Play Retrieves at Kittery Outlet

NOTE TO SELF:   Bring camcorder with tripod next time!!!!  I totally suck at the hand held camera video thing.





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Leon is Fetching

The upside to the winter quiet is the amount of time I have to concentrate on my own dogs. Jackie is being readied for spring trials in Open AKC competition. Leon can't trial due to his inability to keep along sit (bad knees), but he is still able to work and play along side me. I have been training him in an auto stand rather than an auto sit for instance. I am working on the long stand stay LOL. Down works too of course.

One thing we have been working on together, is having Leon pick things up for me. Leon can so far pick up the following and give to me:

• Highlighters or pens


• Keys


• Chain collars


• Leather muzzle


• Leashes nylon or leather


• Remote controls


• All his toys


• Gloves


• Dumbbell


• Shoes


• Skarves


• Dog Coats


• Dog Flat Collars


• Mail or Pamphlets (warning, they get damp)

I have been trying to figure out how to get him to pick up a bowl lately. After we go onto bowls and baskets ET, I will teach him a hold when following me, rather than just when bringing the object to me.

Leon and I have been having a lot of fun with this. Leon's always enjoyed the "getting part", but he now enjoys the bringing and giving to me. I wonder if he thinks I have become really clumsy lately (or clumsier than usual)! We were working around my two Great Dane clients on the beach as a distraction the other day. I had left every one's leashes in a pile a bit away from us while the Great Danes played, and Leon and I did a bit of work.

Leon was doing his free style moves, and picking stuff up for his very clumsy owner. At the end, I started over to get the leashes. I did not ask Leon to get the leashes, and I saw him look from me to the leashes and back at me. So I stopped walking. Leon took off, grabbed a leash and brought it back to me! He took his praise, and dashed off two more times until I had all the leashes. I loved this, as he saw a need that I had and solved it on his own. Course he had his trademark Leon grin on as we headed back home.

Leon and the gang even got a business card handed out that day. It wasn't during the fancy work, but in a long down stay. When the dogs go to the bathroom on the beach, I down them while I pick it up and then typically walk about a quarter of a mile away to "deposit it". Then I walk back to the dogs, they are in a down this whole time, and release them. If anyone who has dogs is on the beach, they normally can't believe it. They will say "why are those dogs all in a down"? " You mean they will stay there until you return". There was a lady on the beach beginning to work with her puppy. We talked, the dogs were released to meet the cutey, and I got a card out.

I keep joking with the Great Dane's owners that they need to be put on commission LOL.

Magical Days

In working with dogs, there are so many magical days. I normally forget to document most of them. Then there are times where I didn't bother to get the camera, just wanting to stay in the moment. Yesterday was just such a day:)

It started with our boarder and behaviorally challenged, Gigi, waking up. Gigi is so much fun, the very first thing she wants to do each morning is play. Play with doggie companions who are game for such play:) So she tippy tappies around on her toes identifying each playmate and making "inquiries". Gigi is also a student of play, as she had never done it before with a dog. I notice she studies hard what the other dogs are doing, and then tries it herself. I noticed her doing this, when she figured every likes to chase each other. Then she didn't know what came next after she got to them though LOL. Then she started figuring out about boxing, wrestling, and mock mouth fighting.

So yesterday, Leon was fetching my slippers, and it finally clicked to Gigi. You chase the thing, you get the thing, and then you run and get chased. Her and Leon had such a wonderful time doing this. Gigi even brought the slipper back a few times as Leon was trained to do. You have to watch her though, as she is likely to rip and shred, and these were my good slippers:)

Gigi and Jack also got to playing for a little bit. Jack's been teaching her that mock mouth fighting does not mean giving pressure to sharp teeth by whining at her when she is too rough. So Gigi had a heavenly morning right up her alley and gave my dogs a bit of entertainment as well.

Yesterday was a horrid weather day. It started with snow, and by the time Roxy and Harley, two Great Dane clients, needed walking, it was sleeting out. So I put on my boots with the screws in the bottom (works great by the way) and leashed up Leon with his pack on. We walked there with Leon being reintroduced to the concept of heeling to a client's house, as his knees have been doing really well lately. Leon and I got the Great Danes and went down to the beach, which was at low tide.

The dogs really had fun despite the adverse conditions. Well everyone except Roxy who has a horror of all that is damp. She does not do wet, and so she just stuck close by me as Harley and Leon tore up the beach. The good thing about bad weather days, is that the beach is totally empty even at low tide!! My hands were numb by the time we went back, because I had to take the gloves off to get all the dogs leashed up again.

When I went home it was time for training. I did fetch exercises with Jack around the worst distraction I could think of, bread that he couldn't eat while training. I had him also doing fronts through two English muffins lying on the floor, and needed to concentrate on fetch and give while auto sitting and staying next to two muffins. A whole lot of training has been going around things he tends to be an aggressor to Leon over in order to increase his tolerance threshold and obedience threshold around those things. In the meantime, and until a semblance of that goal is reached, he is limited as to his total freedom that he used to have in the house.

Leon was next, and we did his practice retrieve. He understands getting and retrieving keys, gloves, scarves, remote controls, and his toys. Now I am starting working him on a bowl. We also did his freestyle dance moves, which he loves. I think I will start this with Jack as well.

And thus ended a very productive and fun day. All the dogs slept very well that night:)

Watch the Toes, Leon!!

Leon is a super sweet Doberman boy who turned four this last October. His knees have kept us from competing, but this boy loves to train and work. I have been focusing so much on his compatriot, Jack, that I have neglected his work.

Leon was utterly joyful as we started his "auto stand". I want Leon to do an "auto stand" instead of a sit to put less stress on his knees. I have noted lately that Leon has been doing a lot of sits himself lately without much difficulty and without me giving the command.

So once I got Leon into heeling and doing the auto stand (I still say the command now, so it's not so much auto) I told him "stay" and went and placed the dumbbell. Now I have been using a weight training dumbbell as money is a bit tight, and I didn't want to buy new articles. In teaching Jack the working retrieve, I am still presenting it to his mouth, and so it never hits the floor. So the danger to my toes was not realized until I had Leon go get and then give LOL.

Leon is an incredibly smart dog, or I think so at least. Had he been able to be a competition dog, life would have been much easier. Of course I have learned so much from bringing my problem dog, Jack, along for the ride so I can't complain. Jack is more a serious worker, while Leon is all about fun and pleasing. So this item was much heavier than the others Leon had picked up for his "clumsy owner". Previously we started with a toy, then different toys, then toys mixed in with things like the remote, and finally this two and a half pound dumbbell. So as usual when Leon can't figure out the best way to place it in the hand (he needs to roll this out of his mouth) he will fling it at me . Yes I was fairly dancing a jig to avoid the flying dumbbell.

Thankfully and fairly quickly, Leon figured out to roll it to my hand. The other wonderful thing about Leon is he would work for floor lint if you called it a cookie. I had some sample kibble that was his treat, but once he starts going and learning the exercise, he does it for the express joy of working and doing. Motivating me once again to be sure that Leon is included in the training schedule line up. Dogs actually get bored of "playing" all the time too. You need to mix it up with trick training and training of practical things. They love spending time with you and learning with you. Adventure and walks and mixing up what happens at home helps quite a bit.

Speaking of that, I have started reintroducing the freestyle commands to both Jack and Leon's training. Leon enjoys it much more, and perhaps we can still do freestyle or tracking in our future. I get frustrated with myself for not being a more accomplished trainer with my dogs. I feel like the next ones will benefit more, and I have had such stellar and wonderful dogs. I feel like my inexperience fails them in some way. That if they had another owner, they would be in multiple sports and working all the time. On the other hand, the only thing I can do about that is keep learning and plodding forward.

I am so jealous of those folks lucky enough to have been brought up in a dog training or breeding family!! They got so much knowledge early on, and were possibly born into their dream job. It makes me a bit sad that I have no one (a child of my own) to pass this lifestyle onto as infant as I still am in the industry. That being said, I do reach out to those truly interested to know because of this. Perhaps then they will have an earlier start in their dream dog, and then pay it forward later on with someone else.

I will try to get a little of this work on tape later today.