She did an amazing job on the agility today.
Are there treats in that hand?
Arrr! I walk the plank for those tasty morsels.
Treats? I don’t need silly treats! Even this swinging plank is cake!
I think I might need a bit of help with this one
Climb the stairs?
Almost there.
I did it!
Down under we go!
You want me to go in there?
For a frisbee? SURE!
Woo hoo! Let’s do more!
Today, our team trained on the urban search and rescue’s rubble pile. I got some wonderful pictures of some of our fantastic pups braving the wreckage.
Our new puppy is growing up so fast. She can do nose work like nobody’s business! We have been to two dog obedience classes and have had a lot of fun.
Starting over with a brand new puppy is hard work!
I have forgotten all of the things that I must do to turn her into a good search dog. Time to review some of my previous posts!
http://wp.me/pNjwk-iG - 10 Dynamite Tips for a New Search and Rescue Dog
I have fallen into the dog training trap nearly all of us have done at one time. She has a fantastic recall at home. (She looks a lot like the roadrunner from the cartoons,) her feet all a blur when coming when called. Alas, when we are out and about. She can decide a blowing leaf, a blade of grass, or a pile of deer poo far more important than listening to me. It seems like such a pain in the touche to grab the long line, treats, toys, and pile the dog in the car to drive to someplace new for every training session. So, I convince myself I will do it tomorrow and simply train my dog in the living room. BAD dog owner! This is something that will come back and bite me in the touche. It is like going to the gym or for a walk, no one wants to get up and do it, but once there you are glad you did. I timed my last training session outing and it only took 10 minutes all told! That includes the drive to and from the park!
Lesson learned.
Now shut up, put those shoes on, and get off that bum!
The recall is very important to Search and Rescue dogs because we work air scenting dogs off leash. Forget the idea of the bloodhound dragging the handler around the woods. Those are how tracking/trailing dogs work. My dog can choose to chase deer, roll in poo, play with another dog, splash around in the stream, or work. He can play keep away and chase me games if he wants. Grom, my operational search dog choses to work instead. He will even come back to a call or whistle blow while in hot persuit of a herd of deer! How did I get such a wonderful recall? Practice.
Practice at home with no distractions. Then practice in many other places without distractions. Then add distractions working closer to the distractions and then working around more difficult distractions.
Best I get started then.
It has turned out to be a very cool way to train my dogs from a distance.
Here is Grom playing with his new toy.
Our new little puppy, Molniya seems to have trouble staying quiet in her crate. She has learned to bark in there and throws some pretty nice tantrums. In order to reward her for being quiet, we needed a way to reward her.
Sure, we could drop a few treats in her crate every time we walked by, but wouldn’t it be more fun and rewarding for her to get treats even when we were somewhere else in the house?
My hubby found a great solution with a little bit of work.
Watch this baby at work!
Video from the top
Video from the front
I would like to give a shout out to a fantastic website I found today about how to deploy search and rescue dogs. The website gives a wonderful description on the different kinds of search dogs and how they are best used in a search.
Find the fantastic posting here:
What a beautiful day it was at training. The weatherman assured us it would be warm and sunny in the afternoon, but it turned out to be foggy all day. Spooky and gorgeous.
We started off with some obedience practice with all of the dogs. I think Grom did a bang up job on his recall and his down stay. I do have to admit that our heeling is abysmal. No worries, I taught him to walk on the right side so now I can teach him a proper heel on the LEFT side using only shaping techniques. Yay, a fun project!
Molniya, our new puppy is learning what search and rescue is all about. She absolutely loves everyone and everything. She also gets (squirrel!) distracted very easily and has yet to figure out what she is supposed to do when she is taken out of the car. I love puppies they are so CUTE! Our little girl is one quick study. This is her second time out of the car at training today and she quickly gets in to the barking for her toy. I think she is well on her way to getting the hang of this thing! Good girl.
Here she is a few days before. She spent probably five minutes sniffing around before she decided to get her brain in gear. She finally gave me a nice bark and got some very nice play. Then, a man started throwing a ball for his off leash dog in the park. WHOA! puppy brain distraction major event! I needed to end on a good note with her attention on barking for the toy, not for the awesome free dog with the ball running around. So, I moved her to the other side of my car where she could not see the other dog and tried again. SCORE! What a good girl.
We received Molniya’s vest in the mail today. It fits her perfectly. Nothing looks better on a black dog. At least her “brother,” Grom, thinks so.
She is fitting in so well. The best part is she loves to bark!
What sort of dog owner wants their dog to bark? These people must be crazy! We are teaching her to bark on command for her favorite toy. Barking is what she will use to tell us she has found a missing person. She will then get her toy reward for a job well done.
She fits in so well around here. Molniya loves playing with her big brother, Grom. She also loves chasing balls in the backyard. She loves bubbles most of all; she will do anything for them!
Someone does need to tell her to stop trying to eat the stink bugs. EW!
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