vikingdobermans.com Blog

Weekend Training

Charlie Brown and Henrietta, the Playboy bunny….

Those pesky April showers managed to arrive with a vengence on Friday and return today, Monday, but Saturday and Sunday were dry and warm!  Other than a very windy day Saturday, the weekend was beautiful.  A great day for Commonwealth to have a Helper’s seminar. 

I didn’t track Saturday–too windy for a novice dog and handler to track alone.  Instead I went to the Helper’s seminar to listen and learn.  GREAT teachers and attentive audience.  Butch, Ron, Greg all provided hands on learning opportunities and they invited the peanut gallery to come out and listen and learn.  Club members provided a variety of dogs for the Helpers to practice their new skills and techniques and the dogs were given a wide variety of helpers to test.

Charlie worked twice, both times on the escape bite and reattack, something he needs to learn and perfect.  His technique in the reattack keeps him from moving easily with the helper and I’ve been told he is much like a Rottie–he hunkers down and if the helper does not have him in the “pocket”, Charlie will control the exercise. 

Sunday, was more of the same, only a nicer day…  I went tracking in the morning at Villa Julie College.

Charlie did a good job.  I walked him to the scent box (into the wind).  Box had five or six pieces of food.  Charlie struggled to find the correct way to leave the box as I have not worked him on coming into the box from one direction and leaving to the right or left.  He worked at it and found the correct direction and off we went.  We had company as “Ice” was there laying a track for his dog and he tagged along.  Good for Charlie to have company.  Charlie worked the higher grass and was not as settled on the first leg, but he settled in very nicely once we left the higher grass for the low cut grass (he had to work harder in the lower stuff and I think that made him concentrate).  He was not hectic, but he did pull a bit more when there was not food for a stretch.  I gently reminded him to “go easy”.  He indicated all three articles and except for the second article which was on a leg going directly into the wind, he was pretty consistent with the foot print to foot print tracking.  On the leg into the wind with the article, it was obvious he caught the scent of the article and the four or so steps before the article were mostly skipped.  I had food in all the corners but the last one and he did them all, including the last one, well.  Even with the wind blowing, he stayed in the track except for one or two times.  All in all, a very successful track with good learning opportunities for us both.  I definately paid more attention to Charlie and his body language and I’m learning to be aware of the track.  Of course, lots of the good behavior on both my handling part and on Charlie’s part, becomes less evident when the conditions are poor.  I attribute that to my handling as much or more than I do to Charlie.  He can’t learn if I can’t teach….

On the protection field, we worked on control and on Charlie’s technique with the reattack exercise. 

A very successful day that we ended with a walk in the fields by my house before it got dark.