Fetch

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Leanne

I want some snow, we have a lovely covering of heavy frost this morning and it really makes me want some proper winter weather.

Rio and I have been working on her bringing toys to me this week. She’s very toy focused and loves interacting with me and tuggy, or chasing toys when I throw them, but wasn’t too keen on bringing them back. So that was our mission this week! She’s now bringing everything back to within a foot of me and either getting immediate tugs or a “leave” and then tug. Time to take that game on the road I think, we’ll try it at the park next week.

I don’t think I mentioned that we have a right-spin perfected. Rio actually came up with that herself, we were running through tricks and after her left spin she figured a right spin would be appropriate. As suspected she has a tendency to offer right spins more often than lefts now, I need to remember that as we go on!

She also has “go to bed” sorted and will trot off to her crate for a nap. She’s lying in it right now watching my parents build a shed outside, with the door open. She’s also really improved at being left alone whilst we go out (or I think she has, it’s kind of hard to tell when we’re not at home). At any rate, when we come back she’s clearly been asleep, no ripped up bedding or anything so I’m assuming she’s sleeping through it. She is also starting to settle down during the day more which I like!

I am doing a bit of online-window-shopping for dog brushes this week, and also need to flea the big dogs. I’ve been putting it off as I really don’t want Rio to ingest any flea stuff but she has a habit of ragging on Dylan’s ruff when they’re playing and I can’t figure out how to keep them seperate for 2 days.

Search

Posted on November 23, 2010 by Leanne

It’s pretty cold and miserable outside, and I get as bored as the dogs do indoors. So we play games!

Search is the absolute favourite game, where I hide treats in the other room. I hold my hand cupped around the dogs’ noses, and they take a deep breath, and then get let lose to find the treats. But it gets a little competitive, these days. We can’t play all together any more, because things like vases and sofas tend to get overturned by the rampage.

I’m not entirely sure Dylan gets the game, although he actually has the best nose of anyone and is great at Search when we’re hunting down lost toys on the field. He doesn’t take a deep breath like the girls do! Mollie and Kim are so cute, they both shut their eyes and take big sniffs before setting off … not that it helps Kim in any way whatsoever, she has a terrible nose. I have to hide some in easy to see places for her, otherwise she just runs around frenetically shrieking at everyone else to stop eating her treats because she can’t smell anything.

Tires everyone out though, so maybe we should play it more often.

Clicker Day

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Leanne

It feels like this week has just flown by. I’ve been out every evening from Monday to Thursday, at work all day, and pre-occupied making decisions about other people’s dogs. I’ve been neglecting the dogs I do have, and I felt very guilty about it, so we had a fun hour playing some clicker games this evening, which we don’t do nearly as often as we used to.

Kim worked on her “fetch the cauldron” trick. Kim is a little witch, so she needs a cauldron! We made huge progress on this today, she went from being a little bit hesitant to being totally confident and throwing the cauldron across the room at me. Not quite what I was aiming for! We chilled that down a bit, and she’s fetching it nicely. The only problem I’m having is that the handle is very thin plastic, and it’s a bit sharp on her gums, so she’d prefer to pick it up by the rim. I’ll try and fleece-line the handle for next time, so she has something to grip.

Dylan worked on putting toys in the cauldron. He too would prefer to throw it across the room at me, but we made a tiny bit of progress. Dylan’s fetch wasn’t very strong a couple of months ago, but we’ve been working on it and he will now bring things right to my lap, which is good! Getting them in the bucket is a bit more difficult, but we had a better hit rate towards the end.

I love watching both dogs getting annoyed when they’re working with the clicker. I know that’s a naughty thing to say! But it makes the pay-off for both of us so much more rewarding. Kim is always frowning when she’s figuring something out, you can see the cogs whirring away, but she goes all sparkley when she figures something out, all excited and happy and barking at me in her smiley voice. She likes it complicated, she wants something to puzzle over. Dylan, on the other hand, is always impatient and huffy when he’s doing something new, he makes lots of noise and complains a lot. I always have to break it right down for Dyl, he gets too annoyed about complicated things. He reacts differently when he eventually gets it right too, by just relaxing and offering it again and again. I don’t think the tension (pressure?) he feels when he’s working on something is entirely negative, he doesn’t shut down or give any stress signals. He just finds it frustrating!

Looking forward to tomorrow, flyballing at Doncaster, and then my month of agility which I’m very excited about! I have four shows, and am running three dogs, although thankfully not all at the same competition! I have Dylan and Katie’s lovely Jet at Waldridge Fell, and then Dylan and my lovely Kim at Newton Heath. Should be fun!

Trick Training: Fetch My Hat

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Leanne

Well, we learnt a fun new trick today! It’s called “Fetch My Hat”, and means Kim (or Dylan, whoever is there first) takes off my woolley hat, either off my head or off someone else’s head, and gives it to me.

Dylan picked it up in about 10 minutes, but he’s quicker to offer new behaviours for the clicker and he’s always had a bit of a thing for hats anyway. Kim took a bit longer, we worked on it for 5 mins last night and she was super quick by the end, but she needs to feel it’s worth it. This morning she was a bit unsure, so we abandoned the clicker and the treats and just made it a game, which worked a lot better. She’ll happily sprint across a room and over furniture to steal people’s hats now.

I have to admit this is a hilariously fun game, especially when I ask family members to wear the hat. Dylan is super gentle about taking it off my head, but then he has to do a lap of honour before actually giving the hat back. Plus, he’s pretty dribbley, so my hat ends up kind of damp. Luckily I have many hats, so I can swap them about. Kim is not dribbley at all but she is impatient and doesn’t care how much hair she pulls out. She doesn’t mean to, and she’s very gentle around people’s face and ears, but whipping it off the top of your head when you’re sat down sometimes yanks out some hair. She doesn’t care, she just likes killing the hats.

We have to work on stopping the hat killing, actually, but apart from that the trick is polished. So, what to do next? We’ve been doing some prep work for “out of the washer and into the dryer” (our washer and dryer are right next to each other) but that’s not quite there yet. I’d like to teach them to limp, but I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do that yet so I’ll leave it a while, I have some ideas but they need fine tuning! I’d also like to teach “put your collar on” but Kim works with her paws, not her nose, so I’m not sure she’ll pick that up. Dylan probably could though … Hmm, we’ll see!