Obedience – 05/16/2011
We worked two obedience sessions today. First session: heeling, sit out of motion, jump the one metre hurdle at full height, started the A-frame over and back at a very low height. Second session: sit out of motion, retrieve on flat, retrieve over hurdle at 3″ less than full height.
I had wanted to do retrieve over hurdle at half height, but my hurdle pins stick and I couldn’t get it to go down any further without assistance. So we went for it. She did two retrieves over the hurdle no problem. Her finish was slightly crooked, but we will work on straightening that out independent of the retrieve.
Her heeling is a lot more animated since I have shortened the heeling time. Her sit out of motion is really good. I am just adding distance now.
Overall, I am very happy with Laila’s progress. I am just taking my time and making sure we don’t rush or add too much at once, as well as keeping her drive for the work high.
At the end of our second session we played two ball for twenty minutes. I like to play hard for a couple minutes then give her a break, then play hard again. This helps build her endurance without completely draining her.
Tracking – 05/16/2011
150 paces, short/dry lawn grass, soft ground, very green, winds north at 12 mph, mid-day, one corner. First leg 110 paces. Second leg 50 paces.
The wind cut across the first leg of the track and was behind the 2nd leg. I am starting to expect control on our way out to the track. Laila still expects to get to the track as quickly as possible, however, so needless to say our fifty yard walk to the start of the track looked a little chaotic. I put a short line on her prong collar which was attached to the Bottcher harness in order to make corrections. When we were ready to start the track, I removed the short line.
Her speed was good. I am starting to slowly remove food (one footstep every ten paces has no food). She tracked a nice pace, her nose gliding from footstep to footstep. She nosed out at about thirty paces but came right back, probably due to the wind cutting across the track. She nosed out again at the corner, but not very far and was right back on the track. The second leg had several mower cross tracks. She nosed out on the first one, but I didn’t correct. She ignored the remaining cross tracks.
Protection – 05/15/2011
Laila continues to show great enthusiasm for bitework. She bites the sleeve full and hard. We are working on keeping her centered on the sleeve and keeping her drive high. When she returns to the car with the sleeve, she holds it for a very long time, calm and full in her mouth… the grip never moves. As soon as she releases it, she gets a drink of water. When she hears the crack of the whip, she is ready to return to the field.
Obedience – 05/15/2011
Laila did her first dumbbell retrieve over the hurdle!! It was set to half height. She has been clearing it at full height without the dumbbell. The first time she returned, she dropped the dumbbell in anticipation of getting her ball reward. I pointed to the dumbbell, said ‘bring’, backed up while encouraging her into front sit ‘bring’ position. She dropped it again. I repeated the command
We repeated the exercise. This time she performed the retrieve correctly! We had a little party and went ‘home’. 
This week, we will be working separate sessions. I will continue to ask her to go over the full height, but without the dumbbell. She is clearing it nicely and I want to keep up her muscle strength, muscle memory and endurance for the full height. In a separate session, we will practice retrieve over the hurdle, beginning at half height and working up to full height. I am not sure will will get to full height by the end of the week or not. It all depends on her continued consistency in correctly retrieving at the lower height and her continued ability to clear the hurdle at full height without the dumbbell. It is always best in training not to present too many variables at the same time.
Her heeling continues to improve, though she seemed to crowd a bit yesterday. This week we will continue work on correct heeling, keeping the sessions short and energetic, yet rewarding when it is correct.
Laila is one year old now. She knows heeling, sitz, platz, sit out of motion, retrieve on the flat, clears the one metre hurdle at full height, retrieves over the hurdle at half height, does voraus, flip finish and long down. We are working on the long down and need to start adding in distractions and adding distance.
Tracking – 05/15/2011
We tracked in pasture grass of varied height (1 foot to waist high), in rain, no wind, 125 paces, one corner.
We tracked at club this weekend. She tracked very well. There were three people from club following along and at one point she looked back slightly at the people and I corrected slightly. We need to track more with people around. Trial tracking is not the quiet trek through still pastures surrounded by the sounds of birds. It is a line of cars full of barking dogs, people talking and laughing. It is often a long hike through a grass tunnel toward a waiting judge and track layer. You may encounter the dog/handler team that tracked right before you. The handler may smile or frown at you depending on the success of their track. It plays with your nerves. The dog may be friendly or not so friendly toward your dog. It plays with your nerves.
So my goal with Laila, other than getting her to competition level tracking, is to track in as many ‘trial-like’ tracking situations as possible.
Tracking – 05/09/2011
150 paces. one right turn, four inch high pasture grass that had been mowed a week earlier. Some dead grass. Soft earth from lots of rain. Drier conditions, Late afternoon. Slight southeasterly breeze. Aged 30 minutes. I used 1/2 hot dog rounds.
Her pace was nice. I let her ‘nose out’ to the mower tracks. It was really slight and she quickly realized this was not her track and returned to her track. I let her self-discover this rather than correct for it because it was the first time we had tracked in grass that had such a clear, pressed-down, cross track like a mower track. I feel it is better when you get a new cross track like this; i.e. animal, machine, footpath, whatever, to let the dog work through it. If the dog is clearly distracted by something or finds something outside the track more enticing, then I correct.
When she nosed out, I simply said nothing. She returned to the track almost immediately and when she did, I said ‘Good Such’.
We will be switching to a new bait tomorrow. One that is less odiferous, easy to cut into small bite size cubes and is not as attractive to ants. I will post more about it later this week.
Obedience – 05/06/2011
Today we worked on the following:
Heeling, one metre hurdle, sit out of motion, send out.
I’ve brought her enthusiasm for obedience up quite a bit. We do a lot of ball play right at the beginning to bring her drive up. I do lots of ‘near miss’ ball play with her diving for the ball.
Once she is good and excited, I go into heeling. I keep this really short right now. We only heel about ten paces. Then more ball play.
Next we worked on left turns. I make a conscious effort to simultaneously look in the direction I want to turn as well as turn my left shoulder in the direction I want to go. This ‘leads’ her into the turn. It is very subtle. I will try to get video of this soon.
The other thing we have been working on is ‘back’. A friend of mine says this helps them to understand position and I believe he is right. Right now she will only ‘back’ heel one step and I still have to cue her sometimes with a slight shoulder shift. But it is coming.
To reward for proper heeling, I’ve switched to tossing the ball to her right side. This has also helped to keep her from crowding.
She cleared the hurdle five times today with a ball retrieve!!! yay!! It is still at two inches below full height, but this is the first time she has retrieved something over the hurdle.
The send out is coming along. She watches for the hand motion. I am still walking it down there. We have only tried it once where I loaded the ball tree before I brought her out. Next week I am going to break my obedience into two sessions and have one session where I do heeling, sits, platzes. The later session will be hurdle and send outs. By the end of next week I will proof the send out with a preloaded ball tree to see if she understands the exercise.
