Schutzhund Adventures

Lisa Maze seminar - part 1

2011-03-06T23:02:00.002-05:00

Training dogs in the South is such a rough life! :-)

Kane and I practicing attention.

Kane and I were fortunate enough to be able to participate in a Lisa Maze seminar a few weekends ago. Lisa is owner of Muttamorphosis Dog Training and she is a very accomplished dog trainer and breeder from California. She works closely with Michael Ellis of the Michael Ellis School for Dog Trainers and the Loups de Soleil kennel for working Belgian Malinois. If you know a little about Schutzhund, then are probably familiar with Leerburg, both the kennels and the dvd/dog training gear company. Leerburg has produced several excellent videos with Michael on the topic of marker training. Here's a PDF on Leerburg's explanation of marker training.

Adding some movement into my food reward, after marking, makes Kane really excited and ups the engagement.

The wonderful Charleston Working Dog Club put on this event at the home of our wonderful hostess Jenny. We were able to train and stay at her beautiful plantation home located on 95 acres. It was such a wonderful weekend - we had fantastic weather, a lot of fun, great advice from Lisa on training, fantastic helpers for protection and great food as well.

Since Kane's "attackdog" incident, we have been working on attention and engagement. After talking with a few friends, and watching a video of us doing an obedience practice session, it became pretty apparent that Kane was not very attentive on the field, my rewards were not in the least bit engaging or fun and something needed to be drastically changed if we were going to break out of attackdog label and bring ourselves to the next level. I jokingly remarked that if I was being rewarded the way I rewarded Kane, I wouldn't sit either. So there! :-) My wonderful friend Julie brought up the concept of engagement training, Michael's videos and showed me how to get started. She even let me play with her malinois Brando so that I could feel the difference in handling a dog that has engagement. My feeling is that if Kane is more engaged with me, then his attention will be less likely to leave me to look for other "fun" things to do.

The first thing we worked with Lisa on was food rewards for attention, and how to be more fun. Here is an edited video showing how that was done with Kane:

I have three more posts to come on this seminar - so stay tuned! If you are interested in marker training, please watch some of the Michael Ellis videos or try attending a Lisa Maze seminar!

See - I had a GREAT time at this seminar!

Thank you Lisa! Thank you Charleston Working Dog Club! (and Thank you Thomas Lever for the fabulous photos of me and Kane!)

Sometimes things don't go as planned

2011-02-01T17:47:00.000-05:00

We were near Myrtle Beach, SC this past weekend. Excited to be entered in another trial for an OB1 which is just the obedience part of a Schutzhund 1 routine. It was meant to give us some more practice and hopefully ease our my nervousness and we could put on a better showing than we did back in December.

Unfortunately, things don't always go as you plan. We had just walked onto the field and I was about to shake hands with the judge for checking in, and Kane locked eyes with the other handler's dog and attacked. It seemed like minutes, but I'm sure it was just seconds before I was able to grab him and pull away. Noone was hurt, luckily. And the other handler and dog team were able to finish and achieve their SchH1 title after a break. Kane and I were dismissed, as is routine for fighting.

It was completely embarrassing and humiliating. In hindsight, I shouldn't have walked on to the field first, but I should have waited for the other team so that I could then determine the distance. Instead the other handler chose to walk up and check in VERY close to us. That's not an excuse, but after that the judge made all teams sit well away from each other.

I thought for a while about quitting Schutzhund. But I think the best place for us is to continue. Continue training with people I trust, who are used to working with dogs like this. People with experience who can help me become a better handler and help me control Kane better so that this will NEVER EVER happen again, in ANY situation. Either ON the field or OFF the field. So, I'm moving on. Away from that lovely line now forever imprinted in our USA scorebook that reads "Dismissed - Dog Attacked during check-in."

I want to celebrate some of my friends that did a fantastic job at this trial -

Maggie with Roland for SchH2! 84-78-95

Chris with Lil' D for SchH2! 96-73-90

Travis with the amazing Remington and their SchH3! 93-88-95

By the way, did you know that you can no longer wear a training vest to a club trial? The judge was going to dock me 5 points for that.

We finished the weekend in a great way - watched the sunrise over the Atlantic with my best husband and "attackdog." What a great start to a new day, a new road for me and Kane to travel and a new beginning.
Deep breath in....and off we go!

Kane's SchH1 Protection Video

2011-01-09T11:42:00.001-05:00

Here is our video of the protection segment of our Schutzhund 1. 82 and pronounced. :-) Now we are busy getting ready to do an OB1 at the end of January in Myrtle Beach. Our Obedience is better than what we did in December, so it's time to trial more and get over the nerves - both for me and Kane!

We did it - SchH 1 for Kane!

2010-12-06T11:04:00.000-05:00

I have this saying posted on the wall next to my desk: "If at first you succeed, try to hide your astonishment -- Henry Banks." I subscribe to that completely and it wasn't pretty, but we got it done! We passed our Schutzhund1 with a 70 in tracking, 78 in obedience and an 82 in protection. I'm thrilled that it's over, although it's not a scoring I am happy with. Ah well - just more things to work on, right? :-) I am very proud of Kane though for sticking to it and being an awesome dog!

Here's what Kane thinks of trialing - pppfffftthhhhpp!!!

In a nutshell - the obedience went well only for the fact that we did every part of it. I didn't forget any part of the pattern, I threw the dumbell well enough (didn't hit anything - yay!), he did the sit in motion and down in motion etc. He was however very nervous, probably keying off me, and his heeling was way off. He was about 2 ft out from me, and sometimes even a whole length ahead of me. Not our usual style. :-( As a result of the extra nervousness, he also reacted strongly to the gunshots, both during heeling and the long down. He also sat instead of downing on the send out.

The protection went like clockwork, and I was very proud of him there. We got a score of 82 and pronounced, which basically means that the dog is engaged and willing to fight the helper. The judges like to see that. Points were taken off for growling, shaking the sleeve and mostly for re-gripping during drives. Knowing that Kane doesn't have a fabulous grip, I was very pleased with this. Yay! I have video of this, and I will share as soon as I can.

The tracking didn't go as planned at all, but I think we made the best of a tricky situation. Halfway through the first leg, he found some other scent and went off on a little tour to figure out what that was. That tour lasted about a minute (in my head I am thinking we failed now!) but I finally unfroze and gave a second search command as he passed over the real track and he went off in the right direction. He found and indicated both articles (yay!), did little loop-di-loops around each corner so that gave us a passing score of 70. Lots to improve on there as well, and I've already started a mental list.

Dasha braves the A-frame during snowfall. Dasha and Bob got their SchH1 as well.

Mama, I can't see!!! Maggie and Roland do their SchH1 obedience routine in the snow. They got high in trial!

Rommel easily jumps the 1m jump and gets his SchH1 title.

There were lots of challenges this weekend, starting with a cancelled flight for the judge on Friday, so we had a delayed start on Saturday. An unusual snowfall in the afternoon, more rain and then a stunningly cold and chilly Sunday. I'm proud of all my friends that trialed with me, everyone that did pass, and everyone that put on a good show but didn't quite make it. We had some great food and a lot of laughs. Hopefully next time, it will be a tad warmer and I will be able to relax more. My game is to try to trial more, maybe just OB1, to get our nerves to go away so that we will do better for our SchH2. Many thanks to our trainer, Richard, for sticking with everyone, supporting us through all of it and doing a fabulous job as trial helper.

Meanwhile, Kane is at home snoozing on the couch after a well-deserved extra-large meal on Sunday evening. I'm so proud of my little newspaper-ad boy. Who would have thought we could get this far? :-)

Thank you all for your support and and good-luck wishes! We carried them with us, and we did it!

We're ready!

2010-11-24T13:49:00.000-05:00

Blind search is ready.

Courage test / long bite is ready.

Obedience is ready.

If I'm lucky and my nerves don't get to me, I will throw the dumbbell OVER the jump and A-frame instead of INTO it. It's really loud when you do. Plus your dog looks at you like you've lost your mind....

Tracking is ready if you can remember where you put your corners. Again, while you ponder this, your dog looks at you as if you've lost your mind.

The dog is ready to track at least!

We have worked through our gun shot issues, mostly. And ironically enough I feel best about protection. Kane is doing a super job and all I can hope for is that I live up to my end of the bargain...

Dec 4 and 5 are the dates for our Schutzhund 1 trial. Please cross fingers and paws, hold thumbs and send good thoughts to me and Kane in Mt Ulla, NC. If you are nearby - please come visit! The more people I have watching me, the worse I throw the dumbbell! :-)

Oh, shoot!

2010-10-01T16:32:00.002-04:00

Hi faithful Schutzhund Adventures readers. We're back. Well, actually we never left, but from the lack of blog postings, you may have thought that we left. Sorry about that.
We kind of took the summer off. Too hot to do a lot of training, and we found some important "problems" that will prevent us from trialing until we fix them, so....here we are.
The days are finally cooling off a little bit and we are ready to get back at it.

The main problem I'm having is that Kane doesn't like the gunshots. My bad. I should have asked to practice it more instead of relying on the (false) belief that we'd just pass that test, because that's what everyone does, right?! :-)
In Schutzhund there are gunshots during the obedience section, once during heeling with your own dog, and then once while the other dog is heeling and your dog is in the long down.
While Kane doesn't run away screaming in terror, he definitely shows that he doesn't like it. If we are heeling, he "checks out." By that, I mean that while he may be heeling next to me in the correct position, his eyes are down, ears are back and he is not paying attention. During the long down he does the same thing, and I have a feeling that he would probably get up during a trial and flee to me.
So I got a starter pistol. A good one. Not cheap.

One side reaction to initially testing the gunshot at the training field, is that Kane started to anticipate the gunshot at the field which is NOT good. We would be doing basic obedience and as soon as we started heeling down the field, he would check out....while there was no gunshot. It has taken us several weeks to get over this. Basically we have just been playing on the field. Bring a ball out, do a few legs of heeling and play ball. Until he felt comfortable again. We've just about reached this point where we can start training obedience as usual again.

It's slow going, and right now our trial goal is our club trial at the end of November (before Thanksgiving).
We're practicing like crazy, so hopefully I'll have more pictures and video soon.

Show me your Teeth!

2010-05-19T11:52:00.004-04:00

Our last two protection practices have been devoted to working on Kane being quiet during protection. He can bark or whine a little, but constant barking needs to be saved for the bark and hold, and for whining....well, who wants to listen to that?
In order to work on this, Richard got Kane a little extra riled up. I ended up with this series of pictures courtesy of Maggie borrowing my camera and shooting some pics. Amusing, aren't they?

In the end, we got some good grips and Kane did really well on being quiet, so I'm happy!

Keepin' it simple

2010-05-03T18:39:00.004-04:00

Many times when I come to practice, especially for obedience, I feel like I have to "do it all" or practice every single thing. I don't have an A-Frame at home, so I want to do that. It's hard to find a group at home, so I want to do that. I want to do a long down. I want to do a send out. I want to do a check-in. I want to do EVERYTHING. In about 20 minutes or so.....lol.

Kane is doing excellent on the jump retrieves.

Nice retrieve comeback.

With some advice from more experienced handlers and through my own pondering, I've decided to keep it simple. Work on max 2-3 things. Keep it short, fun and get help from my club mates on watching for things I can't see myself. This has really made our obedience sessions a lot more fun - and a lot more rewarding!
Yay for keepin' it simple!

Kane licking his chops in anticipation of the dumbbell...lol.

Protection Benchmark

2010-04-09T09:10:00.005-04:00

In order to get ready for the July trial, we did a protection benchmark study with Kane a few weekends ago. It sounds very scientific, but it's not. :-) We basically ran through the Schutzhund 1 protection from start to finish. With the e-collar (wouldn't want him to flip out completely). Overall it went well. Nothing majorly crazy. By splitting the exercise up into all the individual steps (in my notebook) and then comparing impressions with my trainer Richard and my friend Julie, we pieced together a plan of things that we need to work on. Here it is:

Running 1 Blind - Good. Work on true blind search (come back to me) vs just running from blind 1 to 2.
Blind approach - Good, no nudging in blind.
Bark & Hold - Good, solid.
Heel Away - Needs work. Blind obedience. (we're not doing a call out)
Setup for escape - Needs work. Blind obedience.

Escape - Good
Out - Good
Reattack - Good
Drive - Good
Out - Ok - he tends to out before I say so. I need to time that better.
Pick-up - Good, but could use some work.
Heeling down the field - Good
Setup for courage test - Good (I need to know what I can and cannot do here!)Courage test - Good
Out - Good
Drive - Good
Out - Good

Pickup - Good
Setup for side transport - Ok, needs some work with heeling
Side Transport - Ok, needs some work with slowing down
Halt - ok, should sit sooner
Turnover - Good

Now we know what to work on! Onward!

Practicing Retrieves - A Video

2010-03-25T14:48:00.004-04:00

Kane's retrieves are looking really good now. We just have a little bit of fine-tuning to do such as:

My throwing technique - overhand or underhand? What makes the dumbbell stick the best? (i.e. not hit the ground and roll.)
Kane coming to sit straight in front of me (as opposed to one side or the other.)
Kane sitting while I throw the dumbbell, and only leave on command.

In this video I was handler AND camerawoman. So I know my reward markers are a bit off (i.e. late!), but I wanted to show how good he really is. The schutzhund jump is 1 m tall, that is a little more than 3 ft 3 inches.
Sorry for all the bouncing around during the video, hope you don't get seasick!

2010 Plans

2010-03-22T10:21:00.004-04:00

Ok here we go:

Schutzhund 1 Title - July trial at North Myrtle Beach
Schutzhund 2 Title - November trial at homegrounds (Piedmonth Schutzhund Club)

Let the training begin! (well, it already has started, but I thought I'd post my goals here!)

Hopefully this "post it to the world" mentality will make sure I really get this done. We're close in many ways - now that we have more daylight, we've been training obedience every day at home. I will start slipping in some tracking as well. Hooray! I'm excited! (secretly I think Kane is too!)

Retrieves on the Flat, jump and A-frame. Check!!

2010-01-11T10:37:00.010-05:00

I'm an A-frame pro, mom!

Can I just say how proud I am of my awesome dog??!!!??

As you know, faithful readers, we have been struggling with the dumbbell for quite some time. I wanted so badly to keep this a motivational exercise (as opposed to forced, which DOES work for some people, and I am using in some parts of protection), knowing that it would take us longer to teach it this way. And it did. It's taken probably close to 9 or 10 months to get to this point.

At practice this past weekend, Kane did retrieve on the flat, retrieve over the jump and retrieve over the A-Frame. All with the dumbell. :-)
Now, we've not perfected it yet, but 90% of the work is done. I have to learn to throw the dumbbell (learn how it flies through the air to make it go where I want it to go), we need to up the level on the jump to get it to competition height (one board away), and the A-frame needs to slowly be brought up to the correct height (which is 6ft, I think). Right now, we're at about 4 ft. As far as the 9-10 months go, I'm also not a consistent trainer. I try to work with Kane every day, but sometimes I'm just bone tired after a long day at work, or we do something else etc. So the same method could have worked quicker for someone who has more time.

Nice air in this jump!

On the advice of my friend Julie, we started doing "hold" dumbell exercises at every mealtime. In the beginning, Kane would take it from my hand and hold it. He chewed a lot at first, not liking how it felt in his mouth. Then we would progress to taking it from me at different heights and positions (up, down, left, right), adding more difficulty to the "hold" part (to where I could lean back and he wouldn't let go). If he let go, or did not pick up, we would calmly start over again. He could see his food bowl with all that yummy chicken waiting for him during all this. Boy, did he whine!

"...and then you put your paws together like this"

Finally we got to where he would take it from me, sit where he was while I moved backward, and on command he would bring it to me and hold it. Then he would let go when I said "out."
Julie also recommended I play little keep-away games with him. I would get the dumbbell out and walk around talking to it, throwing it up in the air, and all in all, acting like I had this great toy that he couldn't play with. Then I would throw it and race him to it. If I got to it first, I played with it for a few minutes, and if he got it, he got to keep it for a few minutes before I would run backwards giving a recall command. Worked like a charm. My boy is a jealous player, always wanting to have the best toy....

The last piece of the puzzle was to do some attraction play with the dumbbell while Kane was on leash being restrained by someone else. I would stand just out of reach while running back and forth moving the dumbbell around asking Kane if he wants to play. Then I would throw the dumbbell and say "Bring" while it was still bouncing and the person helping me would let go. Kane loves to chase anything that moves, so this was a good way to have him shoot like a rocket after that dumbbell. Thanks for the tip, Richard!

Retrieve on the flat. Yes, that is me underneath all those clothes. It was cold!

I'm hoping it may be a bit warmer next weekend, and if so, I'll try to shoot some video of the retrieves.
Richard says we're on our way to some high scores, and since he claims he reads my blog, I'm going to hold him to that! At least in obedience! lol.
Thanks to Julie for the awesome photography! :-)

New Sleeve

2009-12-27T10:21:00.003-05:00

Back in mid November, Richard tried using a new kind of sleeve with Kane. Well, new to us anyway. It has hard patches on both sides of the (desired) bite area.

The idea being that it will teach the dog to bite in the preferred spot. Kane has a tendency to bite more towards the elbow if he has a choice. We try to not give him that choice, but....kinda hard when your're doing escape bites and the elbow is just "out there" going "Yoo-hoo! Bite me!" And Kane does. The sleeve worked ok, I think.
We also continued on the heeling around in a left hand box with the twist and turn for reward. I'm feeling more confident about taking my time, and only mark/reward the desired behavior. I can also feel myself being more calm, instead of anxious or afraid to do the wrong thing. I'm sure that helps Kane as well. Thanks to my friend An for the fab photography assistance!

An important job

2009-11-10T22:09:00.008-05:00

As you can see from this picture, Kane has had a very important job to train for. He didn't get any title, or get judged on his performance, but I will tell you he did wonderful. I couldn't have asked for a better friend to walk me down the aisle. :-)

Nice full grip!

We're back to training regularly now and things are going well:

Tracking: very well, we're up to hot dogs every 15 steps, and he even skips a few of those. He is very dedicated on the track, going footstep to footstep, pulling me along. We are both getting better at corners. Me remembering where they are and him finding them. Sometimes I just have to trust him...lol.

Really, Kane is a sweet dog!

Obedience: Our patience with the dumbbell is paying off. We train before every meal, pick it up off the floor, bringing it to me, taking it from me, holding it hard, outing etc.

The new thing

Protection: Still working on Kane's grip. It'll never be great, but we don't want him to loosen it or shake and growl too much. For protection obedience we heel around the helper in a left hand box. Usually Kane is very forged, but Richard had me try something new: when he does well, grab the tab leash, take a step forward with my left foot and pivot to my right and say "packen" so that Kane has to go around me. Then he will anticipate this (!) and not forge and be read to go around me. :-) It works quite nicely so far!

You laughing at me??? Look at all my nice teeth....who's laughing now???!!!

Back on the Pole

2009-08-14T15:31:00.005-04:00

To prepare for the SchH 1 we are back to working on the pole, a stationary metal pole in the ground with a 6ft chain attached. The chain is attached to Kane's harness, and then I hold the chain so that it doesn't hit him. It would be better if I held him on a long leash, but I am really bad at being stationary with an 80 lb mass working against me (i.e. Kane). :-)
The pole work is for working on his grip and the outs for protection. We've had some so-so sessions, but finally things are starting to look better.

Packen! (Go)

We also practice on heeling in a left-hand box around the helper, to get Kane's heeling under control while he is in protection drive. Then I say packen! when he does well, and off he goes for a bite reward. Can you tell he loves this part?

The thing with being on the pole is that
you always get some interesting photo shots!

Kane giving our trainer some lip....

And Kane always gives me
great photo shots like this one! :-)

After we work the pole for a few minutes, we run blinds (there's only 2 blinds to run in SchH1) with a bark and hold. Kane does very well.

Ready for launch in 3....2....

Mine!

Starting the A-Frame

2009-08-10T08:46:00.006-04:00

In Schutzhund obedience there are retrieves for the dumbell to be done over an A-Frame. Competition height of the A-Frame is 1.8 meters, or 71 inches, or just below 6 ft. It's a pretty steep wall, and I want to make sure that Kane learns how to scale it and "de-scale" (!) it correctly so that he doesn't injure himself in any way.

So we started practicing with the A-Frame at a much lower incline. I started out with Kane running over the A-Frame, and then he was rewarded when he made it to the other side, with his back legs still on the A-Frame.

I want him to learn to climb up and down, and not just take a leap of the top. Leaping off the top could mean serious elbow injuries, and we don't want that.

Then we moved on to throwing the ball over the A-Frame and having him retrieve it. The first few times, he went over the A-Frame to get to the ball, but then he tried to go around it on the way back.

We solved that by me climbing up and slapping my hand on the A-Fram and calling him and then moving backwards when he came the right way, again rewarding when he reached the end.
Finally he did one correctly all by himself!

Now we continue to do the same thing for a while, eventually raising the A-Frame up until it is at trial height. Then we have to add the dumbell to it as well.

Tracking Again

2009-07-30T14:56:00.004-04:00

Kane and I have 4 things (plus polishing this and that) that we need to work on learning before the trial in November:

Tracking:

Get to "the end" and track with no food.
Articles

Obedience:

Retrieves (flat, jump and a-frame)
Send out

Protection:

Need to polish up a few things such as grip, outs and escape bite.

So we have started tracking seriously again. I have to track in the mornings because it is way to hot in the afternoons/evenings. So I've been tracking with Kane on both Saturdays and Sundays and at least once during the week. It's just hard to get my butt out of bed before 6 am!
We're up to hot dogs every 7 steps and things are going well. I need to get better at remembering where my track is, so I don't confuse him. In my head, I start going "where is my turn? I don't see it! Is this it? or is it over there?) and it's pretty clear that he senses my nervous in-head talking and it rubs off. There won't be any markers at the trial! :-)

BH - done!

2009-07-21T16:23:00.005-04:00

Yeay - we passed!

I'd say we passed with flying colors. :-) We missed a few things, but there's a reason the BH is not a scored title - it's either pass or fail. And we passed. (I'm going to keep saying that!)

The trial was at North Beach Schutzhund Club in North Myrtle Beach, SC. Because of the heat we have down here, the trial started at 7pm. The Schutzhund dogs went first in obedience, and we had 6 of those: 2 SchH1, 1 SchH2 and 3 SchH3. From our club, Carrie was trialing Sampson for SchH1, and Andre for SchH3 and Mike was trialing Nick for SchH3.

There were eight dogs entered for the BH, and Julie and I were teamed up for the first team. We got ready as the last SchH team was finishing up. This time I was more prepared for how to prepare - I took Kane out on the prong collar and after walking him for a bit, we did a few steps of heeling with corrections if I felt I did not have his attention. Then we "doodled" - meaning correct heel position, spins, sits, downs etc. Just little things that keep his attention on me and things that I can reward him for.
So we were all ready when they announced a 15 min break..... I feel we lost a little momentum there, but oh well.... :-)
Kane and I walked on the field and checked in with judge Mark Przybylski first, we were told we were doing the obedience part. So we set up for that.
The on-leash heeling went well, although I did not have Kane's attention as I usually do, but it wasn't bad. We did the group with no problems, and then the offleash heeling. In the motion exercises he downed on the sit out of motion (which he had started doing the night before, so not a huge surprise, I think it was nerves), but he did the down and recall perfectly.
We finished the obedience exercise and heeled over to the long down position on leash.
When I stopped, Kane layed down on his own, which he is not supposed to. I was supposed to take the leash off in the sit position, then tell him down. Then walk away.
Kane was perfect during the long down, as much as I obsessed about that. :-) I will stop obsessing now!

The traffic portion went very well also. No problem with the car, jogger or bicycles. They made me put him in a sit and a down in a group of people walking around and talking while I was out of sight. No problems there either. The tie-out was done with all dogs and then a puppy and an adult dog were walked by. No problems there either. :-)

All eight of the BHs passed which was very exciting - Kudos to my friends at Metrolina Schutzhund who also passed - Jenny, Jeff and Robbie - nice job!
In fact, all of the Schutzhund trial dogs also passed, making for a perfect trial - which is rare!

Now - on to the next thing. My club has a trial in late November, and we are shooting for getting our Schutzhund 1 title done at that time. Lots to do before then!

Sorry for the fuzzy pictures - it was dark and this was the best we could do! :-)

Trialing this weekend!

2009-07-16T17:53:00.003-04:00

Saturday is our big day! We will be trialing for the BH, finally, down at North Myrtle Beach Schutzhund Club. Because we are at the hottest time of the year, the trial starts at 8 pm, and will run as long as we need to finish all dogs in obedience and protection. Tracking will be in the morning on Sunday. Kane and I are only doing obedience though, and I found out there are 7 dogs entered for BH. Wow! We are going to be up late! That doesn't even include the SchH 1-3 that are trialing!!!! I feel like we are ready though.
Hopefully we'll be paired up with Julie and Nobi so that all goes well. We're driving down tomorrow afternoon so that we can have one evening on the field with lights to get used to all that.

So, last weekend seemed like an excellent time to start training something new! :-) The sendout.

Our club has a trial date now of Nov 21-22, and we will be getting ready to do our SchH1 title at that time. This will include tracking, obedience and protection, and we need to get hustling on some of these things like: the retrieves and the sendout. The sendout is done while heeling at a normal pace, the handler then stretches his/her arm out in front and says Go Out (or Voraus in German). The dog is to run in a straight line away from the handler until the handler gives (yells!) the command for down (platz in German). Then the dog must lay down immediately. It's a hard exercise to do. Many people fail even at higher levels. So we started at a distance of 15 feet with a ball on a post and sending Kane to pick up the ball. He did it beautifully all 4 times. After a few improvements on my end for giving the command more effectively, I think we're on our way. :-)

We also started back up with the retrieves, starting out with holding the dumbell.

We had an excellent protection run last Saturday as well. Kane was in fine form and we ran all six blinds. We had a few issues around blind 4, but I think we have a plan worked out on how to deal. We tracked on Sunday morning, food in every 7 steps, and apart from one so-so corner and a few almost headlifts, it could have been a 96 point track. :-) Gotta go out tracking more!

Please keep all fingers and paws crossed that we pass the BH!

A Farewell

2009-07-13T17:42:00.005-04:00

I'd like to take a moment to leave my own online farewell for my friends Ghandi, Buoy and little Davey.
We had a memorial service for all of them last Saturday afternoon, and although it was so very sad, it felt good to be together as friends and be able to say goodbye to our four-legged friends.
My friends, their owners, could make some kind of peace, and those of us that also loved, petted, cheered, hugged and admired these dogs could be there to hug our friends. They were all such amazing, wonderful and talented dogs. I feel so lucky to have these women as my friends, and to have known these three.

See you at the bridge you beautiful, handsome trio of boys. Love Always.

Ghandi

Buoy

Davey Crockett

Preparing more

2009-06-28T22:49:00.008-04:00

Video of Kane and I working on heeling, about turns and position.

Kane and I have decided (well, actually I did) that the real BH trial will take place on July 18 at the North Beach Schutzhund Club in Myrtle Beach, SC.
So now we are in hardcore bootcamp training to fix all the "problems" we had during the mock trial. Here's what I'm working on:

On and off-leash attention
Prep for greeting the judge
Prep for starting at the start flag
Evaluating the group before entering group (for me, not Kane lol)
Tighter about-turns
Prep for traffic portion where other dogs are involved
Better heel position

I spent some time Sunday with my Schutzhund Women and they helped me work on the dog-dog areas and Kane did really well.
There is the "walking by another dog" at a distance of about 10 ft or so, and Carrie gave me some tips on what to do if the other dog is snarky, or if Kane pulls on the leash. It's better to let him pull than give a correction.
The other dog-dog area I wanted to practice was the tie-out, where your dog is attached to a line that is attached to a tree/fence etc. and left (with no command) while the handler walks out of sight.
With no command, Kane starts to follow me in the direction I walk and when the leash/line stops him he usually starts barking. Barking is not good for the test, so I would turn around and give him my meanest face along with a "Knock it off" which usually makes him lay down and I can walk to my hiding place.
After that, he is so focused on where I'm hiding, that he doesn't care about any other person or dog walking by (which is fine.)
Of course, in trial, I cannot turn around and yell....so we'll be practicing this part at home during the next few weeks, and at practice when we can. That should take care of it.

Here is another video of motion exercises:

I'm hoping Julie and Nobi will be our partners, but we'll see how things turn out. Julie lost her mali pup to a freak accident this past weekend and she is understandably heartbroken. I can't imagine what she is going through right now. RIP little Davey Crockett.

Hot Day

2009-06-13T16:50:00.005-04:00

Saturday was a hot day at practice. Starting next Saturday, we're going to start having our Saturday practices in the evenings instead so that the trees offer more shade for the crates. That will be good. Right now, I bring a collapsible wire crate for Kane (since it won't fit in my itty-bitty vehicle) and we found a sun shade fabric at the home improvement store that we drap over it, making sure there is plenty of circulation and some trees nearby for shade.

Look at my long tongue.....it's hot!

Still, it was in the 90s yesterday and I knew that when I was doing obedience with Kane around 7:30 am, and there was sweat dripping down my face - it was going to be hot!

Kane in action (Thanks for awesome pics, Jackie!)

I asked Richard for some advice on getting our about-turns to be faster and make Kane go closer to me. He recommended having a ball in my left hand and then when you heel and start making the turn to the left (while the dog goes around you to the right), "meet" the dog with the ball in front of his nose and make a 180 turn to the right (dog keeps going in a circle) and reward with the ball when you start walking straight again. Basically this will make the dog do the turn faster, looking for the ball. I tried it a few times and already saw improvement. We'll try this for the next few sessions and see if can't get tighter about-turns.

In protection today, Carrie was the helper. We started by running 4 blinds, which he did fine a little confused about the last 2 blinds. Then we went to 5 blinds, and then finally to 6 blinds. I stopped him and let him run intermittently. A few times, he was confused and required more than one command to "revere." But all in all, I think he is getting it.

Carrie says Kane is a "whale" in protection. :-) I think what she means is that he gives it his all, and after he bites the sleeve he throws his whole body and energy into trying to wrench it off the helpers arm. I can't imagine this feels very good to the poor helper...which is why Carrie usually has this expression of "Take the dang thing already" when she slips the sleeve for Kane.

Stay Cool!

The Mock BH - We passed!

2009-06-09T17:51:00.005-04:00

It wasn't extremely pretty - but we passed! (insert happy dance here)
The BH is a temperament test that is rated either pass or fail. First you go through a pattern obedience session, on and off leash, and you need to accumulate a certain % of points to be allowed to continue and take the traffic part of the test.
Here's a summary of what went well, and what did not go so well:

Good Things:

Kane did not break the long down while Nobi and Julie were doing their routine. I so badly wanted to turn around and look at him, but he was fine. Sean said he flinched a little when Julie did the recall with Nobi, but he stayed put.
We did not mess up any of the pattern - we did the correct turns at the right time and the correct number of steps for each section.
Did I mention that Kane did not break the long down?
Kane also did not break the long down.
I was extremely happy to see that Kane did not break the long down.

Checking in - I already lost his attention...

The not so good things:

Nerves. I have them.
The judge asked for a microchip scanner, which of course I did not bring (it IS the handler's responsibility). He told me that this is needed for a real trial, just so that I know, but it made me (more) nervous nonetheless.
In turn, my nervousness transferred to Kane and he sniffed the starting point flag (rookie mistake on my part - set up at least 2 feet from the flag!)
During the entire first leg of the pattern (50 steps straight heeling) Kane was next to me, but NOT heeling (see picture below). He was looking around for the bad guys that were making me nervous.

Oups, that's not exactly heeling.

Oh, we're heeling? Hey, I know how to do that!!!

Forged heeling.

The heeling was extremely forged at times, and even more so when Kane was off-leash. Proper heeling means his front shoulder is aligned with my hip. He's about two steps ahead of me in the picture above.

Group Heeling Exercise.

During the group heeling exercise, I did not pay attention to who was in the group and I stopped next to a tall, new man (bad move). Kane leaned over to sniff his pants (obviously "breaking" the heel eye-contact). I made a correction which is so NOT allowed. It's better to do a second command.

Kane (left) being good while Nobi (right)
does the down out of motion exercise. Good Boys!

The recall was nice. Actually it was perfect. :-)

I don't have any pics of the traffic portion because my photographer had to ride the bicycle around us. :-) Kane paid no attention to car, biker or the jogger. Then the judge had me bring him in under the carport (our shade) where there were lots of people, chairs and noise. He had me put Kane in a sit next to a group of people, shake hands with them and talk with them. Then I put Kane in a down position and walked away outside of the carport. They talked for a few more minutes and then the judge said to call my dog. I did, and my little boy took the shortest route to get to me, which involved a huge leap over the chairs, and almost over my mom who was sitting in one of the chairs. It was awesome!

Now I have a great big list of things to work on in obedience, especially correct heel position, my nerves, on and off leash obedience and distractions. We've already started.

I'm thinking about doing the real BH on July 18-19 when there is a trial down at Myrtle Beach, but we'll see. We are dog-sitting for another GSD, Sebastian, that weekend, and I'm not sure if that will bring too much stress in addition to the travel etc.

We're Ready!

2009-06-01T22:09:00.005-04:00

Thanks to some good friends' advice and an excellent obedience practice on Saturday morning, I was able to get rid of my nerves and Kane and I will be entering the MOCK trial this coming Saturday for the BH. We will be doing the BH with Nobi and his handler Julie, which is the team we have been practicing with the most.
I wanted to do the long down exactly as in trial, so it was only done with a fur-saver collar. Up until now, we have always used a long line and the e-collar. I also made sure that I walked about 30 paces away and kept my back turned (most of) the entire time.

I'm happy to report that Kane was a model long down dog. Julie and Nobi put him to the test, running close, catching the ball nearby and Nobi even did one of his signature victory laps near Kane and Kane did not move. :-) Yeay!

The mock trial doesn't count, but we are still putting the final touches on a few things such as off-leash heeling, about turns, sit and down out of motion and pace changes. I'm memorizing the BH pattern that we have to do, first on leash and then off leash.

Our club, Piedmont Schutzhund Club, now has a logo, courtesy of yours truly. Nice, isn't it? :-) Website coming soon!

This past weekend was spent cleaning up the training field, adding crush and run to the entrance, tearing down the old lattice in the blinds, painting posts and putting up new lattice, weed whacking, putting the roof on the carport (the "gondola" as we call it). Mike and Jack have built a brand new A frame and fixed up the jump. Everything looks brand, spanking new.

On Saturday, I was also asked to hold one of the Konfederate Kennel bulldogs during puppy tugtime. This is done with the beginner dogs, usually as a group, to get the dogs as excited as possible. My pretty brindle guy, Mandingo, did awesome and almost knocked me off my feet a few times. It was fun to go back to this stage for a few minutes! Be a tree, Lena. Be a tree.

Oh, and Kane had an excellent protection session as well. We are running 3-4 blinds intermittently stopping and not stopping. Now we just have to keep at it for a little while, but Kane is doing great. I can tell that the obedience is having an effect on his outs as well.

4 blinds!

2009-05-22T16:11:00.004-04:00

Woo-hoo, we're running 4 blinds!

Well, technically I'm not, Kane is. :-) I'm so excited!

Now that he runs four blinds with a heel and sit in between each, we have started alternating with no heel and sit, just a direct send to the next blind between 1 and 2, then a heel sit between 2 and 3, and a heel sit between 3 and 4. So far so good.

We have finally also formed a REAL Schutzhund USA club: Piedmont Schutzhund Club. We have our affiliation trial on Saturday June 6 and we hope to have a real trial in November, maybe. The affiliation trial is a mock trial, so Kane and I have entered for the BH which will be a practice run before the real thing. I'm getting a bit nervous, I think. The BH is obedience and "temperament" testing only making sure Kane is not nervous around other dogs, people, cars and bicycles.

I still have to learn the pattern for the obedience - guess what I'll be doing this weekend????!!!

Still working on the blind search

2009-05-03T13:37:00.003-04:00

Let's start at the beginning. At practice on May 3, we tracked a 80-30-80 track with 2 corners, food in every 5 steps and 5 step corners. This time I had brought a rock to drop at my first corner. I noticed that as I get nervous about not knowing where my corner is, Kane feels it and gets flustered by me and so he messes up. I absolutely have to get better at reading my track. Luckily Sean is an expert at tracking wildlife, so teaching me how to see my own stomping shouldn't be a problem. :-)

So....with me knowing where the corner was....Kane did an excellent job. He vacuumed through the corners like he was on a rail, and only once did he go slightly off track but found it with no encouragement from me. I'm so happy.
Obedience was good as well. We showed Richard how far we've come with calm holding of the dumbell in front and he said it looked nice. It's aggravatingly slow though, but I'm determined to stick with it. It's one of the exercises he doesn't exactly enjoy.
In protection we're continuing with blind search as an obedience exercise. My friend Julie has been gonig out on the field with me to help coach me. It's working great since I'm so into what I'm doing that I don't notice the little things. Today we worked Kane a little harder than we had before, because now we're seeing that he's in this for himself and not doing it because I ask him to. It needs to be a mix of the two, but he needs to do what I ask him to.
When he goes into the blind, I call "Kane, come" and immediately after "heel" and I'm standing still with my back towards him. If he goes past me, he gets a correction and continuous command until he is in heel position. As soon as his butt touches the ground I point and say "revere."
I also stopped grabbing the leash as Richard pointed out it may increase his drive with the little tugs he gets. It's better to use it when I really need to.
In the end, I think he caught on to the message, so now we have to continue to enforce it and we should be good. Thanks for the help Julie! And thanks Richard for being patient with me and Kane!

Wallace Payne Seminar - Obedience

2009-04-15T09:23:00.007-04:00

For the obedience "show Wallace how you train" part, Kane and I did heeling, corners, about-turns, walking sit, walking down, recall and we also showed how we have started with the dumbell. We did ok, not great, his attention was not always on me, and he missed the first walking sit, instead he went into a down. I corrected and redid it.

Wallace's feedback for us was that I was the only one that trained, but only 75% of the time. I was one of two people that used food. Why weren't there more? Wallace told me I do not reward very consistently, nor very fast, and I need to do so more often when Kane gives me good reason to.
He recommends that I do not train out of sequence - meaning in trial the walking down comes immediately after the walking sit, with no turns in between. This is also how I should train, some would call this "pattern training" and it's a personal choice. "Let your dog know what is coming." He also in general recommends that you master something before you go on to the next thing.
Wallace says he understands what I am trying to do with the dumbell retrieve training. He thinks it's going to take me a long(er) time to do it this way. He uses forced retrieves. He also recommends that I use the clicker for rewarding the bring and hold of dumbell training.
Wallace advocates precision, accuracy and attention for a short period of time in the beginning, and he uses the clicker as a "non-emotional" marker for correct behavior. He says other schutzhund trainers are astonished to hear of him using clickers, but he says it works well for him. Here are the top 5 things I learned in obedience:

Corners in obedience should be 5 step corners. This is fine for trials as long as there is a distinct change of direction.
Use clicker to mark correct behavior
Kane should be able to handle distractions during heeling now.
Use leash for corrections, not hands
Rewards can be playing (no ball) or ball. Stay in one spot

Kane and I bumping trying to do a 90 degree corner, notice his attention is not on me...

Since Kane has a long body, 5 step corners will be better for us than 90 degree turns. Wallace feels that I will not loose points for this at trial, but I will definitely loose points for loss of attention which is happening now. Corners are trial must have a distinct change of direction.

Me calling out to Sean as a distraction...

Kane knows heeling well enough now that he should be able to handle distractions during basic position (sit in heel position) and also during the heeling. To increase difficulty, you increase the length. We tried this with me messing with my hair, calling out to Sean, Wallace touching his ear and other things. If Kane moves his head or does not look at me, he gets a leash correction.

The leash is held with both hands fisted at or slightly below chest level. No tightness in leash, but short enough to be able to give a correction. Wallace used the clicker for me to mark good behavior. I think this worked very well, and I will ask my friends at practice and my trainer to help me with this. They can see if he is forged or lost attention and help me reward more consistently. I really like this idea.
When I'm by myself, I can hold the clicker with my right hand with the leash, click as a marker and then reward with my left hand - ALWAYS with the left hand.

Wallace advocates using the ball as a reward, not to just play. For this, he holds the ball up in front of the dog, or on the side (arm straight out) and tells the dog to "get it." Tug lightly on the ball to get the dog to pull back - that's what you want. Not you pulling but your dog pulling you. Use the OUT command and train again.

I think these obedience sessions gave us some great pointers on how to sharpen our performance and how to focus Kane's attention on the field. I will start to increase distance and distraction as we get better and then add in the about turns, walking sits and walking downs again. Group would be a form of distraction so we'll add that now as well.

Nice heeling, Kane!

Tuesday April 14, 2009

2009-04-15T08:34:00.002-04:00

I've decided to post more about our day-to-day training as well, to make this more of a log than it is now:

Tracking:
To the left of the driveway. 75 paces, food in every third step, 5 step corner, 20 paces, no food in last 5 steps. Poor entry because I was waiting for Sean, entry needs to be more one thing after another and no wait. Good track on first leg, turned around once for missed food. Kane did the corner correctly. Tracked fine on last 5 steps.
Correct corner: 1 out of 5 more. (Before we do food in every 5 steps)
Next track - increase length of first leg to 100 paces, do 2 corners, no food in last 5 steps.

Obedience:
Worked on calm bring and hold of dumbell. Using clicker after he outs correctly.
Had to place dumbell in his mouth since he goes into avoidance, turns head or looks down. If I put some excitement into it and move back a few steps, he is more likely to reach for the dumbell himself. Small amount of mouthing. I only hold a finger under his chin now, none on top. 5 strokes on his forehead.
Next session: Same for this entire week.

Wallace Payne Seminar - Tracking

2009-04-13T15:14:00.007-04:00

Kane, myself and my fiance spent the weekend at Metrolina Hundesport Schutzhund Club in Wingate, NC and attended a Wallace Payne seminar. It was great, and I feel like I learned a lot. I really enjoyed how the seminar was structured, and although we never made it into protection, the pointers that Kane and I got in tracking and obedience will really help propel us forward. Wallace's seminars are laid out very well, and he takes care that everyone shares their experiences and it's not only a one-on-one teaching. He first lets you do your own thing, be it tracking or obedience in this case, then he critiques everyone, people ask questions, and then you do it a second time around with his pointers, help and suggestions. The next day goes the same way. Here are the top 5 things I learned about tracking (in no particular order):

Make corners 5 step corners. That is fine in trial and how most track-layers lay tracks.
Stop marking corners, remember where they are (ugh!)
No need for long line, 6 foot leash ok until your dog can track with no food
How to properly approach and ready your dog for the track
How to correctly hold the leash, position my body and how to move with my dog when he moves

Since tracking is one of the things I have trouble understanding, I really appreciated the feedback and the chance to learn.

Ok, remember where you made that corner....

Wallace told me that 5 step corners is how tracking is done at trials. Hardly ever do you see a 90 degree corner. Wallace starts corners immediately when teaching tracking, no need to wait until the dog can do a longer straight track. While using food, there should be no food at the apex of the track, only right before and right after. When I make the corner, I should remember to make the corner on the inside foot, so that I don't confuse my dog with an outside footstep and an inside corner. I need to get better at remembering where my corners are. I am not good at that, and I think I confuse Kane a lot at the corners because I'm unsure and he can feel it through the leash/line. More practice, I suppose.

The approach is handled with leash near collar in a fist in my left hand. Approach at slow to normal pace (for me...lol). Stop right before your scent pad and slowly pull up on the leash to make the dog sit (without command).

Transfer the leash into my right hand, while keeping the leash above his head so that he does not drop down (to scent pad). Grab the dogs right leg (above ankle) under the leash, and wrap the leash around the leg. Keep the head up. You can verbally give an "ERR" if the head starts to drop. As soon as the leg is let go of, and hits the ground, give the command. "SEARCH." This seemed to calm Kane, and gave us a much better start, he went right into it and there was no need for whining etc.

The leash should be wrapped around my right hand and held in a fist at the end of the leash/line. The fingers of my left hand should rest on top of the line, sort of as a guide, or to feel the tension and make sure the tension is correct. The left hand should NOT press down on the leash, since the dog can feel that and can subsequently pull back.

While tracking, I should move when my dog moves. When he stops to eat (later on he won't stop of course), the leash should have no tension at all, let it hang loose. Then when he starts moving, the leash will tense up and I should feel it in my hand that he pulls me forward. My shoulders and elbows should be relaxed and my left shoulder should be in front of the right one

If Kane leaves the track, I can give a verbal "ERR" and then the "SEARCH" command again. If he fumbles around too much, starts spinning etc., then I can hold the leash in my left hand near his collar, point to the footstep with my right hand and give the "SEARCH" command, wait until he sniffs and moves forward, let the leash run through my hand and correct hand-position again.

At the end of my last track, I had 5 steps with no food. If he did that well, that's an indication to start leaving food in every 5 foot steps. This is how you progress.

I'm excited to start this new tracking routine, and now I need to find some good tracking fields!

Tomorrow I will post about the obedience part of Wallace's seminar. If you have the opportunity to go to one, you definitely should. It is worth the money and so much more. Thanks to Jeff Rentz at Metrolina for organizing this.

Turning Blind Search into an Obedience Exercise

2009-03-24T13:20:00.005-04:00

Ever since we started having practice at the new field, Kane has been having issues with the blind search. At the old practice field, we only had 2 blinds, and we always ran them the same way (there's our problem, I know!!!!).

Kane got used to the helper being in the blind that was closest to where all the people were. Now, the people hang out near blind 3, with the helper in blind 2, so when I send him, he runs around blind 1, hears my call and next command to "Revere!" starts going towards blind 2 and then he turns back towards blind 3 (where the people are.) This results in a down and we do it again. We've tried with the helper popping out of blind 2 and slapping with the stick, and when he hears/sees that - he goes full speed for blind 2. Then we do it again and he goes for blind 3. I asked Richard if he thought my dog was stupid (lol), and he said no, he's just "being stupid." Well, we can train past that!

Enter the "retraining the blind search" session. A few of my friends already do this from scratch with their dogs, and I think that is a great method. Their dogs learn to run blinds with rewards and positive motivation. The idea is to get the dog to run around an object (be it a tree, a blind (if you have one), a cone, a barrell, a garbage can....whatever ya got) that is indicated by the handler pointing and issuing the command. We are doing this at practice as well, but I wanted to reinforce it by training it at home (where I don't have access to a trained helper), so we're using positive marker training instead. Here's what I'm using to start with:

A tree.

A tug.

A ball (= reward)

A dog that wants to train. :-)

Kane likes the ball A LOT more than the tug, so my proposition to him for this exercise is " If you go around the tree and bring me the tug, I will let you play with my ball." We started out just a few feet from the tree, we heeled to our starting point and I made him sit while I went around the tree and placed the tug where he couldn't see it.

Then I went back to him, pointed my arm like I do on the field and said "Revere!" The first time wasn't all that great. I could tell his brain was going "But where's the blind, mom?" I ended up grabbing his collar and running with him saying "Revere, revere, revere!" until he saw the tug. Then I quickly backed up, said "Kane, come!" and when he saw me and was running towards me I threw the ball behind me.

The second through eighth time were much better. I even increased our distance from the tree a little bit. We've been doing this pretty much every day in the past week.

At practice, I am using the "Kane, come!" command as he rounds the blind, and then I make him come to me before continuing on to the next blind. I use the remote collar if he does not listen to me. It went pretty well this past weekend, but I need to make sure he comes and sits in front of me before the next step. We stepped it up to 3 blinds at practice and only once did I have to put him in a down.

Kane's impression of NASCAR - rounding the blind at a 15 degree angle!

Eventually he will come to me, sit in front of me, and I'll give the heel command to turn towards the next blind and send him to that, call for him to come to me, sit in front, heel around and send again.

I think this is good for him. Whereas previously he has seen protection as a big game being played on his terms, he is now learning that he must do what I ask of him. It's noticeable also in how he carries the sleeve all the way back to the car and even doing a victory lap around the car with the sleeve. He has never done this before - choosing instead to drop the sleeve as soon as he gets to the car. Now I have to tell him Out! to get him to release the sleeve. It's almost as if now he feels like he did the work, and he earned carrying the sleeve - it's his price!

Oh and this week I got a nice bloody lip courtesy of my beloved dog. We did a recall from a walking down, and I placed the ball under my chin, intending to drop it as a reward for a correct front sit. Well, Kane decided himself that his front sit was pretty darn good, and he went for the ball....I'm sure to all the onlookers it looked like he was going for my throat....lol. Anyway, he bumped my teeth and created some internal and external holes in my chin. Nothing that needed stitches, but made for an interesting conversation. :-) I can't whistle!!!

We've been tagged!

2009-03-01T14:22:00.003-05:00

Kane at 7 weeks. Hard to believe he was once this little....

Warning: This post has (almost) nothing to do with schutzhund training. :-) We were tagged by YD over at YD's A Little Bit of Everything blog and her doggie girls Samantha and June to do a "Doggie Bucket List" - meaning everything Kane would like to do sometime in his lifetime.
So here it is - after all, it's good to take a break from training every now and then, right? Right.

Kane is now writing the rest of this. Pretty good typer, he is.

Things I have done in my lifetime:
Bitten Richard (our trainer) numerous times.
Been used as crowd control by a police officer (I was 1 1/2 but apparently already intimidating enough)
Gone down the road with my head out the sunroof (I do it all the time)
Bite holes in tires (wheelbarrow, now we have one with solid tire)
Peed on every tree in the yard (yep, and they're ALL MINE!)
Swam in the lake (didn't really like it)
Bit a hole in mom's exercise ball (she let me play with it!)
Chased deer
Chased canadian geese
Chased rabbits
Chased cats
Chased anything small and furry that moves fast
Slept in a tent
Gone hiking and carried my own backpack
Snuggled with mom on the couch
Licked away mom's tears when she cried

Things I'd like to do:
Sleep upstairs with mom and dad in their bed.
Lick Stars and Stripes, mom's cats. Oh, come on....one little lick wouldn't hurt them??!!?
Chase a squirrel up the tree
Eat that stick of butter of the counter.
Beat up neighborhood chiuaua that pees in our yard.
Catch one of those pesky deer.
Get a Schutzhund III title (that one was from mom)
Prove to mom I can do the long down (hers too)
Go with mom and dad to Sweden to meet everyone there.
Convince mom and dad that I NEED MORE CHICKEN!!!!
Raise mom and dad's kids when they have them

Have a baby sister or brother so that I can show them all the trees to pee on.

Walk mom down the aisle when her and Sean get married in October (I can't wait!)Leyla, Mom and Me. Leyla belongs to mom's exbf.

No right turns allowed

2009-02-20T19:41:00.004-05:00

This past Saturday we had practice at a temporary new field in Morrisville, NC. A new field near Claremont is in the works, but they have just cleared it, evened it out and seeded it so it's not functional yet.

In obedience, we first did a long down while Mike was working his rottie Jazz. I used the remote a little heeling onto the field, but then not at all. Kane did well. He had a line on which I was loosely holding about 10 ft away.
He looked at me most of the time, unless Jazz was running and then he looked at him. Yeay! :-)

On our obedience, the feedback from friends was that during our turn on the field, Kane was very forged. (This means that he had his head and front wrapped around me, resulting in his butt being swung out and not parallell with my body.) This also forces his body into my every time I bend my left knee.
The suggestions were to only do left turns for a little while when working obedience during the week. Left turns will force my knee to bump him HARD and eventually he will stay away from it.
Another suggestion was to use a long stick and lightly smack his left back flank to make him straighten out more.

We did a little heeling during our walk on Monday morning (@ 5:30am), and he was not forged at all. So I wondered if the stress of having the remote collar on, and the stress of being in the long down, makes him forge because it's a way for him to have body contact with me as much as possible??

I posed this question to some good friends, and here's a collection of their answers:

C: Hey, just because you’re awake enough to do OB at 5:30am doesn’t mean your dog is! He was probably in correct position because he was tired and wanted to go back to bed, poor Kane. You’re never going to ask me anything again are you?
I know when correction comes with my dog he does in fact want more body contact with me. This became very apparent when I was correcting him for crowding and it produced worse crowding. I had to use the prong collar very gently and correct him straight away from my body and even give a light verbal ah-ah as I corrected to help him get the point. The forging baffles me a little, but you seemed to relate it to his way of having more body contact, so that would make sense. The only other time my dog will crowd and actually will forge is when he’s in very high drive and doesn’t want to contain himself. This is a very different picture than when he’s leaning on me because of corrections. Can you tell the difference with Kane? Is he more or less drivey on the SchH field or at home? As for a solution, I agree with the left turn theory. You can also take your right knee and raise it, cut across your body (left leg) and knee Kane in the chest/under the chin. Just whatever you do, make sure you get the desired response and then reward for it quickly. Make the left turns, sudden halts, or knee kick a game so he wants to fix himself and get a reward. If the problem is stemming from the e-collar correction, it’s all the more important that your “fix” be a game. Even slowing down your walk and givingvery gentle prong tugs while saying ah-ah might do the trick.
J: . . . you know how dogs revert to old habits that you've fixed when they're under stress? Maybe whether from the long down or the new field, Kane was going back to his old bad ways because he was less comfortable than he was on your walk this morning?

J: (after many e-mails back and forth asking questions about whether I had a ball in my vest-pocket at practice (yes) and whether I had a ball on Monday morning (no) and whether I was wearing the vest on Monday morning (no)
You could try practicing on your walk with the schutzhund vest and ball in it and see what happens. I'm sure he can smell the ball

L: I would try what Carrie and the people at the club suggested to you but would also teach a side heel and a backward heel so that he doesn't anticipate the heel as always a moving forward or a turn but rather he thinks where your left is and what it is doing.

I don't know Kane well enough to say whether a nick from an e-collar would make him forge or a strange place would affect him.

Some dogs will touch you on the heel to avoid loosing your leg from being corrected until they figure out that it doesn't help them as you turn into them and bump them as you move your leg up and over a little.

I would also let him know maybe a command to fix it. I use close with mine and usually start that as I move to the side or step backwards and want them to follow that leg. I would reward right away for the position as soon as he came into it.

When you heel him and have the ball have you taught him to work with proper heel position with the ball in front of him? Where he can see the ball and still hold eye contact on you.

He shouldn't break a heel position even if the ball or other distraction is in plan view but be focussed on you.

If that's the case I would go back to teaching him a "game" that the toy is yours and he works for it while it's in his view. That way regardless of what you are wearing or where the toy or food is his attention is on you.

Don't I just have some awesome friends with great advice?! Without them, I'd be so lost.

On another note, we (well, Kane) ran three blinds at practice which was new. Here's a small pictorial of that. Up until now, we have only been running two blinds so he's gotten used to the helper being in the second blind. It was amusing to see his face when he came around the second blind expecting the helper. :-)

Here we are at the start. Me pointing out the blind.

On his way into blind # 2...See the excitement on his face?
"I'm gonna get this guy......"

Still excited....coming into blind # 2

"Where the heck did he go????!!!???"

"Aaahhh....there he is!"

"I'm coming to get you, Jack! Just you wait!"

Smackdown on the Long Down

2009-01-22T13:02:00.004-05:00

The smackdown look. He does this sometimes now when another dog runs by.

If you're a faithful i-schutzhund blog reader, lol, you know that Kane and I are "this" close to being ready for the BH. Read more about what the BH entails on this fabulous site. By the way, BH is also called Traffic Steady Companion Dog Test.

A big part of the BH is the obedience routine, which I have no doubts that we will pass. During the obedience routing there is another handler and dog who are doing a long down at the side of the field. The handler walks their dog to a spot on the side, the dog sits when they halt, the leash is unsnapped after ok from the judge, the dog is told to lay down and the handler walks 30 paces forward away from the dog and remains standing with their back to the dog until the other dog has finished their routine. Being good, mom!

Kane's issue is dog aggression and wanting most of all to run for the other dog when it runs. We also have the possibility of the OTHER dog breaking and going for Kane, which would be just as awful. So, we've been giving Kane the smackdown on the long down. Love the headline. :-) This entails a long line being tied to a lightpost and then we do a controlled heel to where the clip on the line is, stop, attached the line, heel a few more steps. Then I unhook the leash (which is done in trial) and give the down command.
I then walk 20 paces or so away from him and stand with my side facing him so that I can still see.
He does, of course, still have the remote collar on.
This doesn't sound like fun, and it isn't. But I need him to be know that if he breaks from that long down, I will be VERY, VERY upset. The trick is to use the remote collar consistently and always in conjunction with a command. When he complies, he is always rewarded.

Interestingly he has done quite well the past few times, we've had 2 dogs that he's not used to (Thanks Nick and Sammy!) and also Nobi whom he does know. Nobi even likes to catch his ball or tug and run close to Kane during his "victory lap." Kane stayed down and I was very proud.Nobi catching a ball!

The idea is to continue this every time we have practice, and then continue some more with no line, but still the remote collar, and then without.

Wish us luck!

A Protection Training Routine - Video!

2009-01-08T08:45:00.006-05:00

Notice the drop of drool from Kane's mouth....lol.

Greeting Schutzhund Friends!

A Happy New Year to all of you and I hope everyone had a good holiday. Kane got a (ginormous) box of (extra-large) Milkbones for Christmas and I think he liked it because right now he is sitting outside the pantry hoping I'll walk in there and get him one. :-) Brat.

My wonderful friend Jackie has a fabulous new Nikon D90 SLR that also can do small movies. Below is a protection training routine from Jan 3 that she took of me and Kane. There are a bunch of clips together. Below that is a synopsis of what we are trying to accomplish and what I see as the things we still have to work on. Suggestions are always welcome.

Clip 1: The first run of the blinds. You can see that he thought about going to the right of the blind instead but changed his mind. Dogs are supposed to search the blind in the same fashion, so I think we would loose points for that. He is doing that less and less though. As always you can tell his level of engagement from the barking when he's quite a ways away from the blind. There is a marked change in position from almost center in front of the helper and then continuously moving to the right. I'd like to work on this, but I've yet to ask Richard what it's all about.

The down and out are so-so but they will improve in the next clip.

I've been working on the quiet command at home this week, because as you can tell, he's not minding it now (when we walk back to starting position.)

Clip 2: Second run of the blinds. This time he comes in even better center, but still moves to the right. He likes that elbow section of the sleeve. I think because it is less stressful to bite there, he doesn't have to look the helper in the eye that way.

Clip 3: Here we are heeling in a left-hand box around the helper. I'm having some issues with him not properly heeling in protection. He is very distracted (obviously) and keeps looking at the helper. We will continue to work and I'm positive we can get through it. The feedback from the team is that I need to reward him sooner for a few good steps and not wait so long. The reward for good heeling is, of course, a bite. :-)

Clip 4: Now Travis is in the blind. Brave man. We are heeling in front of the blind, working on the same issue as in the previous clip. You can tell Kane looks at the helper every time we walk by the blind. We then set up for the escape bite (for now I leave him in a sit).

Clip 5. Set up for another escape bite. Now Kane knows what is coming and I'm having some problems making him sit in heel position. Nice grip on this one, but then he will not out the sleeve without turning the remote collar up, way up.

Clip 6. Another escape bite. This time, instead of slipping the sleeve, the helper does a freeze (stand still and drop sleeve down) at which point Kane should respond to my Out command and go into a hold and bark. There is a little bit of growling, but he does out on one command both times.

Clip 7. Another escape bite. This time, he needs two commands (and a remote collar nick) to out the sleeve.

Clip 8. We set up for the side transport with some barking, which is not good. Kane's side transport is good, but it looks like he is bumping the sleeve with his nose (not allowed) and he is crowding the helper. He should heel to me, but look at the helper.

All in all, a good training session! Thanks for watching!

Girls (& Women) to the Worlds Roadtrip 2008

2008-11-10T21:30:00.008-05:00

We had a blast during our roadtrip to Florence, KY for the WUSV 2008 - the World Championship in German Shepherd Scchutzhund. Although we all missed our dogs terribly (and I'm pretty sure everyone but Carrie spoke to their dog(s) via phone...lol), it was great to see all the teams competing and to see this level of dogs.

It gave me a whole new appreciation for where I am with Kane, and most of all....an appreciation for how difficult the Voraus (sendout) is. :-)

Thanks to my compadres for letting me sit in the back and get some knitting in while we were travelling. :-) Here are some pics:

Beautiful scenery in WV. Hey wvfarmgirl!!

The sign when we arrived said "German Shepherd Dog Show"
Haha! Not exactly....

Since the Swedish team was absent, I cheered on my fellow

Scandinavians; the Norwegians, Danes and Finns. Here is

one of my favorite Norwegian dogs, Kustmarken's Yatzy,

doing the retrieve on the flat and making sure I get a good shot.

Here is the same dog doing the bark and hold. End score was 248,

Tracking 76, Obedience 92, Protection 80

Good catch by helper.

Bacteroides Sera from Finland with Susanna Tunturi
came in 8th place with a score of 89,95 and 95. Nice!

Bacteroides Sera doing the bark and hold after escape.

Bacteroides Sera waiting on her protection score: 95!
(and I wish I knew finnish so that I could ask where
that weirdo kennel name comes from????)

Now, it can be argued over whether this heeling is correct
or not, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Javir vom Talka Marda
from Germany with handler Michaela Knoche.

I'll never get Kane to do a finish like Javir,

but it was cool to watch!

I got some great shots like these....

....and then some shots like these.... :-)

Blitz v. Felsenwaeldle during the escape.

Winner with 97,95 and 96. :-)

Tired but happy! We had a great time!

9/14 - Keep on Tracking

2008-10-13T22:50:00.003-04:00

The thing with tracking is.....the more you do it, the better it goes. This tracking session was back in mid September.

On the advice of Julie, I was tracking Kane at close to 24 hrs hungry and he did SO much better than the previous weekend. He did not go swirling off the track anymore, his corners were better and the downs on articles were faster. I'm lucky in that Kane's articles have always been nice, straight and he does it on his own. :-)

This time, I had run out of hot dogs, so I tracked with treats and I had cut up pieces of smoked deli ham in the article rewards. It's good to change things up a bit every now and then.

Coming soon - a report from WUSV 2008 in Florence, KY. The Girls (Womens) Roadtrip to the World Championship in Schutzhund. Or as the sign said when we first got there: "German Shepherd Dog Show" LOL.

8/21 - Back On Track

2008-08-26T17:44:00.003-04:00

Kane and I have been tracking about twice a week during the week now ever since our tracking started heading south. I’ve intentionally laid very simple tracks, sometimes just a straight line, sometimes just one corner. I put down hot dogs every 10-15 steps, and include at least 2 articles. I’m happy to say we’ve made progress! It was hard for me to not correct him when I felt he was doing the wrong thing in tracking…..but I changed my tactics and decided to reward him (with a calm, steady voice and food) when he was doing good instead and not reward otherwise. I let him fumble around a little bit on the first leg and praised him when he was on the track and being consistent. It looks like I need to continue that way for a while, but he is looking a lot better.
I think in a way he is SO excited to track that he sort of looses his brain during the first part, and then after the first turn it catches up with him and he calms down enough to do a nice track. We’ll continue this for a while and see how it goes.

I’ve been wanting to do this animated image for a while so that you can see Kane as he rounds the first blind and heads towards the second for a hold and bark. Until I get a video camera, this is all the action you get. You’ll have to add the barking and growling soundtrack yourself....lol.

8/2 - Tracking Trouble

2008-08-09T21:22:00.005-04:00

Ah yes.....we're having some trouble with tracking. This all started one Sunday when I drove up to Greensboro, NC to visit with Jackie, Julie and Carrie and do some tracking and obedience training. We met for tracking in a beautiful park with what looked like marvelous, "just-the-right-height" grass - perfect for a track.

So I laid my track, and waited. I walked Bronko's track with Jackie and Carrie and there were plenty of bad omens during that track. Bronko is (usually) a great tracker: deep nose, follows the footsteps etc. Right after the first turn, he inhaled some bees. We're not sure if they stung his mouth or not, but Bronko sure jumped and was very startled....and thus not concentrated on the track anymore (who can blaim him, right?). Well, then we also found ants on our hot dogs.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with Schutzhund tracking training - we use hot dogs as treats in our footsteps when we first start out. Gradually they get fewer and fewer hot dogs and eventually they track the footprints instead of hot dogs. Great in theory -- tracking is (I think) one of the more difficult areas of schutzhund. I find it hard to read my dog while we are doing this and there are so many intricacies to eveyrthing about tracking. You can have a great track one day and the next day your dog is doing horrible. All dependent on the track, conditions while you laid the track and conditions while you track etc.

Anyways....back to the ants. I guess if I was one, an ant that is, I'd like hot dogs too. They are moist and juicy and easy to eat. :-) And packed full of calories!!!!

This is what ants do to dogs when they eat/inhale some of them: They basically bite them and crawl up their nasal cavity while continuing to bite. Nasty little critters they are. Not fun. Needless to say that pretty much screws up a track as well....

Too make an incredibly long-winded story short - that's what happened.

Kane now flunders on the first leg of the track - he is all over the place, including stopping to look back at me, once we get through the first turn, he straightens up and starts tracking like he used to.

So we're back to many, many, many, many more, short tracks. All throughout the week now that the weather is a little cooler.

On a good note - we had a good protection practice! :-) I really need to get some more tracking pics. Haha...

"Ooooooeeeeeee!!!!!!"

7/17 - A Vacation does a (dog) body good

2008-07-29T23:01:00.003-04:00

Run, Kane, Run! (this is the part he loves!)

Our trainer was on vacation for a week, so between the previous practice and this one, we both got to rest up for a little bit. Apparently it was just what he needed.

His heeling was excellent (still have a line on him though). But he is responding really well to remote collar corrections. Starting to forge a little, but I was told it's a sign of wanting to please, so we'll see....

Kane is finally (FINALLY!) starting to show improvement in the bitework. He had the best grips he’s ever had during this session. Full grips, as hard as always, and more towards the center of the sleeve.
Even Richard was impressed…..I was, of course, ecstatic. Go Kane!

7/5 - Can we morph two dogs into one?

2008-07-24T23:43:00.004-04:00

You can poke a stick through there!!!

So it’s been a few weeks since I blogged. I guess in some ways after Julie lost Buoy I just didn’t feel like writing anything….even though we’ve had some good practices. Richard (trainer) was on vacation as well, so we did not train for almost 2 weeks.
However, we’re back up and running now, so here’s my attempt at catching up, post-blogging for June 28 (which is kind of against the whole idea of blogging, isn’t it? Oh well…)

My friend Jackie and I were commenting that if we could morph her dog, Bronko, and Kane, we’d have one heck of a dog! Bronko has all the things Kane does not – a calm grip, beauty (haha – that one is for you Jackie!) and the list goes on and on. Kane, however, has the intensity and the drive that Bronko is taking a little longer to develop.

Bronko and his super grip

If Kane could also have some of Buoy fabulous obedience, especially the dumbbell part, then we’d be all set.

But what would be the fun in that, right? :-) I love my dog and love training him. For me, it’s not about the perfect dog but it’s about finding perfection in everything that we do together.

All joking aside, Kane is coming along very nicely in his bitework. He still growls as he gets closer to the blind, but he outs well and we’re working on the off-leash obedience during protection as well.

In Memory of Buoy

2008-07-06T10:25:00.003-04:00

Today is a very sad day. Our friend Julie's dog, Buoy, passed away early this morning at NC State Vet Hospital from liver failure. Most likely brought on by a tick bite and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Julie is devastated and I can only imagine what she feels like.

Just last weekend at practice, we were watching Buoy work his usual magic. He earned his SchH II title just this spring, getting an amazing 98 points in protection. Buoy was a rescue dog. From looking at him, you would think he was mostly Belgian Malinois with a little German Shepherd thrown in for good measure. He was small, but mighty. His energy and intensity on and off the field was the stuff you can only dream of. He was a heeling machine. Julie and Buoy were the perfect pair, and they worked so well together. Here's to friends and loved ones, including animals, that become part of our heart and soul. Buoy, you will be missed.

Where we are at with...OBEDIENCE!

2008-07-02T16:36:00.003-04:00

Good Attention!

Obedience is by far our “best” part right now, probably because it’s the easiest to practice on your own between club practices!!! I also take Kane to Charlotte Dog Training Club (CDTC) classes which are good for distraction and to learn little tips and tricks from experienced people. The wonderful teachers (yeay!) don’t mind that our heeling is a little different and that we do our about turns the other way....lol (I turn to the left, into Kane, and he makes a right turn around me). Kudos to CDTC for a great program!

HEELING: Kane’s heeling is excellent. Continuing to work on left and right 90 degree turns, more so on me giving the right signals (eye, foot) so that he knows what is coming.
SIT AND DOWN OUT OF MOTION: We had to step back a bit to make sure I use different feet for each when stepping off without him. He sits a little slow still – but it's coming along. Tried leash indications, stepping in front etc. and it works to a point. Still it’s faster than when we started… :-)
RETRIEVES: We’ve done no dumbbell retrieve work yet – still trying to figure all that out – what method to use etc., and I want to get our BH done first. I want to concentrate on what we have to do to get through the BH and not rush something that is so important, right? Kane responds real well to marker training, so I'm thinking that's what I want to do. Marker training with drive building.

GROUPS: Still working on heeling through a group. Without the leash he tends to loose attention...
LONG DOWN: Ok, this is a MAJOR ISSUE for Kane. He has shown some DA - mostly other intact males and in cases where other dogs were too close to "his" car. Combine that with a high prey drive (if it's moving it's mine!)and....well, a lot of work to be done on the long down. Laying down next to a field where another dog is working is such a temptation. If the other dog runs around a lot….he gets up, and in one case (when we tried without a long line) he even jumped the other dog. It was very traumatic for me, even though the other dog thankfully did not get hurt. I was so po'd and worried that the other dog would be scarred from the a experience.

For now we are using a long line, remote collar and working heavily on having other (reliable) dogs doing recalls right next to us. So far so good, but I’m not sure when we can start transitioning to no leash. I don’t want to risk anyone else’s dog getting hurt. Going to the CDTC class has also helped his obedience under distraction which I think will help here as well. This is basically the only reason we don’t have a BH yet. Can you imagine doing the BH and your dog is the one that gets up and starts a dogfight…..how awful would that be? Yuck. I’m waiting until I’m 110% sure he won’t go for it…maybe even 120% sure.Working on pack structure (I’m the boss!) and making sure things we do in our every-day life have a positive effect on this part of his training is also something I do to get a handle on it.

But mom, it's moving....Can I go get it?

6/28 - Protection and Heeling

2008-06-28T22:03:00.005-04:00

We didn't get to track this morning, since I was running a bit late. However, we had a very good obedience practice! Kane paid good attention during heeling and his left turns are getting really good. I make sure I step with my left foot and give an eye marker to the left before I do so. It's amazing how quickly they pick up on that.The walking sit is becoming much faster. I'm stepping down with my right when giving the command and off with my left. I also inhale a bit more before I give the command. I have to watch that with my breathing though. I've noticed that when we practice in the backyard during the week and it's hot, I tend to breathe deeper and harder and he sometimes thinks I'm about to give the SIT command during heeling. lol.

We had a good run at protection as well. We ran a blind about 3 times. I could tell that Kane thought about going around to the right instead of the left when reaching the blind with the helper. He didn't, but he was growling as well. He had good outs and pretty good grips today. We also heeled around in a small square pattern with Julie helping me with remote collar corrections (thanks Miss J!). When we had 5-6 steps of good heeling I gave him my bite command and pointed toward Richard - i.e. the bite was a reward for good heeling. It got better and better and the fourth and last time was really good.

Small crowd at practice today. A few people are on vacation, visiting family and so on. Had to leave early for my godson's birthday party, but we had a good practice. It was hot and humid today, about 97 F.

Where we are at with…..TRACKING!

2008-06-27T17:20:00.005-04:00

Deep Nose.

We just started articles (3 tracks). I’m putting treats (hot dogs) in a small container under the article and tell him down when he gets there. So far he lays down correctly and enjoys the marked reward.
We have been doing corners for about 3 months now and he is getting pretty good, he still falters a little sometimes. I basically stop behind him and make sure the leash is tight so that he cannot move too far – keep saying “search” until he goes the right way, and calmly praise when he first starts to move in the right direction. I still mark the corners heavily with connected footsteps and give a reward about 1.5 doglengths (about 6 feet with my dog – he’s an extra-long GSD! lol) away from the corner.
All in all, Kane is a pretty consistent tracker. He is fast, but not overly so. Keeps his nose down even if he doesn’t smell every footprint. He gets tired on long tracks, and I still bait the track with about 10-15 steps at the most in between baits (hot dogs). More towards the end when I know he gets tired.
I enjoy tracking, although I find it difficult to "read" what my dog is doing. I’ve read a lot about it, a few good sites are (of course) the Leerburg web board and this site. and I always walk with my team-mates on their tracks, when we track together, to try to learn as much as possible. Anyone selling stock in Oscar Maier? :-)

An Introduction and How we got started

2008-06-21T19:09:00.002-04:00

Greetings & Welcome to our blog. My name is Lena, and this is my canine friend Kane, 3.5 years old. We are involved in the dog sport of Schutzhund, and this blog is a digital way for us to keep track of our progress and at the same time keep a log of how our practices and trials go as we inch along on our Schutzhund Adventures.
I am a first-time dog owner, and Kane and I got together through a a set of circumstances involving a newspaper ad, an ex boyfriend and no intention at all of getting a dog. He’s been with me since he was 6 weeks old.
After frantically doing as much research as possible online for puppy-raising, obedience training, food issues, potty training, vaccinations, bath time, nail-clipping and so on, I finally ran into a site called Leerburg.com, owned and operated by Ed Frawley and his staff. This site has an awesome discussion board where level-headed people give much valuable input on various dog raising and dog training issues. This is where I started reading about Schutzhund. Having a German Shepherd, I immediately was fascinated. The control and level of obedience these dogs showed seemed unattainable at first, not to mention the joy that both handler and dog seemed to get from the training and competing – that’s the bond I wanted with my dog.
My dog is not of any fantastic working dog lineage, he is what would be mainly considered American lines, with his great great grandparents being titled schutzhund dogs from some very reputable kennels in Belgium and Germany. I suppose I’ll post a link to his pedigree someday.
Working lines or not, I was really interested in Schutzhund, and after meeting up with my current training group, I brought Kane out to see if he might have the right drives. He sure did.
I’d like to point out again (in case you missed it below my blog title), that I don’t expect to win any championships. Of course, I may dream about it a little, lol, but the main thing is the incredible bond we have developed and how much fun we have practicing. Kane is my buddy, my best friend and I love him fiercely for all the joy he has brought me. We truly enjoy every track, every obedience practice, every bite. We have bad days and good days. Days when I cannot stop smiling because he finally figured out the walking sit. Days when I wonder if we will ever pass the BH.

I’m not sure that I’ll have many readers, but please feel free to drop me a comment if you have any questions or just want to say hi.
I’d like to also take this opportunity to give a huge thank you to our trainer, Richard Shook, and all my friends that I train with on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. Thanks for all your excellent advice, for challenging us and helping us get to where we are today.