Grafton 5/31/13

Rock Wall  Grafton was really distracted by Harley's yelping.  I'd like to try in future practices getting him out and just giving him a minute or two to adapt to the environment before he starts his search.  It might help him to be more focused during the search.  Don't let me forget to do this.  The nice part was that you let him look and then when you redirected him back to the search - he went directly to a hide.  Overall these more challenging environments will have him overprepared for most trial environments.  Do note how his tail just keeps wagging and wagging the whole time you are talking to him while rewarding him - he likes rewards, but he loves having his Mum tell him how he's a good boy.  I liked at the 2:30 minute place where you fed him from the source that he was looking at, and then he decided he was brave enough to put his feet up there.  I am soooo going to get some chalk before we do something like this again.

Trailers  I was shocked to see this search went on for about 10 minutes!  I am really surprised that he was willing to persist that long.  Do note about 2:07 how you pulled him off odor... he was headed toward the hide on the "bumper" and you stopped him, probably because you could see the hide on top of the tire.  Good job encouraging him to get his feet up on the tire.  Do keep in mind, that these are pretty acceptable times.  He'd found three hides in under three minutes... so that is good enough to get him through NW2... and since our practice hides don't have time to cook - they are actually harder than what he'd see at a trial.  I did notice that his tail wasn't going as still when he'd find odor as it has in the past.  So we'll have to watch that - it may be as he gains in confidence, that particular tell may change or disappear.  We'll have to work at least one higher hide for each of these boys each time we get together... just to give them confidence to get their feet up on things.  If you watch on the video... that leftmost hide on the third trailer - Grafton looks up right where it is a couple of times.  It almost looked like he knew where it was, but didn't know what to do it about it and the trip taking you under the trailer was just his way of trying to solve the problem.  You could also teach him to stand up on his back legs as a trick, to give him confidence.  This is actually giving me an idea for an exercise.... hmmmmm...  I really like the way he worked out the source on the hide at the tires on the second trailer.  I do notice you doing a lot of "looking" to see where the hides are - and I think this is messing with your handling.  We need to decide in advance if these are blind or not and if not - remind me to show you where each one is.  If they are blind - no looking, you won't get any advantage in a trial so there is no point in doing that now.  I don't know what happened that we lost the end of this tape...

Containers  Just as a reminder - the bag after the box you called alert on was the one with odor and he left it.  The large-long dark bag right next to the curb was also odor.   You'll note how he looked expectantly at you when you called "alert"... so its becoming a reward marker for him, just as happened with Gimme.  That's why I now call out "bell", "book" and "candle" in classes and change it up each week.  The first actual alert on containers, his tail did go still.  The third time he went to the other odor bag, he walked up to it and stopped, looking at you.  We totally have to work on his alert.  Granted this challenge is beyond what he needs for NW1... but he should be developing a more reliable alert by now.  These "look at handler" alerts aren't clear enough for man or beast.  That's my opine and I'm stickin' with it.

Tucker & Grafton 5/31/13

First off, an apology.  I think I set up challenges that were too hard for the boys.  I realized later that I set them up more because I wanted to do them with Gimme. 

Don't get me wrong... I'm sure no harm was done and I'm equally sure the boys learned from the experience, which in itself is a good thing.  But it was, I think, too much of a good thing to do both the wall and the trailers on the same day.  And it would probably have been better to do less than eight hides on each.

Soooo for the next few weeks, I want to back down to simpler stuff to keep the motivation high and to focus on containers for the boys.  With maybe one exterior hide to go along with it.  Next time we get together, we'll all bring boxes and set up a blind ORT for Mary & Grafton.