Quote: Ariane Gauthier

He have to say Dexter want to do stuff lately but I can't figure out how to be fun for him. His favorit game is to be chased around or chase stuff. The ball is not much fun as it stop moving or goes too far too fast. He will tug but realy not long or hard more like if I hae to.
His food drive is up too and it work fine for basic stuff but I can't seem to get more complexe behaviour going.

What sort of complex behaviors are you looking to train him in? Have you tried breaking them down into smaller pieces?

 Quote: John Vanek

 Quote: Ariane Gauthier

He have to say Dexter want to do stuff lately but I can't figure out how to be fun for him. His favorit game is to be chased around or chase stuff. The ball is not much fun as it stop moving or goes too far too fast. He will tug but realy not long or hard more like if I hae to.
His food drive is up too and it work fine for basic stuff but I can't seem to get more complexe behaviour going.

What sort of complex behaviors are you looking to train him in? Have you tried breaking them down into smaller pieces?

Super simple at the moment. He can give a paw, he can get on a touch pad. But I can't get him to transfer to a hay bail or send him to the touch pad (not far just a few feet from him and me) or he will take a toy from my hands but not from the floor.

If he does not get a reward he just go to his bed. Even if we do easy stuff first.

Duke's toys came in this week - he's nuts for the tug on a whip to the point where yesterday morning, when I put it up and called an end to the fun, he was rather obnoxiously jumping on me and gave my arm a good pinch - I put him in a sit/stay and went to the back door then called him, was thinking about starting a thread on what do with that specific 'brain overload' behavior since he does it with the ball retrieve too sometimes. probably 4 times with me in the past month and a couple of times with the husband.
This morning we worked on a long down/stay with a recall in to the bite wedge which he's valuing VERY highly, one of only a couple of toys that he wants to take off and keep for himself, he'll carry it to chase AFTER his ball. The whip/tug he'll bring back to me and practically try to wedge into my hand to keep the game going. I actually could not get the wedge back from him this morning after the 3rd time so I just went to the back door and he lined up behind me and carried it inside. I'm planning on keeping these toys in another room where he can't even see them unless we take them out to keep the love fresh and new I find that he takes a deeper bite with the long down and recall than he does from a closer release, if that makes sense, he bites further back into his jaw instead of having that shallow front bite - which I guess is the point of getting grip building toys Also the buddy bike attachment and carabiner clip bungee came in! Now just got to get the old bike fixed up and work on training him to run the soft shoulder next to the bike a bit, and we should be back on track.. for a while anyways.

Worked Sadie with a burlap rag today. Started with her tied and built some drive. I then worked on trying to get some barks. She's starting to get the idea, but we'll have to build on it. Got one good bark and some muffled ones.

I released her and let her have her evening run. We then played tug with the rag, and while playing I practiced improving her grip. This is going to be one of the most important lessons from my helper training.

After supper, we did some platz and stands. Her stand is improving. She wants to move forward, but catches herself and stands rock solid without any more help.

Today I had all three dogs out in the back. I was not feeling well so combined my training with all three dogs. We worked on recall. I would wait until I saw a dog doing something they really enjoyed, sniffing, digging, barking, etc and then I would call them. Rewarded those who listened and came quickly. The dogs that were slow or didn't respond, didn't get treats, and were given another chance to be successful. And they were. They did pretty well. Tomorrow morning more training Bindi and I are going to practice rally signs. Cody recall outside for awhile. Cody doing well on picking it up. Now i am purposely dropping things for him to pick up. He is great about picking up his and the other dogs bowls in the morning, and if I drop laundry and say I need help, no matter where he is he comes running and picks it up for me. Today was a beautiful day to train the dogs, it was 70 degrees today!
sharon and her pups Bindi, Cody and Terra

Duke got to enjoy his new birthday present


Also the very serious business of digging up an old pine stump.

Harley is really close to weaving! Like 2 inches between the 2 sets. The entries atre getting good too and I can walk run or cross behind Harley and he still do it.

We have very nice weather, above freezing but since we have a lot of snow that mean that I had to rescue both dogs from soft deep snow banks. That make going for a run run in the wood out at the moment.

I am trying to use Dexter extra energy to play but I am still stuck. I got him to jump on a bail of hay but he was not confident (16" off the ground)

Duke is King of the A-Mountain!

Since Harley now weave well with 4 poles (will workthe next set in class) I have decided to get Dexter to weave.

My patience and will will be put to test.

So we are at step 1. 1 set of pole, some of Dexter favorit cheese, my clicker, Harley in the house, cats locked in tack room and no horse in the barn.

So today was just to get Dexter to go through one set. I am faceing the pole set and holding Dex infront of the set. I toss a chunk of food and let him go get it, then throw him a party.
I repeated that 2 more times, then move on to letting Dex take the first step toward the pole set, then click and toss cheese in front of Dex. We did 4 rep of that and stop after he did go through the pole set by himself.

It felt like it was very long and I am not sure that he did real get the concept. He did try to nudge my hand for the food or sit but did not quit. At one point it felt like torture but don't know who was being torture, Dexter or me.

Harley worked on weaves, nosework (1 hide in the whole barn and I did not knew where it was) and some in motion stand.

last night took Terra to dog school. She did very well. Was kinda uneasy (terra was) new large pit mix who was quite a character. She wanted to play with everyone. Terra doesn't like to play with dogs, she hardly does with her own dogs. She doesn't like the roughness. Anyway, we worked on sit, down and the sit from down. Wait, recall. she did very well. We are learning to back up. she did great there too! I was very blessed.
Today didn't get to work with dogs. Not feeling well. I did get a bell and tonight Bindi and I are going to play a few games. One will be to learn to ring the bell. That should be fun for her.
Bindi is improving her "scratch" cue. (she scratches the ground with her front feet) We have removed the little mark she used and now she is working on "scratch" with on regular surfaces.

Sharon