Recount of last weekend

Work has been hell this week, so I haven't had time to write anything about last weekend but here are the highlights.

Saturday
I drove to Jyväskylä to get some dog food and took Riva with me. After picking up the food I took him for a walk dowtown Jyväskylä. It went surprisingly well, considering this was the first time I managed to take him there. We have been going for walks in Lievestuore but there is not much to distract him there... The weather was not very good, it was raining on and off, so there were not that many people out and about which was good for us. At first Riva wanted to go greet all the people walking by but pretty soon he figured out that every time a person was approaching us I had treats to offer and he started to focus more on me. We walked around for a while, I stopped to look at some window displays and he could look at people passing. He also met the big elf-puppet that is often outside a crafts shop. We walked around the corner and the big old thing was right in front of us, Riva went back half a step from surprise, then he went right in to investigate this funny human shaped but not human smelling thingy. I just love how well he recovers from situations :-).

Sunday
Another search training. Riva had again five victims, so called "ghosts". Before I took him to the search are the people walked halfway to their hiding place and then the rest of the way before I sent Riva to find them. He did great. Still teaching him to advance straight ahead in the direction I point. I don't think he really needs any more of this type of exercises. We could do some more of reaction/wind type of exercises to reinforce using scent to locate people and I really need to start training his alert.

Sunday's search training

I didn't have time to write yesterday about our search training on Sunday so here it is.

Riva had five "victims" and I had a person waiting halfway to the search area when I brought him to the center line. After I pointed him to the direction I wanted him to search, the victim would walk a little way to the opposite direction from us and then hide behind a bush or something. Then I would let Riva go and he would run to the victim and get his reward. While Riva was eating the treats from the victim I walk up to them and calmly attached his leash. Then we went back to the centerline together and an other person would be waiting on the other side for a similar excercise. The idea of this excercise is to teach him to go straight forward into the direction I point, there is not much searching involved in this kind of excercise. Riva did well, he advanced to the people who were about 30-40 meters away without hesitation, and I didn't screw up badly either.

I think we will start working on his alert behaviour soon. I'm glad that at least so far it looks like bark alert will suit him very well, he is open, friendly and confident with people in all kinds of situations. I'm not very familiar with bringsel alert and there are some aspects in it that I don't like, mainly the high risk for false alerts.

New Pictures

A few new pictures of Riva in the album.

Outside kennel half finished

The dogs propably thought that this was the most boring weekend for ages. We were building the outside kennels and I had to keep the dogs mostly inside so they wouldn't be in the way. Two truckloads of sand and a truckload of crushed stone went to the bottom of the kennels and the fence posts are up but the fence is not in place yet. There are two kennel runs, one 10x10 meters and a smaller one 3.5x10 meters. The bottom should stay pretty dry, it’s a bit higher than surrounding ground and the crushed stone lets water pass through easily.

After the excavator was gone Riva had a blast running in the open space cleared for the kennels and the soft sand that had been spread on top of the crushed stone.

Training session with Salme

We had an other session with Salme and she was very impressed with Riva's progress. It surprised me because we haven't practiced our "homework" all that much. I told Monica that I'm a lazy trainer and like a dog that doesn't need a lot of repetitions to pick up things :-). I obviously got what I asked for.

His sit is quite good, we have been practicing that already with some distractions and his down is coming along very nicely, he even surprised me by actually downing on verbal cue eventhough I only introduced it a few sessions ago. I just need to have faith on him and start fading lures and physical cues fast so that he doesn't become dependent on them. Salme said he is ready to start learning stand, too, so then we would have all three positions. His front finish is awesome, he comes right in and lays his jaw flat against me, I just need to start fading the lure and hands on that one too. Heeling is still in very early stages but its started.

One thing I noticed during the session is that I need to be more carefull with the in-between-time. He concentrates fully on what we are doing, but if my attention is not 100% on him, he will start exploring and goes to say hi to people etc. He comes right back when I call him but I don't want him to learn that when my attention falters he can do what he wants. So until he is ready to wait under command while I talk to someone or get more treats or something, I hold him by the collar or put him into a lead (we generally train off lead from the start).

I also stayed to watch while two other of Salme's students practiced. You can learn so much by watching other people and dogs work.

Sure footing

I think I have mentioned that Riva likes jumping but he also likes climbing. He's delightfully sure footed and not reckless but he clearly enjoys climbing and balancing in different places. Before he came I had planned that I would build some small obstacles, a ramp, a teeter and such for him to practice safely moving on different sufaces but never got around to it. Well, seems like there is no need for them either, he has been very creative at finding his own strange surfaces to practice on :-). Tilting, slippery, rough, rustling or creaking, you name it, he's fine with everything. Like the shaky pile of old insulation boards that creaked and tilted, moving tarp that I was trying to straighten on the lawn and much more. A very good quality for a future SAR dog I think. We'll have to see if we can do some rubble pile work after all eventhough that is not very likely to be relly needed in our area.

The plans to build an outside kennel are also finally progressing! Dad and I drove to Kuopio on Saturday to go get some posts and chainlink fence and if we can get a excavator for next weekend we'll be putting the fences up. And it only took two years talking about it to my father ;-).

Long time no see

Its been a while since the last entry. Nothing extraordinary has happened, we had a third meeting with Salme and Riva is still progressing nicely in the excercises, I have done a few tracks for Riva, a few search trainings and we train a bit of basic obedience every day but that's it.

One of the few issues we have had with Riva is handling & grooming. He does not appreciate being restrained and in the beginning just picking him up resulted in squirming and mouthing and, if that didn't work, screaming bloody murder. We have been working on this. Clipping nails has actually been the easiest thing and he is getting better with brushing and combing. He is also learning to relax while being held, in the beginning he would barely stay calmly when held sitting in my lap, now he will relax quite well when held on his side and will even accept (though not relax yet) being held on his back. Its funny, because he accepted quite easily being restrained with safety harness but a person holding him is a totally different thing and a lot harder for him. Its a lesson he has to learn though, sometimes there just are situations where you have to be able to restrain or hold your dog (like at the vet's) and you don't want a dog fighting you then.