Practicing Retrieves - A Video

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!

Preparing more

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.

A Protection Training Routine - Video!

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!