cast by julieandcharlie julieandcharlie, on Flickr
That was flippin' brilliant! Can I ask how you trained it? I've started throwing dummies all around mine - only early days still - but I can throw to either side of them with no problems, over very limited distances. Would you just work through the clockface, so from 9 and 3 (in a line with him), go to 10 and 2 etc? Did you start off closer to Charlie and then move farther away? I can just see that, if I threw something over the heads of either of mine, with me being any distance away, they'd think I was throwing it to catch and would leap for it. Maybe they wouldn't if I was stood right in front, though. Could you share the link to Pippa's video, too, please?
Pippa's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD1sLh5zWyg Getting to 12 O'clock was much, much, harder than getting to 10 and 2, yes. And yes, I started just about reaching over his head and dropping it behind him and worked up from there. I found that to toss it gently over his head was tricky, so I threw it sort of alongside him - to 12.30 and 11.30, and eventually got to 12. Even for Charlie, mad obsessive that he is, I've found that steadiness training like this does take the "edge" off his retrieving though. Which probably indicates a great deal of his enthusiasm is for the dummy itself, rather than the retrieve. So I'm going to be careful how much I do, even though steadiness now is probably the most important thing for us.
The thing I was wondering about, was him turning to look at the dummy. At first, he'd swing round, like he was going to break, and I spent a long time getting him to look at me while the dummies moved. But when I look back at Pippa's video, he doesn't seem much worse than her dogs now (well, you know, just on the turning the head thing nothing else). I was wondering whether the dog "should" keeping looking at the handler during such a steadiness exercise, or it's ok for him to look where the dummy lands. I suppose since we train them to mark, they should mark....
