Did a consultation/first lesson with a new dog this morning. This was a young, male Doberman. Only a month older that Sanity and red, when he saw Sanity it was one of the funniest things I have gotten to watch in a long time. She hopped the gate and went up on the love seat when I called her to come in the office. Then she ever so slowly turned around. It looked like she was showing off for this guy.
Meanwhile his eyes were about to bug right out of his head. He gave a soft moan and proceeded to puff his chest out just as far as he could jut it out. She looked down at him, sorted of sniffed and stuck her nose up in the air. He then looked mournful and put his head down. After a few minutes he shifted, lifted his head back up, puffed out his chest again and managed to get one of his "cropped but flopped" ears to stand just as straight and pretty as you please. She just lay on the love seat watching all this. I'm not sure what she "said" at that point, because his owner and I were having way too much trouble not laughing. The entire little interchange was so clear and obvious that even a novice owner was able to quite clearly read what was going on. She said she had never, ever seen him puff his chest like that. I said he was saying, "I'm the man." And Sanity, with her disdainful sniff was saying, "I hardly think so." It is going to be fun to watch the two of them over the next few weeks.
With the amount of writing I have agreed to do, there was no time for any specific training until evening classes. When we were getting ready to leave I noticed something rather interesting. Yesterday as we were getting ready to leave to head to the mall, Sanity was playing the head duck game when I went to put her shoulder pack on her. I finally had to grab her muzzle and tell her to knock it off. This evening when it was time for the shoulder pack, she all but put it on herself. Will start paying more attention and see if I can figure out what that was all about.
Did stay with the group and didn't have any problems at all. Even shifted just the right amount to make room for me to back into place beside her and she did the shift without technically breaking position. She heeled next to the scooter better than she has in the past and when I did scent work with her she actually went straight out and made two successful finds in a row. The first one had a little bit of a hitch in that she went out made her selection, pick it up, dropped it, went to the taboo article, touched it and then went back to the correct article. Hope this continues. Anyway, by the time we got home at 9:30 I was way too tired to worry about anything other than how fast could I get to bed.
Margot I keep up with the blog daily. I wish I could go to the Balanced Trainers School but I had a conformation show both weekends either side of the school. I've floundered a bit since the DRU demise but am concentrating on success with my own dog in AKC competition events. I "would" train Bugsy in obed. with the Koehler E-collar method except that would find me doing this on my own and I desperately need a communitty of dog people after DRU. Yes, I'm going to do that awful attention heeling stuff but at least at the place I have found to train it isn't food, food, food, and never any corrections. It's the best I can do at this point though I have encorporated the e-collar to let Bugs achieve some self control. I so very much wish there was a e-collar comptetition savy trainer up here to work with. "J" doesn't do the competion prep stuff now but getting into schutzhund seriously. Coming down for pointers from you or going to a MAD Gather is never out of question. I do so very much wish you were closer. Your experience and skills are beyond being vast.
ReplyDeleteMarilyn Burris
Margot,
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that the new client has brought you an essentially untrained teen-ager, who is going to need to show off for Sanity every day? Yikes! Maybe Wrap should give him a talking to!!
Pat
Marilyn -
ReplyDeleteWere it me, I would give the trials a pass and get thee to the school. There is always another chance at trialing while there may not be many chances at attending a school like this one. For one thing the chief instructor is getting slower and slower and more and more inclined to just want to stay home. For another, it is getting more and more difficult to find really good locations and I have been told this one is great. Please rethink things and come.
Pat - Not to worry. Sanity is pretty much just like all my previous Dobes in that she in NOT impressed by crude, rude, unmannerly males. She will push him into behaving rather than him teasing her into misbehaving. That is one thing I am completely and totally certain will happen.
ReplyDeleteWell Margot I can attest to the fantastic site as I was in MO last June for an E-Touch Seminar with Martin Deeley and Gina Hayes. George and his wife are fantastic hosts. The lunches are to die for. The fields, pond, the wonderful open views.....well, it's just dog heaven. I'll think about it but no promises.
ReplyDeleteMarilyn