Betty goes out to play!
September 24, 2010
Maggie and Dennis!
Betty, Pie and I had a fun time yesterday with our friends!! I met up with Maggie and Annie and their dogs for some fun training Maggie style, which meant Annie and I and our dogs learning some fun tricks!! Maggie and Annie are also dog trainers, we don’t often manage to get together to train our own dogs, though after yesterday I think we will be making more effort to get together!
Maggie has Dennis a brother of Betty’s by a previous litter and of course Smarty her full brother of the same age, Annie has Bronte, the long-awaited puppy of Buffy and a month younger than Smarty and Betty. Annie also brought along Mel (nearly all black) another relative to Betty, though a little more distant.
Maggie has a great set up for her training and loads of agility equipment and other toys for tricks! Betty showed off her skate boarding and Maggie gave me some tips to progress her on some. Bronte began her skateboarding experience and did jolly good, I think Annie will be buying her a skate board :)! Dennis showed us his tricks, old and new, he is such a great dog and Maggie is such a fun trainer, no wonder they both enjoy themselves so much!
It was so lovely to see the pups together. The big advantage of having Betty out with other dog trainers puppy’s was being able to practice recalling her when they were playing and as they all live with grown up dogs, who won’t let them be rude, the play was at a calm level where recalling was relatively easy, the puppy’s had a good lesson together all off lead and playing with their respective owners! Well most of the time:)
I have come home with a lot of new tricks to teach you at the trick training session in October:) give me a ring if you are interested!
I have been a bit slack with the blog for a week or two, I was just not in the mood to write after I heard that an old and dear friend had died suddenly! His name was Michael Sharply, better known in the horse world. Michael was my first mentor for horses from when I was 13, I worked my weekends and school holidays, through to leaving school and going full-time with him until I married. He was the greatest teacher and a complete encyclopedia on horses and their training. I know he will be much missed by all who knew him. There is memorial service for him in Bocking next week which I know will be attended by hundreds of people who had the good fortune to know him!
Betty and wheels and being a sheepdog!
July 21, 2010
Betty is mostly Border Collie, which means the herding instinct is strong for her! The first signs of this with Betty, and a lot of puppies, is she is interested in small wheels, things like the wheelie bins, wheelbarrows, vacuum cleaner and the hose reel winding and unwinding!
This innocent behaviour can rapidly turn into larger machines like lawn mowers, bicycles, motor bikes and cars! A very dangerous hobby for any dog!And herding is only found in Collies, many breeds can display this behaviour.
Luckily I know my Collies and I take action as soon as the early signs show themselves. For those that read the blog regularly you already know that where ever possible I want Betty to learn from her environment, as opposed to me constantly nagging her and saying “no”! The action I take when Betty starts chasing the wheel barrow wheel is to keep walking, not go round her, she is small so I don’t want to squash her too much, I walk slowly and deliberately, keeping to my chosen path, it is her job to get out-of-the-way! Rather she gets bumped by the barrow wheel than by a car! I do the same with the wheelie bins and the vacuum cleaner, with the vacuum I do push it at her a bit more deliberately, as it is lighter and hurts less if she isn’t quick enough! I also push the vacuum at her if she goes for the cable, I want her to learn very quickly not to go for electric cable!
I must add I don’t move these tools in a playful way, not too fast, as that may be enticing, but a boring ploddy sort of way! plus when I sweeping or mopping I put her in crate, these tools are just too tempting and she would learn more chase from these, the odd bump would not deter her:)
I was delighted this morning when I vacuumed that Betty did not attempt to chase the vacuum nor attack the cable!! 🙂 A step closer to keeping her safe in life!
Betty
Betty watching and not chasing!
has more than enough outlets for her natural instincts when herding me on a walk :), playing retrieve and other toy based games!
Tye and Kaycie are very clever!!
July 19, 2010
Vikki Stone kindly sent in some photo’s of her Border Collies, and what great ones they are!! Thank you so much Vikki! I love the canoe one best 🙂 And I see that Maggie is doing some advertising in one shot!! 🙂 she gets in everywhere!
“Tye 3yr old black and white border collie and Kaycie 4yr old red and white border collie both are rescue dogs from different backgrounds. Tye came from a family who could not look after him no more and kaycie came from a show breeder where she lived outside with other dogs that started picking on her. now both my dogs take part in fun agility, obedience, flyball,and clicker training at allsorts dog training school. Hope you like the pics. vikki xxx”
Vikki competing at agility
Lovely eyes!
Avril's favourite!! 🙂
Chill out time!
Great photo!
What Betty taught the dog trainer!
July 6, 2010
Betty learning to sit
and down
High five!
Betty watching me!
Well this blog is really an exciting one for me to write, I am so excited by Betty and her training at just 11 weeks old!!!! As you won’t be able to guess what she did before I finish writing 🙂 I will just have to tell you :).
Betty went “down” on a word command only when she was 10 feet from me!!! yes she did! If you are not as amazed as me I want to know how come you are so clever:) ? And I will come to you for training!
It was just last Wednesday that she went down in front of me for the first time without my usual hand signal, and I think it only took that long because I have been teaching her sit, down and high-five! Normally I stick to 2 positions until a puppy gets them before introducing more, so she was slower than my other puppies have been to go down without a signal close by, but I think it has paid off! I obviously still have a lot to learn about dog training!
I haven’t ever asked a puppy of this age to go down at a distance from me before but 2 things happened earlier in the day that told me that Betty was cleverer than I was letting her be!
firstly the stuff we were doing in the kitchen and garden were so easy for her, I see it as easy for a puppy when they do the exercise really fast, and she was jet propelled!
But secondly it was when I was play retrieving with her in the garden. We had got into the habit when I threw a toy of her coming and lying behind me when I was sat on the grass, today I thought that is weird how I have let her do that, but like every dog owner I want success for her and I had continued to accept this as good enough, mmmm I thought, she is a Collie and I know her training genes, and she is well-bred for training, I wonder? The next time she laid behind me with the toy, I didn’t look round, I stayed looking forward and said, daftly I know:) “Where’s Betty, oh Betty puppy, Betty Boop” and she came to the front of me! Well that was it now I knew she was being a Collie!!!! Collies will always try to control the game, herd the person and toy together, and that is what she was doing, albeit in a small way, she was turning me, just as Collies turn sheep! So no more turning from me, I threw the toy a couple more times, both times she went behind and both times I said “where’s Betty” and she came back round even faster, the third time I threw the toy she came straight to me in front! What is great is that not only have I made a big step in her retrieve I know more about Betty now too a lot more!
I must add when I say throwing the toy, I do only throw the toy a few feet from us, it is hot and she is young, I don’t want her exhausted:)
Anyway that is why I was thinking I have to push this little girl a bit more, not in a pressured way but simply ask and see what happens, I did just that. Which is why we came to be walking around the paddock, me with Betty’s dinner in my pocket and having done a few of the normal sits and downs and comes and high fives all as we walked around the paddock, I waited for her to wander away from me a little and said “Betty down” and she did, so having given her 5 bits of food in my excitement:) I continued to wait for her to go a bit further and try again! And, as I said before, she did it!!
No holding us back now, I am going to have to rack my brains for this little one to see what more we can do, while of course keeping these bits going!! 🙂
I must add too that since that first time Betty went down without the hand signal I sense her listening to me more, I could a bit before, but it is like now she has one word she wants to understand more! She is certainly responding appropriately when I say things like “where is it” when playing and similar. She may not know the words completely yet, but she is trying too and the best dog to train is the willing one:)!
I look forward to hearing about the words and signals your dogs understand and/or how they have surprised you:)?
The puppy class at work and play!
July 5, 2010
The stars of this show are Lisa and Teddy (Bichon cross Cavalier King Charles Spaniel) Hilary and Truffle (Labradoodle) Shirley and Abby (Chocolate Labrador) and Pauline and Ben (miniature Schnauzer)
We always begin our puppy class with the owners sitting on chairs with the leads under a leg to allow the pups to settle and learn not to pull themselves! This time we went straight on to teaching the puppies not to jump up, we took it in turns to walk towards them and turn away abruptly if the pups jumped, very soon the pups were not jumping and we were able to greet them with their bottoms on the floor!
These pups are only on their 4th week of training, they are progressing so fast, at this age the puppy is very willing to learn and hasn’t yet the confidence to be too naughty, that will come a bit later when they go past 6 months, the teenager time is the most challenging period of training! Ben, Teddy and Truffle can do some positions on command now, only using the hand signal when they are distracted. We have also begun come to call, walking on a lead and they all learning to be very patient when groomed!
Ian has taken some wonderful photo’s of them, here is a selection! I plan to add some to the main website over the coming week.
For those of you commenting, if you are a subscriber and click on the email, it seems I am not getting them, could you go on the web site to leave comments please? I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Naughty Pugs!
July 5, 2010
A picture says it all!
How about a Pug for the next Andrex dog!!
Thank you to Bella for these great photo’s of naughty Pugs! Though I do think one of them was just saying I want to be an Andrex puppy! I won’t comment on the other one, Bella was not amused:)
Please keep sending in your photo’s I am enjoying them 🙂 and I think everyone else is?
The intermediate class at work and play!
July 2, 2010
Ian came along to take photo’s of the classes this week, some brilliant pictures, the only problem is there are so many of them! Here are some for starters! Sadly Louise and Paddy who are usually at class couldn’t make it this week so no photo’s of Paddy 😦
More to come soon!
This group is intermediate level now, though they are all still youngsters they are progressing well, which means we get to have more fun times at class as we try out more advanced exercises. And it isn’t true that all I do is sit in the garden and watch when I am working, it is a wicked rumour! 🙂
If you are receiving this as a subscriber you will have to log on the main site to view the slide show, and it seems comments don’t work unless you on the web blog version.
Nessa does some gardening!
July 1, 2010
Thank you so much Sue Harris for sending in these photo’s of Nessa giving you a little help in the garden! Nessa comes to class on a Thursday morning, watch out Nessa I will get you to dig the Veg plot over come the autumn!
Please send in your photo’s if you would like to see them on the blog!
What hole?!
Wasn't me!
Avril Munson's Blog 