How about telling us about the moment during training when everything just came together and you stood there with the biggest grin on your face?

How about when everything just fell apart?

I had an everything fall apart moment a few weeks ago.

I've been having some trouble with my hands/pinched nerve in my neck/shoulder/elbow/wrist. Numb hands + crazy brindle boy= not good things. In tracking, we've been working to slow my beast down. I have a friend who tracks her young DS in a prong. I asked my TD about tracking Koenig in a prong a couple weeks ago when my hands were VERY sore from a hard day at work. I didn't know if I had the strength to hang on to him blasting through a track. She said that a very very large prong, fit like a 'normally sized' tracking collar would work. (So the collar hits under the breastbone not to restrict breathing, and leash under a front leg)

It backfired, big time. Koenig had NO IDEA why he was all of a sudden being punished, when he was trying to track. He was spinning frustrated circles at the start of the track, didn't want to put his head down, he was just upset. We didn't get more then 5' off the scent pad before I gave up and tracked in the only other collar I had on me, which was a very thin, small leather slip collar. Not exactly ideal. Fortunately, I had a much more experienced club member with me, who was able to help me through all of it. If she hadn't been there, I would have been in tears along with Koenig if he was capable of crying. Once we switched collars, he got back down to business, and had a decent track. I opted out of laying a second, easy, short, happy track because my hands hurt, but he's back to normal. No detrimental effects, but I learned a lesson. If I'm not 100% physically, Don't track the dog!

As far as training highs... we had a few yesterday! I saw the lightbulb go off several times while he was herding. Later in the evening, I had him in the off leash area playing fetch. (This is normally a no-no for my dog, who lacks social skills) The off leash area is parallel to the pasture they herd ducks in. Koenig... uhhh.... likes ducks. A lot. (Hell, he'll even chase swallows through a field!) He started to charge the fence a couple times. I called him, and he stopped, nearly in his tracks, to come back to me. THIS is what I've worked for my entire time training him. The last dog I owned was a 'I'll come when I'm good and ready' dog. I worked for 14 years to get a nice recall on him, and failed. When I can call my uber-prey drive dog off a bunch of runner ducks quacking, I feel pretty darn good. I was so excited. Aaron was there to share the moment with me, as well as a happy brindled dog.

Edited by Kelly Byrd (05/22/2011 04:34 PM)
Edit reason: Betty! I want to know your high! You mentioned a low in a recent thread, so no need for you to re-hash that, but I'd love to hear a success story from you... ya can't start a thread like this and not contribute. :P ;)

In case anybody hasn't noticed, I don't train alot.

All I want in my dogs is to come when called, stay if I tell you to hang on, and get along with other humans and dog's.

So I'd have to say that my "highs" are everytime Turbo does those things. I love knowing that even after being attacked by those GSD's down the road, that my crazy little dog has enough head on his shoulders to be around new dog's with no side effects of the attack. Or when he is headed balls to the wall after a cat that I can call his name and he'll stop the chase and come back to me.(Everytime that happens, he gets a jackpot of whatever food or drink I've got handy.:smile

But I'd have to say that the biggest rushes Turbo ever gave me were on the deer we have looked for. It has only been a few deer, but that moment when I'm wondering if it's a lost cause, and then like a neon sign, you see something change in him that a monkey could read if they saw it. Then you just let him go and try to keep up. I love that.

Lows don't have so much to do with him. Any time I lose my patience in day to day life would be my lows. Sometimes I just need to back off and remember he is a dog. No dog is perfect every day. We all have off days, people and dog.

I will Kelly, I didn't think ahead when I started the thread and I'm in the middle of feeding/moving the hordes.

The hungry hordes!

<grin>

Biggest low point ever: watching my SAR dog-in-training do a head snap on a rabbit. It was down hill from there.

Biggest high point... the year of SAR training before that. Dang, she was doing well.

Most recent big high... seeing that she can play appropriately w/the new pup. And gently take a treat from a 2-YO toddler on cue.

I think my biggest training "high" is just being able to successfully have three GSDs that are happy as a pack. They really all get along wonderfully and have such a great balance among them. I love it

My worst low...when my Daisy (my Cairn), Grace and Kira got out of my yard (Literally was two seconds of being unattended...one of them had poop on their feet and stepped on my foot. I was just walking to the sink to wash my foot.) at the exact moment that a little girl from two doors down was feeding the squirrels. My dogs sent the squirrels running, the little girl running/screaming and I was flying out the door in my pj's, no bra, like a maniac. Saw and assessed the situation...Screamed DOWN to the dogs (GSDs listened, Cairn was off on a rodent hunt) and grabbed the only out of control element - the kid! Returned her home and then gathered my dogs. It ended up ok...but it was bad and very scary.

 Quote: Jane Jasper

And gently take a treat from a 2-YO toddler on cue.

You just reminded me of another HUGE, DAILY high point for me. I can live in an apartment, with a crazy 2 yr old Dutch Shepherd and 2 kids, 3 and 6 years old. I am SO blessed to have a dog like Koenig. I can't imagine a working dog that could interact better with kids.

Thanks for reminding me not to take that for granted, Jane.

This topic couldn't be more timely for me since I just had one of my all-time lows today. I attended a practice match at my club with Logan, my three-year-old. Let's just say that I have had an ongoing problem trying to curb his overly-social impulses. He's not the least bit aggressive, just obnoxiously friendly with every human and dog he encounters.

Today it resulted in him being over-excited at ringside and he ended up bumping into the ring gating and knocking down an entire side of it. I was mortified beyond description. Thankfully, no injuries to anyone and no traumatized dogs.

So now it's back to square one, again, working on getting him to listen to me in the midst of distractions. Focus, listen, watch me, never mind the other dogs............after today, I'm wondering why I'm still doing this.

I'd like to tell you about a high, but I'll have to think a while on that.

My biggest high is one of my males, who was also my biggest low. Funny how that works some times isn't it?

I have a male that is the poster child for a strong male that people have attempted to force to comply since day one. What has been done to that dog in the name of training will turn your stomach.

We got him at about 2 with most of his foundation work done and pretty close to a Sch1. I knew he was much more dog then my skill level called for and had made arrangements for someone that I respected to work with him before we purchased him. For various reasons that never happened. The people that did most of the foundation work on him have a reputation for rather harsh methods. Very successful group if you go by National and above trophies.

I pretty much made every mistake possible with him.

So handler aggression due to criminal corrections started rearing it's head and I dropped out of training.

Took a year and started him where I would a puppy. Marker training ob. Lots of tracking. Slowly upping distractions. Slowly building drive and maintaining control.

Decided to try bite work again and found a decoy that was willing to work on my conditions. Lots and lots of long distance consults with Will during this process.

Bite work went slow. Ob for a bite. A lot of back tieing with Ob commands and a bite or two as a reward. Learned that if he didn't out, he didn't need to be choked, didn't need to be shocked, but that repeating the command with his name and maybe a two finger tap on the top of the head got his attention.

Go figure.

I'm doing off leash ob with him one day at training and as we turn around there is my decoy in the middle of the field. Don't know who was more shocked, me or my boy.

We heeled of leash, we escorted, we bit and we outed. Not a single correction.

Not one false step and you could see Doc doing a little dance for a back step when he got excited and started forging ahead on a heel.

We called off on a send.

My training group was standing motionless at the fence and I swear even the birds were silent! All you could see was ear to ear grins.

I just sat down and hugged him. Such a forgiving dog and such a magnificent one.

All my decoy would say later was that he was watching us and something just told him it was time. He was right.

HIGHS are figuring out what works for each dog & being able to often think out of the box. They are all different & learn in different ways. LOWS are having to fix something that you inadvertently taught incorrectly from what you meant to do.

My male has very high ball drive & food drive...but can also get very frustrated & hectic when learning something new. Not the most clear headed dog when working...short tempered & easily frustrated. It took me a while to figure out that he, more often then not, needs to learn new things with food rewards only (sometimes even in the house) before it can be transferd to a ball reward. It also takes him more reps to learn things then she does. But once he has it ...it is solid. He has great OB. Will drop on a dime at a full out run amoung other things & recalls very well even after being sent to chase the geese off the field we are going to work on.

My female learns very fast & therefor if taught incorrectly the first time or two & you are stuck having to back track & retrain what it is that you trained WRONG! It take a lot longer to fix things. I have learned to think clearly about what I want to teach her & think way ahead about where I want to go with it, before I start so that I don't have to go back & change something. Her OB is good (not as fast as his) & she loves to be told to go chase the geese of the field & then recalls immediately, too.

It is such a good feeling when they GET IT! You both want to do a happy dance.

Gotta let them have some FUN!! I should hire us out to clear the local fields of all the damn geese that crap all over the place.

They can sure make us humble at times. No doubt about it.