I am going to take Harley to agility weekly and enter her in some fun competitions this year. I am also going to work n her lead walking on new areas - she is getting really good locally, but new places are still a nightmare and as my back is getting worse I really need to deal with this sooner rather than later. I also have a Fitbit Jacqui and generally reach 10,000 steps most days as my job is quite active. My aim to to increase my active minutes to at least 30 mins a day - for those of you who don't know, on a Fitbit this is fast walking / movement, not general plodding along like I do a lot!
Mine will be starting with our recall training again just to be sure we will be solid, as it will be the first time she's let off near other dogs in months, I'm doomed I just know it, we had already got past this but as she will have not been off lead for about 12 weeks in total February will be all about recall!!!!! We would have done our kennel club gold too but that seems less important now, more fun walks and visits to exciting places!!!
Great thread,good luck to everybody working on their goals..... Big news this year for us we are flying Dexter back to the UK for the whole Summer ,so I need to get a sensitive dog who hasn't seen an awful lot of life Bootcamp ready for that experience.I've started thinking about this towards the end of the year really....in fact I think I might start a different thread ....... as we are concentrating on getting him comfortable for that ......
I've managed to sneak away from Holly. Her recall is generally good, and we do some on every walk to keep it that way. Her lead work is OK, but she has a tendency to suddenly stop or lunge towards interesting smells. I might do a bit of work on this during our evening street walk. Perhaps I could start by distracting her just before places that she always likes to sniff?
I'm going to be doing some more team work training, as we are entering a couple of working tests as a team with two mates of mine, one with a golden retriever and one with a flat coat. So we are Team FlaGoLa!
Yes; it's going to be terrifying. The first competition we have entered is in mid-March, and it is for both intermediate and open class teams; though the blurb says that to enter you have to be 'very good intermediate standard'. Gulp. Teehee, plenty of scope for training there! We have a full weekend seminar booked on 30-31 January, which is a two-day course for teams. Looking forward to it!
Ah, with good friends as team mates, weekends to spend together training, and a name like Flagola, you are going to have a ball! Win or lose, sounds great fun!
We won't tell! I put 'go sniff' on cue. I got the idea from a kikopup vid. Charlie was a horror for lunging to sniff (so it was dead easy to get it on cue ) although harder to get him to understand 'now we don't sniff'. I changed leads for a while. Limited slip lead for walking, then I'd stop and put him on a flat collar and long lead and say 'go sniff'. It worked - in the end. Although as a result, he is still much, much better at walking without sniffing on a limited slip lead!
I have "go sniff" on cue, but also struggle with the "but don't sniff now" part. There are certainly a few places that are excellent for working on this because I know that they'll want to sniff without fail. I was doing it this evening, in fact. Walking past, as far away as possible (sadly, both places we passed today are on quite narrow thoroughfares), and treating heavily for walking to heel. Then, more in a line with it and rewarding for one step towards with without pulling. Walk past several times and eventually release to "go sniff". It's a definite work in progress.
Yeah, it needs work alright. I think it's a good technique though. At least, can't think of anything better. Interestingly, I've had good success again with changing leads - he is doing well on the hunting lead I got. Sigh....I think Charlie needs REALLY obvious cues!
Mine are far, far better when there's tarmac underfoot. By repeating my "heel" cue, or using a "leave it", I can generally keep them from sniffing all the posts. But, as soon as we step onto earth, grass or snow, the noses go down and they want to sniff everything. I think they've taken tarmac as a cue for walking nicely!
