Good Morning, My boy is almost 7 months old, very smart and quick little guy. He gets loads of exercise and daily walks. However, I am looking to increase and pay more attention to his mental stimulation. He does fairly well with all the basic obedience training and tricks. His lead walking still needs improvement however. He is happy anytime commands and/or tricks are requested. However, I feel that this may be getting a little too boring or dull for him. Any higher difficulty games, tricks, or mental stimulation I can do with the little guy? Thanks
Have you considered doing any formal classes with him? Like gundog classes, agility, flyball etc? These would give him (and you!) a huge amount of mental stimulation and a real focus on what to train and why.
I have considered it. Unfortunately in my area, professional dog trainers are difficult to find. There are too many "Amateur" trainers. (example: over the top prices with no documentation or certificates or proof of training given).
Well, you can do all those things from books, but classes do help. How about scent nosework? That's something you can both do from books and with just one dog?
I have no such thing in my area, either. So, I've learnt a whole load of stuff from books and this forum, and travelled back to the UK a couple of times with my dogs (from Andorra) for sessions with a gun dog trainer there. I can't see my gun dog trainer on this trip, because she's away travelling, so we're going to stop in France on the way home to have a week of agility with them instead. It's fun to try new things including the dogs
I appreciate your difficulty. I also live in an area where I can't take classes or do any kind of doggie activity such as agility. I do try to learn from books, and this forum is a great help to me to get motivated to do new things. But I'm the type of person that needs the deadline of classes, where you need to practice each week so that you are ready for the next time, etc so not having that makes it harder for me. Anyhow I am going to try scent training (from a book) and see how that goes! Maybe you could try it too?
I hide things from my dogs and do it on the park too. They really enjoy it and they get so excited and happy. 10 to 15 mins of find it seem to = 30 mins walking. The only problem I have had is humans picking up the things i've "dropped" and handing them back. ggggggrrrrrrrrrrr
I once was doing a blind dummy and threw it over the hedge for Fred. I was going to send Fred around to find it. All of a sudden back it came, you should of seen Fred face. A old man thought he was helping.
Hi Johhny, I'm in the same boat....I live in Dubai and training quality and variety is very hard to come by....I'm a bit rubbish working from books but they give you great ideas and reading the Training Logs Board might give you some things to work on. After paying for and attending an "alleged' Agility Course I bought my own equipment and set it up in the house ( literally in the house to beat the horrible Summer heat) some pieces were expensive but others like the jumps and hoop weren't.....your youngster sounds a bright clever boy Best wishes' Angela x
Hi @Johnny I had thought about agility with my girl but as she has ED that is a definite no. When looking into agility though I found these articles useful about what sorts of agility you should or shouldn't do with a puppy. There are some ideas though that you might be interested in taking up with your boy. http://www.agilityfusion.com/2014/01/when-to-start-puppy-pre-agility/ http://agilitynet.co.uk/training/startingout_maryannnester.html http://www.yourdog.co.uk/Dog-Activities/starting-out-in-dog-agility.html
If you clicker train, then Clicker Gundog by Helen Philips is great. If you're less familiar with clicker training, I'd recommend getting the first book in this series, too, called Clicker Training, The Perfect Foundation by Kay Laurence, which comes with two DVDs. Also in the same series is Learning Games by Kay Laurence, which is more general tricks and games for dogs of all ages.
You might also like to try Brain Games for Dogs by Claire Arrowsmith and covers a range of difficulty and locations including your armchair
