Whatever you want to call it, I've been playing around with raised beds to work on this. These are particularly useful for Squidge, who doesn't quite understand yet that not every toy is her toy! We've come a long way in a short time, though, and yesterday, we had our first play with throwing balls around. The girl did good! Note that Squidge delivers balls to hand and the other two don't! It's something I'm working on with the adults, but they have a huge history of not, whereas I started with the puppy from the beginning asking for that delivery
I'm impressed with your training work with the 3 dogs and you are certainly achieving a lot. Particularly interesting to me that they are totally fixed on you and what you are asking from them. I find Molly's attention wanders and I'm struggling to keep her interested. I thought it would be easier with only 1, so even more impressed how you are dealing with 3. I think dedication and persistence are a lot to do with it. I must set aside time properly, rather than finding I've got to stop when I can't get a result with Molly, rather than having organised my time to persist. Thanks for the video, very useful.
Well, with everything, we start slowly. Doing individual training on the beds at first - juggling three is really hard (if not impossible) in those very early stages. Don't forget that Willow and Shadow already know how to honour each other's retrieves and ball rewards, so, for them, this was more about creating that boundary. I've found that having the clear demarkation helps them to relax more. I've proofed them staying on the beds with food - dropping it on the floor in front of them, tossing or flicking it past them etc, and the girls are really good at that now. Shadow hasn't had as much practice and he can sometimes forget the rules, but he's learning. Once I had the basic behaviour with Luna, I could up the distraction slowly, by having one of the others working with me in front of her. Just really basic stuff like a sit or a down to start - in the early stages, even asking the other dog for a hand touch was too much for her, because that's a favourite. But, slowly slowly, and with a lot of juggling of treats, we've progressed. I'm filing Willow's nails every day at the moment, and this gives us plenty of opportunity to practice being calm on the beds. This has been invaluable for Squidge, as I'm being very upbeat and animated with Willow, and she's learnt that it's not always the Luna Show So, we have a way to go, but Squidge adores her boundary games now. The other day, I took it to one of our retrieving lanes, but then aborted the session because I heard hunting dogs nearby. I walked maybe 200m back in the direction of the house, and Luna suddenly bolted. Uh-oh, I thought, she's running off to those dogs. But, no, she galloped straight back to the bed and flung herself on it
@snowbunny, very impressed with your training and it looks a wonderful place as well. You mentioned filing Willow's nails daily, is this with the Dremel (sp!)? I bought a 'dog file' to do Rourke's nails but it is useless. He used to not mind me clipping them but now hates it, so I thought filing would be the answer - not!
Thanks for sharing! We're starting group classes again soon, and I know that Lucky finds it hard to not bark when we're standing waiting while the trainer is talking to the whole group. I'll try taking his mat, if I work on proofing it a bit more before the class begins, hopefully he'll be able to settle on the mat instead of barking!
Yes, with the Dremel. Before I went on holiday, she suddenly regressed with having her feet touched, so I'm building her back up again. Her nails grow so, so quickly, and by the time I got back, were in a right state. I've changed tack and making it into a fun game for her, which she really seems to love, even though she doesn't like the actual nail filing part. So, it's literally me touching the Dremel to her nail for a split second and then having a party. Then waiting for her to ask to "play" again. Doing it this way, I need to do them daily to have any impact. We still have a looooong way to go to get them to a decent length. I might take a video
Willow used to find it very frustrating watching Shadow working and she'd whine and leap at whoever was holding her. We just built on it in short increments and then, suddenly, she was able to sit off lead, unattended, and watch without any fuss. I think it was a combination of a bit of maturity (it happened last summer, when she was just under two years) and learning that she would get her go if she just waited long enough.
@snowbunny, I look forward to the video. Not sure Rourke would like a Dremel thinking about it; Drift my older Lab likes to be vacuumed, Rourke leaps up at it and tries to bite it!
