What we are up to!
Please ignore the industrial snow suit. It isn’t fashionable, adds about 100 lbs in photos, but it keeps me warm 
Notice the focus during protection!! The angry girl has learned to only bite the man with the sleeve. Also, she seems to be FINALLY hitting maturity and calming down. The first photo is her doing a long down while the decoy is putting on his equipment. Something I never thought was possible….
Photos taken this weekend. He is one month shy of nine years and still working better than most youngsters
Ok, today is far from warm and it isn’t really fuzzy; but it was a great break through day in training. First I must commend myself for getting tracking and obedience done before noon.
I started out with tracking. If anyone is watching the D.C. news knows that it is currently miserable weather here. It is very cold, damp, and windy. I placed two tracks in the back fields which are probably the WORST conditions you can track a dog in. It is clay dirt with chunks of grass scattered about, rocky, plowed fields which have since hardened over time. Laying the tracks is about the best workout anyone can have. It is treacherous ground and my thighs were hitting muscle failure after laying two endurance tracks. When I was done, I let the tracks age for a little bit; meanwhile the wind picked up and it started to sleet for a short bit.
Cosmo: I had full faith in the brown tracking freak that she would tackle this track with great enthusiasm and intensity. She dragged me out to the track, nose down the entire way; following the path I had taken. I stopped a few feet before the track and practiced introductions. She seemed slightly bothered that I was introducing myself to no one and started looking around trying to figure out who I was talking to. After that we headed to the start flag. She dropped her nose and took off at a nice pace with good intensity. I noticed when she hit some bulldozer cross tracks, she stopped, checked, and continued on. She seemed to struggle through some of the furrows and did a couple tight circles. I was a little disappointed that she had some problems, but I loved the fact that you can tell she was intently looking for the track and once she found it off she went. She needed a verbal reminder on the first two articles, which was a small set back as well; but I was happy she indicated the third and last article without a reminder. Overall, it was on average track for her. She has done much better, but we are also working the retrieve and it was rough conditions. It could be that she is feeling a little stress and it is coming out in her track.
For obedience we went through the BH routine with all the parts broken up. She did everything very nicely. I am keeping my fingers crossed she continues with this success. The three new skills we are spending time on is the send out, retrieve, and about turn. You would think the about turn would be easy, but not for her. I spent so much time training her heeling position, she doesn’t want to go around me. She does the flip finish as well, so she has never had a reason to go behind me. I think what it may come down to, is doing a pivot and keeping her on my left side. She does this without issue and it looks rather sharp, but I need to check the rules. The send out we did twice, and both times she ran straight out at full speed to find her toy. She has grasped this new skill nicely. I will continue to do this for some time before I introduce the platz. And for the retrieve, WE HAVE MADE PROGRESS!!!! Of course I say this with controlled zeal, as just when it seems like we have got it – we don’t. I had her all the way up to doing the complete retrieve on the flat, only for her to decide she didn’t want to do it anymore. Back to the back tie, we went. Still dealing with a lot of conflict, I decided to go back even further and start with a new method. The one thing she does with out issue is calmly hold the dumbbell. She will take it without issue and pick it up off the ground without issue, yet she seems conflicted about leaving my side when I toss it a little further out. So with my new method, we hit ugly times yesterday. She knew what I wanted, but it was a battle of the wills and it seemed like she was winning. I did my best to end it on a positive note and just wanted immediately call my TD and cry about my horrible training experience. Of course, I knew what he would say. You are going WAY TO FAST!!!! So today, I backed all the way up to just holding the dumbbell. We did this multiple times without issue and lots of praise. I put it on the ground, she picked it up without issue. This time, I decided to toss it a short distance, but not ask her to remain seated. Just let her go get it, and once we are solid on the retrieve I will deal with asking her to remain seated. I tossed it and she brought it back to me and held it calmly in front of me. I tossed it again, this time she went out and looked like she had better ideas, but me new method reminded her that it wasn’t an option!! Just as she started to turn away from the dumbbell she thought better of it and picked it up and returned it to me. She earned lots of praise and rewards for her effort. One more time I tossed it, and this time she ran straight out, picked it up, and came back and held it calmly in front of me. I let a huge sigh of relief and ended the session on that note!!
Jingo: It seems since Jingo and I have started working together again, it is a whole new story. I hope this translates well on trial day. I think part of it is, I have learned a lot of new handling skills from my new training club; but also something is clicking better between me and Jingo. Things such as running the blinds and the long down have always been a problem for the both of us, but this time around he simply does it. He seems to responds very nicely to me and he has brought something to my attention.
Jingo has lots of baggage in tracking and it took an entire summer to fix it. The main issue he had to learn was to trust me and to trust him self in the track. With that, he has excelled wonderfully and is least now a consistent tracker with at times some really nice tracks. I don’t think he will ever be the best tracker because of all the mistakes that I have made with him, but he has it in him to do really well. For today’s track, I took him to the field thinking I probably shouldn’t tack him. Cosmo’s track was disappointing and in the hour that Jingo’s had aged, it also had started to sleet. I could hear my TD words of, “don’t set your dog up for failure!” echoing in my head; but of course I ignored them. The conditions were horrible, Jingo had a full belly from breakfast, but I decided to go for it. I put Jingo on the track and he took off at his normal slow and focused pace. He kept his nose deep in the track and showed great intensity. He nailed his corners and indicated each article nicely even though I had switched to my very small tracking articles. He was ON today!!! I also had committed the cardinal sin of loosing my track and Jingo guided me nicely. I forgot I had two more legs and was thinking the track ended, but when he turned I was confused. Glancing ahead, I spotted a piece of hot dog a few feet ahead, so we were indeed still on the track. He took one more turn and I was convinced we were off the track, but again glancing ahead I saw the very last article. I was pleasantly surprised by his magnificent track.
During obedience, I worked Jingo with his fur savor and bag of hot dogs. Jingo was doing fantastic, but in the back of my head I keep thinking about how he acts on trial day. It is always a different story. With that said, we had a small breakthrough. Or maybe I should say, Jingo taught me something. I tossed the Schutzhund three dumbbell and Jingo did his typical fast retrieve. He held it calmly in front of me and I was softly petting him rewarding him for his effort. I stepped to the side and I think he anticipated that I was going to take it and dropped it. I was getting ready to correct him, and he had that look that I only see on trial day and he started acting a fool. I could tell he was ready for a fight. I said “Bring” in an angry manner and he started running circles around me with that look that said, “come make me.” I repeated the command, and continued to see that conflicted look in his eye and it dawned on me; he didn’t trust me at that moment. He has been handled by several different people in the past, some of which were very heavy handed. I could tell at this moment, he was acting how he used to act about tracking. It took an entire summer to convince him tracking was fun and I realized that I needed to remind him obedience was fun to. I watched him run around with that look and then I repeated the command much calmer and softer, “Bring.” He stopped acting a fool and picked up the dumbbell and brought it to me. It sounds so simple, but past trainers had told me, “He is taking advantage of you, you are not able to correct him like he needs to be corrected, he needs to be taught a lesson….” I think our progress has been so good, because I no longer use anything but a fur savor and treats. Don’t get me wrong, he has corrections; but he doesn’t need a heavy hand. I realized in this moment, he needs to learn obedience isn’t about having your ass handed to you; but something fun we do together. I think this is why on trial day he acts like he has never done obedience before. He is very sensitive to me and when I am so nervous, shouting my commands at him, he thinks “To hell with you.” So I am going to give it my all, but I don’t know what I can do to calm myself down on the day of the trial. My multiple bad experiences of him running around like a freak has only continued to decrease my confidence. I am going to have to find a way to overcome this.
Ok, just wanted to let my fellow blog readers know that I haven’t stopped training, but not able to update as often as I would like. I am training two dogs for several trials this spring and find myself rather busy Between tracking, general obedience, teaching the send out, and retrieve; little time is left for updates. Hopefully my effort pays off or else my next post will be offering Jingo and Cosmo for sale 
Tracking hasn’t been as precise as I would like with both of the dogs because I have been focusing more on obedience over the last month. Plus the conditions have been miserable (windy, cold, & dry). I am not overly concerned because I can fix this a couple weeks out from trial time given the conditions are better.
Obedience: Yeah, huge progress here! Jingo has always been an Azzhole about running blinds, but since I have taken over handling him; he has run them EVERYTIME for me without a repeat command. He did it four times for me last Saturday, but he did get a little tuckered out since Ron had me spread the blinds across a huge field. The field was much bigger than anything he is used to running. The good thing is, with each time he ran the blinds he got tighter around them because he was getting tired and didn’t want to go as wide and increase his distance. His general obedience has sharpened much more since I have started working him with only a fur savor and Mr. Bamboo stick Gotta work smarter not harder!
Cosmo has made leaps and bounds in her obedience and for the first time did the complete BH routine on Saturday. She also did the send out, but I didn’t bother with the retrieve since I was asking a lot from her, to include a long down with another dog on the field. I am really pleased with her progression. The retrieve at home has been going smoothly. What I have noticed is day one she will learn the new skill and the next day she tries to do everything BUT the new skill. Once I spend day two letting her know all other options are not possible, she does well on day three, four, and so on….. I always hate day two!!
I am so proud of Cosmo in protection!! My girl seems to be getting stronger everyday and catching the attention of more and more people. I feel so fortunate to be able to train with some of the best people in the sport and only hope to accomplish something special with this girl. Her tracking, obedience, and protection keep getting better and better. Although, I pray to the dog gods that I don’t have another trial wise hound.
