Thursday, July 29, 2010

working on the retrieve

Here is a couple of quick clips that I made over July 4 th weekend. Because of the dog aggression issues, I am always interested in finding dogs that I can use a training aid. This particular dog is always out on the back yard and likes to bark a lot, unfortunately the owners started locking him up when we show up, don't really know why:-(
Another problem with this dog that by now it stopped being a good distraction because Brandy simply ignores it, my guess is the big chunk of it is due to the fact that the dog is barking because he wants to come and play and not showing any signs of aggression.
I forgot to bring my tripod with me, so I decided that I will not video the toss and the camera would shake too much anyway, instead I would throw the dumbbell first and then turn on the camera.
My second goal was to start laying foundation for scent discrimination work for Utility, that is why I was specifically aiming for the tall grass.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

We did some torturing of Brandy to make sure she will not jump at the small dogs that people love to carry around. She absolutely hates it , and it was a big problem few times.
http://sanityshome.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-history-of-beast.html
I love the video. I find it's amazing to see how she is turning away from the temptation to make sure she can control herself.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

another match

This past Sunday we went to another match.
It's interesting how my impression of the match different from someone watching the recording. After we were done, I thought it was terrible, but watching the video makes me think we did pretty good. The set up was perfect - just what I was afraid of when thinking of the real thing. The space was tight, and owners didn't care where their dog sticks it's nose. If not for the toy that Brandy had to carry, I would have been in real trouble. On the ring next to us was a papillion doing an open run through. If you pay attention you can see how Brandy's body language changed at the end of the on leash heeling, when papillion was doing the jump, so I get a chance to correct her, and few more times until I thought I got her attention.
During stays, on the ring next to us was a tiny boston terrier, doing utility, so Brandy's head was following the dog, but she never broke her stay. However, I was pretty disappointing with Sit/stay, I didn't feel it was solid enough. Brandy was trying to get to know dogs next to her - not cool! I guess I need to find another match to go to ASAP, as I got ahead from Margot to enter Brandy in trials at the end of august. I hope it's not too late and the registration is still opened.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

back to the agression problem

Although I have my sight set on the CD title before the end of the year, I still have a lot of work to do where aggression is concerned.
And a week and a half ago, I was reminded yet again that I cannot forget myself and keep the eye on Brandy at all times. The thing about the terriers that once that button is pressed that turns "cold" terrier into the "hot" terrier you cannot undo it. you can manage it, control it, but you cannot completely erase it. So when you are dealing with terriers it's very important to keep them "cold". Brandy on the other hand is smoking hot.
We spend lots of work last august on teaching Brandy that attacking other dogs will not be tolerated in any way. Ellie and Rugby were two brave ones that we used as baits. To read about it more go to http://sanityshome.blogspot.com look at the august of 2009 to 5 or so posts that called "taming of the beast".
Brandy was doing pretty good where small dogs are concerned, especially with Ellie and Rugby. They could walk under her nose and she would politely turn away. That doesn't mean of course that I could live her out of sight with either one of them.
However, Brandy still has one big issue - she cannot help herself when one of toy breed dogs is being held in the arms by their owners. Brandy is not the only dog who has that problem that I know of, so my advice to the owners of small dogs: if you have to pick up your dog into your arms in presence of another dog that you do not know, do not walk in close proximity to that dog.
As it became obvious that this matter cannot be ignored any further, we had to do some extra work to correct it. One of the things we did were using a retrieve to teach two dogs to work together. To see what we did, go to http://sanityshome.blogspot.com and look up post dated June 28 2010.
Although this doesn't address "dog in the arms" problem explicitly this is just one of the steps of the rehabilitation program. And please, do not attempt this at home without the help of the professional trainer.:-)