We're Ready!

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.

Smackdown on the Long Down

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!

Where we are at with...OBEDIENCE!

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?