‘A’ for Effort

Isaac may or may not ever achieve SchH III, but I think I should get an ‘A’ for effort. Here are a couple of shots of my hand after working him this afternoon. You may ask why. Trying to keep him working in drive of course.

Yep Ivan says teach the dog ‘look’ and teach it where the leg is separately, well it seems like there would be less blood involved. He also mentions something about respecting the hands, it seems apparent I’m flunking his method. On the other hand I will say that Isaac definitely seems engaged, and his poor aim hasn’t flowed over into his daily life (Noah and Bethany’s hands don’t look like this and he still seems safe at soccer games).

So as gruesome as it looks I think it’s working out quite well. Not sure if this was a bit delayed, but just today I started using voice commands with positions. Seems everyone has an opinion as to when to introduce the commands.

Swimming and Tracking are far less bloody endeavorers! Yes he gets corrected for mouthing me at other times during the day (nothing too harsh yet).

Sniffing and Swimming

Noah, Isaac, and I went out to the gun club this morning while the grass was still moist. Isaac worked three 8 to 10 foot tracks (trenched). Went as well as can be expected, he wasn’t as focused as when he searches for rabbit poop.

After tracking we went over to the pond and Isaac (with a little coaxing) stepped in. It took a little push to get all four feet in. We put some drive on him with fast moving twigs bouncing around and summer sausage stuck to the end of a stick. He went in a couple of time (walking around). I then gave him a little push to deeper water and he swam back to shore for some food and play. He went swimming a couple of times and was happy each time he got out, yet each time took a little push to get him back in the water. After the last swim jackpot-ed him at the shore and then ran around. Overall it went well. The bath when he got home did not go well-he doesn’t like baths.

Vacation

Since school ends for certain kids this week and certain parents next week I’ve taken the majority of the week off. That being said, Isaac has had the luxury of having entirely too much ‘free’ time around the house. So from now until Friday he’ll be spending a little more time in isolation and his interaction will be limited to work with me.

It seems I let him slip away from ‘paying attention’ to me while working. Even the rabbit poop is more interesting than me at this point, so we’ll see if we can bring back the ‘look’. He’s doing fine as a house pet, but the focus during work isn’t what it was a week or so ago and it seems to be a direct correlation to the liberties he’s been getting with his free time. There’s been more time spent socializing and exploring than working, which was probably a good thing, but it seems to have effected the other end of development as well.

Training in drive has become a little challenging because keeping him in drive is a little tougher since he’s been able to get that fulfilled on his own without me. He loves the tug and he likes the ball inside…the ball outside doesn’t hold what it used to. Still a food dude, but want to make sure I develop the ball with him.

The good thing is he still sleeps quietly in his crate a lot of the time, so either he’s lazy or growing. I think it’s the growing! I on the other hand am lazy and growing.

Did I mention he likes to bark?

Vacation

This is an old post I had saved as a draft and didn’t post

Since school ends for certain kids this week and certain parents next week I’ve taken the majority of the week off. That being said, Isaac has had the luxury of having entirely too much ‘free’ time around the house. So from now until Friday he’ll be spending a little more time in isolation and his interaction will be limited to work with me.

It seems I let him slip away from ‘paying attention’ to me while working. Even the rabbit poop is more interesting than me at this point, so we’ll see if we can bring back the ‘look’. He’s doing fine as a house pet, but the focus during work isn’t what it was a week or so ago and it seems to be a direct correlation to the liberties he’s been getting with his free time. There’s been more time spent socializing and exploring than working, which was probably a good thing, but it seems to have effected the other end of development as well.

Training in drive has become a little challenging because keeping him in drive is a little tougher since he’s been able to get that fulfilled on his own without me. He loves the tug and he likes the ball inside…the ball outside doesn’t hold what it used to. Still a food dude, but want to make sure I develop the ball with him.

The good thing is he still sleeps quietly in his crate a lot of the time, so either he’s lazy or growing. I think it’s the latter!