Here's Obi doing early hunting (yes I'm practicing with the GoPro!) I would do exactly the same in longer grass with a ball or dummy. Set him hunting, toss the ball in when he's not looking (hopefully! My timing is often poor but I keep trying!) https://youtu.be/FfcrxGVbwNY I'm a bit inconsistent with my HiLost, it's a hangover from Riley where I used my hunt whistle more. Obi needs less encouragement to hunt but when he looks at me and I say HiLost he puts his nose back down.
And here's some hunting with a dummy dropped.....not our best work, sometimes he hunts for ages without encouragement but hopefully you'll see what the plan was https://youtu.be/_d-UYtnI86A https://youtu.be/8EGcOI7VO2M And a hunt with a stop and a dummy out https://youtu.be/l_SI2L-CFlA I'm going GoPro craaaaazy
I've deleted the posts with the videos that don't work. I'll post them in Obi's log when I fix them rather than hijacking Charlie's log
Such a tease! @bbrown! "Here are some vids of Obi" "No, they don't work so you can't watch them" "Now you can't have them at all - but I might show them to you later" Arrrggghhhh!
Oh Oh! I thought Stacia meant they were all private. Ohh....there he is. snowbunny - a vid of Obi is here!
Right you cheeky so and so. I had forgotten to publish the other three so I'm going to restore the post!!! Head up and you can see the extra three vids!!!! Stacia you should be able to see them now?
When we were at training a week or so ago, Charlie wasn't able to do some impulse control exercises around food (the exercise was to walk in a circle around a full food bowl and to be able to use your stop whistle "round the clock"). I've been working so hard on balls and dummies we hadn't done food for months! So today we refreshed our impulse control around food. Not very high value food, but he still did quite well. We'll try up at the Common later. I bet we have "guests" in the form of other dogs though! Always happens when I leave bowls of dog food around.... [vid] impulse control by julieandcharlie julieandcharlie, on Flickr
Great stuff! I've been doing a bit of this with mine recently. They get the hang of it and become perfectly good at ignoring it without any cues, but it doesn't translate well to normal life just yet. I walked Shadow into the pub after our playtime earlier and he had a sniff at a discarded bun on a low table, but I saw him and told him to leave it, which he did... Willow came past five seconds later with OH and snaffled it. Ho hum.
That is an issue, yes - but it helps, I think. I also try to "surprise" him with the food bowl (the final clip, I'd put the bowl on the street before going to get him and walk out) - it's not really a surprise because I'm sure he thinks "o-ho, she is acting like she wants my attention....oh yes, there's the purple bowl I'm suppose to ignore...." But it does help. After all, if they can't walk passed the bowl in the set up, they sure as eggs are eggs aren't going to do it otherwise!
bbrown, have just found the videos and can see them this time. Obi is very impressive and he delivers well to hand. Great.
Haven't posted much on this thread.....Charlie has been busy, but not all that much with training. At the end of last month we went to ClickerExpo, reported elsewhere, and then this month has been very work busy for me. One development has been that Charlie has gone out on a few groups walks with a dog walker. This has had very positive, and some negative, impacts on his training. On the positive side, he seems to have really got over the remaining bits of nervousness around other dogs since his second op. Approaching other dogs in a 'pack' gave him an incredible boost, and got rid of his habit of standing quite stiffly while other dogs approached. I was also working on this with him individually, and as the pack work helped, found he could take food at the point where he'd do the 'stiff' thing. This meant I could start breaking his gaze to other dogs, and he quickly remembered what to do (sniff, turn away, walk in an arc etc). I don't think we'll ever get rid of the behaviour completely - my money is on it resurfacing time to time, but it's all a lot better. On the negative side, Charlie is more inclined to roam some distance away from me (he has always had this tendency to some extent, even as a small puppy he was quite happy to leg it half a mile across a beach to say hi to someone/something) so we are working on that. I have an interesting dilemma about the group walks. I don't want him going on very many, I'm not sure they are good for him physically, but I would like to maintain his confidence and manners around other dogs. So I'm considering letting him go on one a week. But I'm not sure....it's a very handy solution while I'm at work, but there are some downsides.
Hi Julie Just thought I'd post on our experiences of group walks in the hope that it might provide some reassurance of the positives. Harv has always been on group walks on a daily (weekday) basis as soon as he was old enough. It has been a big help with his socialisation - he is happy to walk with one dog or up to six on-lead at the same time, he is allowed off-lead in appropriate places and always recalls for the dog walker. It also helps to re-affirm that most dogs are pleasant to be with - a couple of dogs have 'had a go' at him recently and being able to walk with his 'friends' afterwards helps keep him sociable rather than thinking that dog to dog encounters are something to be avoided.
Thanks, UB, I do think it has been a very positive experience in lots of ways, for sure. It does though definitely increase Charlie's hooligan tendencies....but you are right, so important to keep their confidence up. Perhaps once a week would be ok for Charlie....
