TRACKING SEMINAR
Saturday & Sunday, May 25 & 26, 2013
Start Time: 8:30 a.m. (CST) each day
Location: Glendhenmere Kennels south of Murray, KY, or Paducah Kennel Club Building and Grounds
Fisher Road, Paducah, KY
Hosted by: The German Shepherd Dog Club of West KY
This will be a seminar of interest to both beginners and experienced
trackers. You will be introduced to some new and more efficient ways to
reach your scent work goals. The main focus will be on quickly and
efficiently obtaining AKC Tracking titles and improving scores on the
Schutzhund Tracking fields. Instructor: Dr. Mary Belle Adelman AKC
Tracking judge and NASA Schutzhund judge.
Some of the things covered will include:
* Introduction to scent work for practical use and competition
* Setting realistic goals
* How to keep your air scenting dog on the track
* Are you training your dog to fail?
* Plus lots more!
We plan on running at least 4 individual tracks with every dog during
the two day event, so come prepared to work. Bring good working gear
including rain equipment. It could be wet—you know KY
Pre-registration gets a free tracking lead. All other $150. Early
registration is encouraged. The Seminar is limited to 20 working dogs
slots (limited audit slots). Location will depend upon number of
entries. Only one dog, per participant, to work. All dogs must be
crated, plenty of room outside with shade..
There will be
continental breakfast and lunch provided both days, plus many food
establishments are located within 15 minutes of the seminar site. If we
have over 15 entries we will probably move to he PKC which has a great
facility including: Indoor Training and eating area, plus 19 acres of
tracking just outside the door. Good crating both inside and outside
under cover.
Instructor: Dr Mary Belle Adelman (AKC judge in
conformation, herding, obedience, tracking; and former Schutzhund judge.
Author of The German Shepherd Dog Handbook)
For Registration Form and Directions, please contact:
Dr. Adelman at maryba@toast.net or phone 270-436-2858
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Workshop In Progress
I'm getting back to my scentwork roots with my dog-training lessons. Mostly, lately, I've been offering obedience training in a format resembling piano lessons: bring 'em in young and practice, practice, practice. However, it's not paying the feed bills all that well, so I'm offering something that most training facilities don't. Coming May 18, the "My Dog Can Do That" SAR workshop.
You see, SAR is something lots of people want to try without making a commitment, and it's also something where the groups who have made the commitment don't want to use training time on dilettantes. I figure there's probably a niche there for me.
My husband says my ad should include the number of hours I've trained. I'm not sure what that is over the course of the four years I was actively training in SAR, never mind the more casual observations, related training, and book-reading since then, but I am pretty sure that nobody'd believe the number if I came up with one that was even close. A lot, okay? I worked Sunny a couple of hours a day minimum nearly every day for four years, and participated in two to six group trainings with other dogs every month for most of those four years, plus a few in the following year as helper and advice-giver.
He also says I shouldn't mention the thorns and poison ivy, but that's part of a realistic SAR experience. If you haven't done a faceplant into one or the other, you haven't really trained. Likewise, if you've never had a Labrador get tangled in your hair, you've never properly hidden from a search dog. It isn't a comfortable pastime. It is a worthwhile one, though.
I think what worries me is that total strangers are going to ask why I'm not still in SAR, and I'm not quite sure they'll understand the answer, "My partner died." In most fields of dog training, you just train another one. This was different, at least for me. Which I'm going to have to get comfortable explaining, apparently.
You see, SAR is something lots of people want to try without making a commitment, and it's also something where the groups who have made the commitment don't want to use training time on dilettantes. I figure there's probably a niche there for me.
My husband says my ad should include the number of hours I've trained. I'm not sure what that is over the course of the four years I was actively training in SAR, never mind the more casual observations, related training, and book-reading since then, but I am pretty sure that nobody'd believe the number if I came up with one that was even close. A lot, okay? I worked Sunny a couple of hours a day minimum nearly every day for four years, and participated in two to six group trainings with other dogs every month for most of those four years, plus a few in the following year as helper and advice-giver.
He also says I shouldn't mention the thorns and poison ivy, but that's part of a realistic SAR experience. If you haven't done a faceplant into one or the other, you haven't really trained. Likewise, if you've never had a Labrador get tangled in your hair, you've never properly hidden from a search dog. It isn't a comfortable pastime. It is a worthwhile one, though.
I think what worries me is that total strangers are going to ask why I'm not still in SAR, and I'm not quite sure they'll understand the answer, "My partner died." In most fields of dog training, you just train another one. This was different, at least for me. Which I'm going to have to get comfortable explaining, apparently.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The Tradition of Tail Docking
I don't have a docked breed. I have friends who do, and who feel passionately about the matter. Sometimes this passion is beyond my comprehension, I have to admit.
For instance, the current kerfuffle in the world of Rottweilers, apparently, is whether or not the AKC breed standard should include a description of a correct undocked tail. Personally, I think they can either say nothing and end up with every European Rottie with a rotten tail over here where the judges don't know what's wrong with it, or they can ban undocked Rotties from the ring altogether and lose pretty much all international competition, because most of Europe has now banned the practice of docking. Either one seems like a bad outcome to me, since it's all about something non-genetic in a forum that's supposed to be all about fitness to breed, and I doubt every tailed Rottie in Europe is completely devoid of good genes. However, I'm not a Rottie person.
I've asked what the justification for docking is, and I've had a couple of answers, but the upshot is that traditionally the Rottie pulled carts and was a cattle drover. Now, there are carting breeds with tails and cattle dogs with tails, but--okay. Tradition has spoken. We have here an argument from tradition. I herd sheep with my shepherd, which is about as traditional an activity as you could want.
However, I have some problems with arguments from tradition, and the big one is that traditionally humans can be a pretty rotten species. For instance, if you have one of the large South American breeds that descended from the Spanish mastiff types, you might have trouble feeding it a traditional diet. You see, they were fed the quartered remains of the Inquisition as it took place on this side of the Atlantic. If you want to run down to Pet Supermarket and see if they have a nice bag of kibbled unbeliever in between the no-grain lamb and the Olde Fashioned Midden Heape special, go ahead. I'll wait here and you can report back, but I suspect that's a special-order item.
Given that we've abandoned traditions before, it may be time to find a fresh argument for things like tails. I can understand cropped ears: many breeds have very delicate ears that are easily shredded if they gallop through a thorn bush as dogs seem to be crazy to do, and cropping toughens the edges. Docking a Dobe I kind of get, as they have very slender tails which are easily broken when they clear something too solid off your coffee table. But a Rottie tail? It's just like a shepherd's tail. Solid, nice curve, normally carried low enough that if it was interfering with a cart, the dog's trotting hocks would be, too.
So I still don't get it. Comments are welcome if you think you can explain it better, honest. I'm open to being convinced. I'm not militantly anti-docking or anything, I just don't understand.
For instance, the current kerfuffle in the world of Rottweilers, apparently, is whether or not the AKC breed standard should include a description of a correct undocked tail. Personally, I think they can either say nothing and end up with every European Rottie with a rotten tail over here where the judges don't know what's wrong with it, or they can ban undocked Rotties from the ring altogether and lose pretty much all international competition, because most of Europe has now banned the practice of docking. Either one seems like a bad outcome to me, since it's all about something non-genetic in a forum that's supposed to be all about fitness to breed, and I doubt every tailed Rottie in Europe is completely devoid of good genes. However, I'm not a Rottie person.
I've asked what the justification for docking is, and I've had a couple of answers, but the upshot is that traditionally the Rottie pulled carts and was a cattle drover. Now, there are carting breeds with tails and cattle dogs with tails, but--okay. Tradition has spoken. We have here an argument from tradition. I herd sheep with my shepherd, which is about as traditional an activity as you could want.
However, I have some problems with arguments from tradition, and the big one is that traditionally humans can be a pretty rotten species. For instance, if you have one of the large South American breeds that descended from the Spanish mastiff types, you might have trouble feeding it a traditional diet. You see, they were fed the quartered remains of the Inquisition as it took place on this side of the Atlantic. If you want to run down to Pet Supermarket and see if they have a nice bag of kibbled unbeliever in between the no-grain lamb and the Olde Fashioned Midden Heape special, go ahead. I'll wait here and you can report back, but I suspect that's a special-order item.
Given that we've abandoned traditions before, it may be time to find a fresh argument for things like tails. I can understand cropped ears: many breeds have very delicate ears that are easily shredded if they gallop through a thorn bush as dogs seem to be crazy to do, and cropping toughens the edges. Docking a Dobe I kind of get, as they have very slender tails which are easily broken when they clear something too solid off your coffee table. But a Rottie tail? It's just like a shepherd's tail. Solid, nice curve, normally carried low enough that if it was interfering with a cart, the dog's trotting hocks would be, too.
So I still don't get it. Comments are welcome if you think you can explain it better, honest. I'm open to being convinced. I'm not militantly anti-docking or anything, I just don't understand.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Back to Tracking after Hiatus
We're working again! Now the toddler is old enough to scout along and take an interest. He may be a serious mantracker by the time he's old enough to do it for real; he likes to range ahead and find the articles before the dog does.
Dustin didn't forget much while he was working a track every month or two, at least. He still prefers to work on oak leaves rather than grass and still hates to work on pine needles. He is beginning to dislike his mini-tracks and look at me as though it's time for the articles to be more than 25 paces apart. I may have to expand out of my couple-acre yard for him.
Bruce still hates to lie down in wet grass and still likes to track. He tried to steal the puppy's track today after running his own. He's houndy in his preferences -- finding an article, no matter how marvelous the reward, is still not as great as going on down the line and into the wild blue yonder. He still needs the occasional anchor point, though, or he'll forget what he's after and crusade on squirrel scent instead. Something has to keep him on the same line.
Then there's the puppy, called variously Bronwyn or Bronnie. She was in a box of puppies in the Wal-Mart parking lot, officiated over by two young men claiming to have pit-bull/bullmastiff mixes "worth $200" but they were only asking $20. I picked up the coal-black one, who was going limp with heat exhaustion (this was August, and the security guard had chased them out of the shade by the door, and they weren't about to retreat out of the main thoroughfare for the next nearest shade), petted on her a little and discovered she was sweet, and handed over $20. I thought finding her a new home once she was hydrated, wormed, and obedience-started wouldn't be all that hard.
Hah.
However, even on very fresh trails, she sticks her nose down and finds footprints. I found this interesting. She's very keen to learn as much about the world through her nose as possible. She's also a climbing, jumping, rough-terrain fool. So, lacking any better ideas, I've started her on formal tracking. She's not showing any signs of being an AKC breed or some reasonable approximation, though she's emphatically too small and narrow-muzzled to make bullmastiff ancestors deeply unlikely, so we probably won't be titling. Perhaps we can do some SAR track-trail certifying instead. I also started her on the game of Find My Old Wisdom Tooth, which she likes a lot. Pseudo is on order from Sigma. The pipe dream is that she'll be good enough at all this that someone will go do SAR work with her. I don't expect to be deploy-able anytime soon.
Dustin didn't forget much while he was working a track every month or two, at least. He still prefers to work on oak leaves rather than grass and still hates to work on pine needles. He is beginning to dislike his mini-tracks and look at me as though it's time for the articles to be more than 25 paces apart. I may have to expand out of my couple-acre yard for him.
Bruce still hates to lie down in wet grass and still likes to track. He tried to steal the puppy's track today after running his own. He's houndy in his preferences -- finding an article, no matter how marvelous the reward, is still not as great as going on down the line and into the wild blue yonder. He still needs the occasional anchor point, though, or he'll forget what he's after and crusade on squirrel scent instead. Something has to keep him on the same line.
Then there's the puppy, called variously Bronwyn or Bronnie. She was in a box of puppies in the Wal-Mart parking lot, officiated over by two young men claiming to have pit-bull/bullmastiff mixes "worth $200" but they were only asking $20. I picked up the coal-black one, who was going limp with heat exhaustion (this was August, and the security guard had chased them out of the shade by the door, and they weren't about to retreat out of the main thoroughfare for the next nearest shade), petted on her a little and discovered she was sweet, and handed over $20. I thought finding her a new home once she was hydrated, wormed, and obedience-started wouldn't be all that hard.
Hah.
However, even on very fresh trails, she sticks her nose down and finds footprints. I found this interesting. She's very keen to learn as much about the world through her nose as possible. She's also a climbing, jumping, rough-terrain fool. So, lacking any better ideas, I've started her on formal tracking. She's not showing any signs of being an AKC breed or some reasonable approximation, though she's emphatically too small and narrow-muzzled to make bullmastiff ancestors deeply unlikely, so we probably won't be titling. Perhaps we can do some SAR track-trail certifying instead. I also started her on the game of Find My Old Wisdom Tooth, which she likes a lot. Pseudo is on order from Sigma. The pipe dream is that she'll be good enough at all this that someone will go do SAR work with her. I don't expect to be deploy-able anytime soon.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Training the Broad Jump
I've been working on Dustin's broad jump lately, as one of the Graduate Novice and Open exercises, partly because it's good for both our fitness levels and partly because he finds jumping to be fun. I like to be a couple of exercises ahead of our actual titles, so we'll go into the Novice ring pretty soon with some Open exercises already in progress. Besides, the broad jump is in the yard, nice and available, and we can work a couple of jumps a day.
We started with a couple of boards broad way out, so they didn't look like something to walk on, very narrow, so he could just hop over. We had a target in a straight line from his sit through the middle of the jump, and he went to the target, or I stood in that spot and had him come to me. He already has some idea that "jump" means "don't go around" from other work.
From there I started making the jump a little bigger and putting more of the boards in their flatter configuration. After a week or so, I now only have to put the leading board edge-up to remind him what to do, and he'll sail over the full distance very nicely.
If I put the leading board flat, though, he suddenly re-interprets the exercise. He's quite nimble and quite able to trot along with his feet neatly hitting the center of each board, and he's such a show-off he's very proud of being able to do this. I'm half-pleased. He knows where his back feet are, which is oddly rare in shepherds, and this means he spends a lot less time planting them on my toes. However, that's not a jump.
And I find myself saying things like, "On what planet is that a jump?" as I take him back around and put the lead board back up again. He, of course, has not answered me, and if he does, we have a whole new area of communication to explore.
We started with a couple of boards broad way out, so they didn't look like something to walk on, very narrow, so he could just hop over. We had a target in a straight line from his sit through the middle of the jump, and he went to the target, or I stood in that spot and had him come to me. He already has some idea that "jump" means "don't go around" from other work.
From there I started making the jump a little bigger and putting more of the boards in their flatter configuration. After a week or so, I now only have to put the leading board edge-up to remind him what to do, and he'll sail over the full distance very nicely.
If I put the leading board flat, though, he suddenly re-interprets the exercise. He's quite nimble and quite able to trot along with his feet neatly hitting the center of each board, and he's such a show-off he's very proud of being able to do this. I'm half-pleased. He knows where his back feet are, which is oddly rare in shepherds, and this means he spends a lot less time planting them on my toes. However, that's not a jump.
And I find myself saying things like, "On what planet is that a jump?" as I take him back around and put the lead board back up again. He, of course, has not answered me, and if he does, we have a whole new area of communication to explore.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Tracking on a Retractable
This morning I laid and ran a short track for Dustin -- it's getting too hot too early to do much work, but he had an eighty-pace track (plus bonus stretch) with several turns and a couple of different surfaces. I walked on a low balance beam for part, for instance, which gave him no particular problem. Some of the grass was short enough to be nearly bare earth, some quite tall, as the neighbor mows more religiously and more thoroughly than I do. Articles were cloth start; metal, plastic and paper in the middle; a leather/cloth wallet to end formally, and twenty more paces to a tennis ball -- which he also treated formally. This is, after all, the dog who will lie down and stare at a food bait instead of gobbling it.
He's not working perfectly footprint-to-footprint, but he is getting pretty clear on the concept of working closely. This is good enough for AKC tracking rules. He is gradually learning I don't like him to get distracted. He's weirdly sensitive to pressure on the tracking line for a dog who will merrily drag me everywhere on his leather collar and a walk. Right now I'm working him on a retractable leash, which puts very little pressure on his harness. If he is clearly dinking around, I can just give the handle a shake and convey just enough wiggle to let him know I've noticed, and that's just enough to wake him up and get him back to work. If he's feeling confident, he can get well out in front of me, and if he's not he can fall back without entanglement. We're both pretty happy with the retractable as a training tool.
I apologize for the lack of pictures. My hands are full, and the kid is still too young to take good ones.
He's not working perfectly footprint-to-footprint, but he is getting pretty clear on the concept of working closely. This is good enough for AKC tracking rules. He is gradually learning I don't like him to get distracted. He's weirdly sensitive to pressure on the tracking line for a dog who will merrily drag me everywhere on his leather collar and a walk. Right now I'm working him on a retractable leash, which puts very little pressure on his harness. If he is clearly dinking around, I can just give the handle a shake and convey just enough wiggle to let him know I've noticed, and that's just enough to wake him up and get him back to work. If he's feeling confident, he can get well out in front of me, and if he's not he can fall back without entanglement. We're both pretty happy with the retractable as a training tool.
I apologize for the lack of pictures. My hands are full, and the kid is still too young to take good ones.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Getting Motivated
Thanks to the German Shepherd Dog Club of Atlanta and its Versatility program (not to be confused with the AKC Versatile Companion Dog titles), I'm feeling motivated to get off the couch and work the dog now and again.
This copy is slightly out-of-date, I think. The copy for this year included the optional titles in Obedience. This turns Obedience into the great spot to get points, it looks like. It's not completely un-doable to charge in with the CGC, then pick up the full sweep of seven titles -- assuming, of course, that your dog can do all the exercises. It wouldn't hurt to throw in the Rally titles as an excellent place to practice heeling with lots of upbeat chitchat and fun.
Tracking and Herding are the big instinct outlets for German Shepherd Dogs, of course. Once upon a time, the forebears of the breed pushed the sheep out to pasture, kept them in line without fences all day, searched out and brought back any sneaky strays, then pushed them all home again and rounded up the children. Now we have to get formal. In an ideal world, C course herding (tending) would be easier to find, but we have to pretend our dogs are designed for chute-and-gate work instead. The other big outlet for shepherdy drives is Working Dog Sport, which involves tracking, obedience, and protection work. The national breed club still supports it, but the AKC does not.
The remaining AKC performance category is Agility, which most dogs love much as most children love a playground. It takes a solid, sound body, so it's a good idea to have the OFA certification on hips and elbows before getting too heavily involved. Puppies, though, are happy enough to learn the contacts and to step over a little jump. It's a good idea to teach as much precision as you can cram into your shepherd's head before you try to speed up, as most of them seem to want to run wild over every square foot of the equipment -- including parts that were never meant to contain a dog! Sunny, gonzo gal that she was, liked to jump between the tire jump and its supports rather than through the tire. You lose qualifying runs that way.
A huge portion of the Versatility program rewards health testing and responsible ownership. Microchipped? One point. Health test made public regardless of result? Point. Altering an animal you deem unlikely to improve the breed if it passes on its genes? Point. While getting the particular point profiles to match the club's title descriptions isn't easy, getting a decent point total isn't terribly hard if you actually do stuff with your dog. Your dog can even pick up a point by living past the age of ten. An altered ten-year old rescue with a microchip and a CGC qualifies for the club's Versatility Started certificate.
Dustin also qualified for a certificate, but I am feeling ambitious, or greedy, or motivated, or all three. I tell my husband titling the dog doesn't cost that much more than a gym membership. He tells me that he'd rather I had the gym membership, but I can carry the kid in a backpack while I lay and run tracks, or do obedience, or teach basic agility. He'd get squished if I did bench presses with him in there.
So, we're tracking. We're herding when possible. We're jumping at height, now that the hips and elbows are clear. And believe it or not, we're even working obedience, though the dog is in it for the cheese and it's not my favorite school subject either. My son is learning hand signals.
If you live in the area and have a shepherd, come join the club -- and me! We can get into a happy and productive title war.
This copy is slightly out-of-date, I think. The copy for this year included the optional titles in Obedience. This turns Obedience into the great spot to get points, it looks like. It's not completely un-doable to charge in with the CGC, then pick up the full sweep of seven titles -- assuming, of course, that your dog can do all the exercises. It wouldn't hurt to throw in the Rally titles as an excellent place to practice heeling with lots of upbeat chitchat and fun.
Tracking and Herding are the big instinct outlets for German Shepherd Dogs, of course. Once upon a time, the forebears of the breed pushed the sheep out to pasture, kept them in line without fences all day, searched out and brought back any sneaky strays, then pushed them all home again and rounded up the children. Now we have to get formal. In an ideal world, C course herding (tending) would be easier to find, but we have to pretend our dogs are designed for chute-and-gate work instead. The other big outlet for shepherdy drives is Working Dog Sport, which involves tracking, obedience, and protection work. The national breed club still supports it, but the AKC does not.
The remaining AKC performance category is Agility, which most dogs love much as most children love a playground. It takes a solid, sound body, so it's a good idea to have the OFA certification on hips and elbows before getting too heavily involved. Puppies, though, are happy enough to learn the contacts and to step over a little jump. It's a good idea to teach as much precision as you can cram into your shepherd's head before you try to speed up, as most of them seem to want to run wild over every square foot of the equipment -- including parts that were never meant to contain a dog! Sunny, gonzo gal that she was, liked to jump between the tire jump and its supports rather than through the tire. You lose qualifying runs that way.
A huge portion of the Versatility program rewards health testing and responsible ownership. Microchipped? One point. Health test made public regardless of result? Point. Altering an animal you deem unlikely to improve the breed if it passes on its genes? Point. While getting the particular point profiles to match the club's title descriptions isn't easy, getting a decent point total isn't terribly hard if you actually do stuff with your dog. Your dog can even pick up a point by living past the age of ten. An altered ten-year old rescue with a microchip and a CGC qualifies for the club's Versatility Started certificate.
Dustin also qualified for a certificate, but I am feeling ambitious, or greedy, or motivated, or all three. I tell my husband titling the dog doesn't cost that much more than a gym membership. He tells me that he'd rather I had the gym membership, but I can carry the kid in a backpack while I lay and run tracks, or do obedience, or teach basic agility. He'd get squished if I did bench presses with him in there.
So, we're tracking. We're herding when possible. We're jumping at height, now that the hips and elbows are clear. And believe it or not, we're even working obedience, though the dog is in it for the cheese and it's not my favorite school subject either. My son is learning hand signals.
If you live in the area and have a shepherd, come join the club -- and me! We can get into a happy and productive title war.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tracking Report
Today's tracks for Bruce and Dustin were about three hours old -- which I hadn't intended, but I was researching stud dogs. We worked in fairly hot sun for most of both tracks, and the garbage truck came through at the end of the first.
Dustin worked his track well from a flag with no article beside it, indulged in only a little dinking around, and did something interesting. Apparently at some point in the past we missed a plastic article (a discount card from Orschelin, if you happen to wonder) and I walked a few feet from it today. He detoured off the track and dropped on it. However, all the bitsies near the road, which I had never touched, he ignored. The scent on the thing had to be at least a week old, but he could still tell the difference. He did totally blow the end of the track, which was perhaps twenty feet from the garbage truck and the strange young man throwing large sticks around, so we hung out and watched for a bit. And, of course, being a boy, he had to pee at the man and the truck.
Bruce was somewhat distracted by lingering odor of strangers, but he seems to have the general tracking concept. He still hates to stop for articles, though. Even as food-motivated as he is, he'd rather SNIFF. This is a good thing if I can ever get it properly shaped.
Dustin worked his track well from a flag with no article beside it, indulged in only a little dinking around, and did something interesting. Apparently at some point in the past we missed a plastic article (a discount card from Orschelin, if you happen to wonder) and I walked a few feet from it today. He detoured off the track and dropped on it. However, all the bitsies near the road, which I had never touched, he ignored. The scent on the thing had to be at least a week old, but he could still tell the difference. He did totally blow the end of the track, which was perhaps twenty feet from the garbage truck and the strange young man throwing large sticks around, so we hung out and watched for a bit. And, of course, being a boy, he had to pee at the man and the truck.
Bruce was somewhat distracted by lingering odor of strangers, but he seems to have the general tracking concept. He still hates to stop for articles, though. Even as food-motivated as he is, he'd rather SNIFF. This is a good thing if I can ever get it properly shaped.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The New Training Page
Hey, loyal readers! There is now a website for Sun Treader puppy training. It includes links to several other information sources, including Glendhenmere Kennels, the West Kentucky and Atlanta German Shepherd Dog clubs, and an informative article on dog breeding. On the Contact page is a link to Dekalb County Animal Services with a picture of one of their adoptable puppies. Enjoy!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Tracking and Herding
We're getting back to our instinct outlets at last!
Dustin's run a couple of 75-pace tracks lately, one with four articles, one with just one at the end. He's doing them well, and I think we're ready to start doing longer work at last. His concentration is better. He's also finally getting over his pine-needle hangup.
After Sunny died, the last place he smelled her away from home was at a local dog park, where she'd loafed on pine needles the week before. Since then, he wouldn't work them. Just wouldn't. He didn't mope the last few times I tried, but just wandered off dinking around. Finally I phooeyed him, put him back on the line, and gave him a really high-value treat for completing the track which had ended under the pines. Now I randomly use the higher-value treat at the end of some tracks and he works wherever I put him.
We're also going to get back to non-grass surfaces pretty soon. He's used to driveway crossings, but working along a sidewalk is something else again. Training Sunny, I gave her a couple of tracks laid barefoot with twig-sized scent articles in the sidewalk cracks, and that appeared to work. The best articles appeared to be foil gum wrappers rolled up to toothpick size, which slipped in well, were overlooked by local custodians, and weren't too hard to remove.
Bruce is also getting back to his tracking, to his delight. I'm still trying to get through to him that it's good to stop at the articles. He happily goes from footprint to footprint and keeps right on going past anything that might earn him a treat. It won't be a problem to take him to greater distances, but I'd really like to be certain he'll find the final wallet or glove and let me know about it, rather than carrying on through the tracklayer's subsequent motions and then barking furiously upon finding him or her.
And Dustin and I are also herding again. He's getting taken back to the very beginning of all things, in hopes of improving his outrun and getting rid of his overflanking, and in hopes also of getting him to stop working brilliantly for a puppy and start just plain working brilliantly. Besides, (confession time!) his handler has forgotten a lot.
Dustin's run a couple of 75-pace tracks lately, one with four articles, one with just one at the end. He's doing them well, and I think we're ready to start doing longer work at last. His concentration is better. He's also finally getting over his pine-needle hangup.
After Sunny died, the last place he smelled her away from home was at a local dog park, where she'd loafed on pine needles the week before. Since then, he wouldn't work them. Just wouldn't. He didn't mope the last few times I tried, but just wandered off dinking around. Finally I phooeyed him, put him back on the line, and gave him a really high-value treat for completing the track which had ended under the pines. Now I randomly use the higher-value treat at the end of some tracks and he works wherever I put him.
We're also going to get back to non-grass surfaces pretty soon. He's used to driveway crossings, but working along a sidewalk is something else again. Training Sunny, I gave her a couple of tracks laid barefoot with twig-sized scent articles in the sidewalk cracks, and that appeared to work. The best articles appeared to be foil gum wrappers rolled up to toothpick size, which slipped in well, were overlooked by local custodians, and weren't too hard to remove.
Bruce is also getting back to his tracking, to his delight. I'm still trying to get through to him that it's good to stop at the articles. He happily goes from footprint to footprint and keeps right on going past anything that might earn him a treat. It won't be a problem to take him to greater distances, but I'd really like to be certain he'll find the final wallet or glove and let me know about it, rather than carrying on through the tracklayer's subsequent motions and then barking furiously upon finding him or her.
And Dustin and I are also herding again. He's getting taken back to the very beginning of all things, in hopes of improving his outrun and getting rid of his overflanking, and in hopes also of getting him to stop working brilliantly for a puppy and start just plain working brilliantly. Besides, (confession time!) his handler has forgotten a lot.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Herding Sheep
Dustin and I went to work sheep for the first time in months and the second time in a couple of years -- poor dog. We used to go several times a week.
This time we went to a different farm with a different variety of sheep, smaller than we were used to and much, much faster. They wouldn't let Dustin work in his usual method, which resembles something out of the movie Babe, cuddling up to them and whispering his directions into their ears. We spent a certain amount of time racing up and down a very hot long pen before Dustin settled to his satisfaction that these were stupid sheep, he wasn't going to get near them, and he could still control them through action at a distance. Once he got the hang of being able to move them from fifty feet away, in fact, he seemed to rather like it. For the first time in his life, he could tell that "Walk up" meant, as I told him, "Not me, them!" because I wasn't anywhere near the silly creatures either.
Most people who try to trial on sheep use a lot of Scottish (or, given how German most German training commands really are, pseudo-Scottish) phrases like "Away to me!" and "Come bye!" when they're working. Most people then forget which is which, or stand there yelling out "Way! Stay! Lay!" and wondering why the dog isn't obeying those three loud Ay!s from a hundred yards off. Dustin and I do try to learn our ways and byes, but we do far better if I tell him what I want in plain English. "Bring 'em. Put 'em there," with a point of the stick, generally gets me a flock of sheep brought up to me and then stuck wherever "there" might be. Pushing the dog over this way, then over that way, as though the sheep are a little ball bearing I'm trying to trap in a hole by tipping the field, generally gets me sheep everywhere, an annoyed dog who figures it's all my fault with perhaps some justice, and a laughing coach leaning on the fence.
I say cooperation works best, regardless of linguistic origins. It's not like the dog cares whether I command him in English, German, or Choctaw. If he were herding German-style, there would be very few commands or large gestures. Too, if I'm just saying "Push 'em through there," I tend to say it calmly, which the dog and sheep all respond to. Come to think of it, so do herding judges.
This time we went to a different farm with a different variety of sheep, smaller than we were used to and much, much faster. They wouldn't let Dustin work in his usual method, which resembles something out of the movie Babe, cuddling up to them and whispering his directions into their ears. We spent a certain amount of time racing up and down a very hot long pen before Dustin settled to his satisfaction that these were stupid sheep, he wasn't going to get near them, and he could still control them through action at a distance. Once he got the hang of being able to move them from fifty feet away, in fact, he seemed to rather like it. For the first time in his life, he could tell that "Walk up" meant, as I told him, "Not me, them!" because I wasn't anywhere near the silly creatures either.
Most people who try to trial on sheep use a lot of Scottish (or, given how German most German training commands really are, pseudo-Scottish) phrases like "Away to me!" and "Come bye!" when they're working. Most people then forget which is which, or stand there yelling out "Way! Stay! Lay!" and wondering why the dog isn't obeying those three loud Ay!s from a hundred yards off. Dustin and I do try to learn our ways and byes, but we do far better if I tell him what I want in plain English. "Bring 'em. Put 'em there," with a point of the stick, generally gets me a flock of sheep brought up to me and then stuck wherever "there" might be. Pushing the dog over this way, then over that way, as though the sheep are a little ball bearing I'm trying to trap in a hole by tipping the field, generally gets me sheep everywhere, an annoyed dog who figures it's all my fault with perhaps some justice, and a laughing coach leaning on the fence.
I say cooperation works best, regardless of linguistic origins. It's not like the dog cares whether I command him in English, German, or Choctaw. If he were herding German-style, there would be very few commands or large gestures. Too, if I'm just saying "Push 'em through there," I tend to say it calmly, which the dog and sheep all respond to. Come to think of it, so do herding judges.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Craigslist Pets: How (Not) to Re-home Your Pet
I posted a dog-training ad on Craigslist yesterday and made the mistake of browsing what else shows up in pet-related pages. And when I say mistake, I mean HUGE mistake.
Mother German Shepherd and her eleven puppies, $300 for all, must go now. Purebred this. Mixed that. Mixed this mixed with mixed that. "Ever occur to you to get her spayed, idiot?" posted elsewhere. Nine week old puppy needs a new home because owner moved to a place with no fence -- how much time did you have to do that? There's a shortage of houses for sale all of a sudden, and you had to take the fenceless one? In the space of a week?
If you need to "rehome" your purebred dog, call the breeder first. If you went to anyone worthy of the title, you signed a contract to do exactly this. If you don't call, then you're in breach of contract, and the breeder could conceivably sue you. Breeders who really are breeders care deeply about where their dogs end up.
If you need to find a home for anything alive, and you don't have someone to take it back, make it too pricy for snake food or pit-bull bait. Never, ever, ever, post an animal as free. Nobody else will assign a higher value to your animal than you did.
Try the newspaper. Yes, you have to pay for the ad, but the person reading it had to pay for the paper or visit a library. Call it a basic test for means and/or literacy of your intended purchaser. Try your friends -- they're friends for a reason, I hope.
If you think a dog needs a fenced yard, and you don't have a fenced yard, don't get a dog. If you have a dog and you think he needs a fenced yard, get a fenced yard. Don't have a big surprise on your hands because you didn't think.
Mother German Shepherd and her eleven puppies, $300 for all, must go now. Purebred this. Mixed that. Mixed this mixed with mixed that. "Ever occur to you to get her spayed, idiot?" posted elsewhere. Nine week old puppy needs a new home because owner moved to a place with no fence -- how much time did you have to do that? There's a shortage of houses for sale all of a sudden, and you had to take the fenceless one? In the space of a week?
If you need to "rehome" your purebred dog, call the breeder first. If you went to anyone worthy of the title, you signed a contract to do exactly this. If you don't call, then you're in breach of contract, and the breeder could conceivably sue you. Breeders who really are breeders care deeply about where their dogs end up.
If you need to find a home for anything alive, and you don't have someone to take it back, make it too pricy for snake food or pit-bull bait. Never, ever, ever, post an animal as free. Nobody else will assign a higher value to your animal than you did.
Try the newspaper. Yes, you have to pay for the ad, but the person reading it had to pay for the paper or visit a library. Call it a basic test for means and/or literacy of your intended purchaser. Try your friends -- they're friends for a reason, I hope.
If you think a dog needs a fenced yard, and you don't have a fenced yard, don't get a dog. If you have a dog and you think he needs a fenced yard, get a fenced yard. Don't have a big surprise on your hands because you didn't think.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Adventures in Raw Diet
Recently I visited a couple of friends whose dogs herd, show, and other such splendid activities. Their dogs looked amazing, and both friends insisted that I should try what they were doing – feeding their dogs nothing but raw meat.
I have four dogs. Three of them look fine: the old-as-dirt rescue McCoy, the ten-year-old rescue Tasha, and Bruce, the mutt from under the junk heap who is now two. The fourth is glossy, active, and underdeveloped, looking to be at that gangly foolish age when in fact he should be well-matured and storming the show ring and the herding trials. His Royal Highness Dustin is a picky eater, a chronic anorexic, and generally a fellow of strong opinions.
I had given all of them raw meat before, usually as a special treat or a toothbrush – raw chicken necks are supposed to be excellent plaque removers. Three of them buzzed through chicken necks at first sight. I put Dustin’s in the left front corner of his crate and a few minutes later found him crammed into the right rear corner, lamenting softly that there was something gross in his crate and his Mama didn’t love him anymore. He’s a bigger dog now, and more gastronomically adventuresome than he was, so I tried again today with some lovely meaty skeleton-hunks which had had the breast trimmed off.
Everyone but Tasha got these things in crates, as then I knew exactly where to bleach-wipe afterward: exactly on the spot which is already spit-shined. Tasha got hers in the kitchen, where the tile is easily wiped, as she is both too good-mannered and too arthritic to drag her chicken off under the bed. Today she moseyed in for breakfast in a most pitiful manner, as though her arthritis medicine was the low point of her day and really, nothing I could feed her would be entirely worth the trip. I checked her for actual injuries before feeding her, then put down the dishful of chicken.
She stared. She wagged. She went to town.
McCoy and Bruce responded similarly: Is this really for me? It’s in my bowl. Better gobble it down before the kitchen realizes there was a mistake!
I suspected that Dustin would have nothing to do with the thing, so I added kibble to his options, stirring in a little canned food and yogurt, both of which he loves. I tossed his breakfast into his crate with him and went back to check on Tasha’s progress.
Tasha was crunching contentedly on the last of the chicken. She hung around for some time, plainly hoping for more, as though there might be some on the counter that she hadn’t been notified about and if she stared long enough it would materialize in her dish. Usually she is my husband’s dog and barely offers me the time of day. Today we were good friends.
Dustin, on the other hand, did not eat his chicken. He did not eat kibbles touching the chicken. He did not eat kibbles which were touching kibbles touching the chicken. Now a fully mature dog, he no longer whines on the subject of love or of ickiness. His message was quite clear: Waiter! The kitchen forgot to cook this!
I have four dogs. Three of them look fine: the old-as-dirt rescue McCoy, the ten-year-old rescue Tasha, and Bruce, the mutt from under the junk heap who is now two. The fourth is glossy, active, and underdeveloped, looking to be at that gangly foolish age when in fact he should be well-matured and storming the show ring and the herding trials. His Royal Highness Dustin is a picky eater, a chronic anorexic, and generally a fellow of strong opinions.
I had given all of them raw meat before, usually as a special treat or a toothbrush – raw chicken necks are supposed to be excellent plaque removers. Three of them buzzed through chicken necks at first sight. I put Dustin’s in the left front corner of his crate and a few minutes later found him crammed into the right rear corner, lamenting softly that there was something gross in his crate and his Mama didn’t love him anymore. He’s a bigger dog now, and more gastronomically adventuresome than he was, so I tried again today with some lovely meaty skeleton-hunks which had had the breast trimmed off.
Everyone but Tasha got these things in crates, as then I knew exactly where to bleach-wipe afterward: exactly on the spot which is already spit-shined. Tasha got hers in the kitchen, where the tile is easily wiped, as she is both too good-mannered and too arthritic to drag her chicken off under the bed. Today she moseyed in for breakfast in a most pitiful manner, as though her arthritis medicine was the low point of her day and really, nothing I could feed her would be entirely worth the trip. I checked her for actual injuries before feeding her, then put down the dishful of chicken.
She stared. She wagged. She went to town.
McCoy and Bruce responded similarly: Is this really for me? It’s in my bowl. Better gobble it down before the kitchen realizes there was a mistake!
I suspected that Dustin would have nothing to do with the thing, so I added kibble to his options, stirring in a little canned food and yogurt, both of which he loves. I tossed his breakfast into his crate with him and went back to check on Tasha’s progress.
Tasha was crunching contentedly on the last of the chicken. She hung around for some time, plainly hoping for more, as though there might be some on the counter that she hadn’t been notified about and if she stared long enough it would materialize in her dish. Usually she is my husband’s dog and barely offers me the time of day. Today we were good friends.
Dustin, on the other hand, did not eat his chicken. He did not eat kibbles touching the chicken. He did not eat kibbles which were touching kibbles touching the chicken. Now a fully mature dog, he no longer whines on the subject of love or of ickiness. His message was quite clear: Waiter! The kitchen forgot to cook this!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Canine Nose Work, Continued
The dogs have become big fans of sniffing birch, anise, and clove. Last night I worked the boys on not just sitting in the general vicinity but actually poking the scent source. Three iterations each, three pieces of cheese each.
This morning Bruce brought his ball in and dropped it instead of bringing it to me for a cookie. "Where's your ball, Bruce?" I asked. He disappeared.
I asked again. He popped back into the room, then disappeared. I followed him and found him in a sit a couple of feet from his ball. "Where is it?" I repeated, hoping he would bring me the thing as he usually does.
He popped up, poked the ball with his nose, and sat again, wagging furiously.
This morning Bruce brought his ball in and dropped it instead of bringing it to me for a cookie. "Where's your ball, Bruce?" I asked. He disappeared.
I asked again. He popped back into the room, then disappeared. I followed him and found him in a sit a couple of feet from his ball. "Where is it?" I repeated, hoping he would bring me the thing as he usually does.
He popped up, poked the ball with his nose, and sat again, wagging furiously.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Canine Nose Work
Dog News had an article, and I chased down the website after being prompted by a friend, so here it is: National Association of Canine Scent Work, inventors of the sport of K9 Nose Work.
It's an interesting sort of thing: training scent detection without having to use cadaver, which is icky and often requires some legal reason to have it, or drugs, which require a DEA certificate of some kind (I've asked, and had no answer, how one gets certified). Instead you go to your friendly local holistic-goods store, pick up a vial each of sweet birch and clove and a scattering of aniseeds, and you're good to go.
Of course, all three scents are quite penetrating, and my house now smells of birch beer. Luckily I like birch beer. I have a gauze pad saturated with all three odors sealed in a baggie, inside a box, inside another baggie which also contains the original bottles and seeds. The dogs are enjoying the find-the-pad game.
According to the Dog News article, the organization trainers teach the dogs to hunt for treats first, then pair the treats with the target scent (they start with just birch), then remove the treats. They say "On average, most teams train for at least one year prior to entering their first NACSW sanctioned trial."
I'm doing it differently, teaching my dogs that when they sniff the baggie, and they are curious sorts every one, they should sit. If they find the open baggie, they should sniff and sit. When they do, they get a treat. As I said, the baggie contains all three scents. My logic is, you can train a cadaver dog on as complete a sample as possible, then expect him to figure out that just bone, just fat, or just skin also all count. It may take longer to get the dogs to alert on birch alone than with their method, but they'll be doing aniseed every bit as soon.
So far, all of them, even the old geezer whose nose and ears are both getting iffy, are getting the hang of sniff-and-sit. Bruce even chased the baggie on a fling across the kitchen and poked his nose in, then sat wagging like mad and waiting for his goodie. This is, mind you, after three weeks of erratic training. I think they'll be able to do all three scents separately or together in a fairly short time, and then we can take the show on the road, into the cars, into the sheds, and everywhere else we can think to work. For now we're just working on go, sniff, sit as though this is an obedience combination.
It's an interesting sort of thing: training scent detection without having to use cadaver, which is icky and often requires some legal reason to have it, or drugs, which require a DEA certificate of some kind (I've asked, and had no answer, how one gets certified). Instead you go to your friendly local holistic-goods store, pick up a vial each of sweet birch and clove and a scattering of aniseeds, and you're good to go.
Of course, all three scents are quite penetrating, and my house now smells of birch beer. Luckily I like birch beer. I have a gauze pad saturated with all three odors sealed in a baggie, inside a box, inside another baggie which also contains the original bottles and seeds. The dogs are enjoying the find-the-pad game.
According to the Dog News article, the organization trainers teach the dogs to hunt for treats first, then pair the treats with the target scent (they start with just birch), then remove the treats. They say "On average, most teams train for at least one year prior to entering their first NACSW sanctioned trial."
I'm doing it differently, teaching my dogs that when they sniff the baggie, and they are curious sorts every one, they should sit. If they find the open baggie, they should sniff and sit. When they do, they get a treat. As I said, the baggie contains all three scents. My logic is, you can train a cadaver dog on as complete a sample as possible, then expect him to figure out that just bone, just fat, or just skin also all count. It may take longer to get the dogs to alert on birch alone than with their method, but they'll be doing aniseed every bit as soon.
So far, all of them, even the old geezer whose nose and ears are both getting iffy, are getting the hang of sniff-and-sit. Bruce even chased the baggie on a fling across the kitchen and poked his nose in, then sat wagging like mad and waiting for his goodie. This is, mind you, after three weeks of erratic training. I think they'll be able to do all three scents separately or together in a fairly short time, and then we can take the show on the road, into the cars, into the sheds, and everywhere else we can think to work. For now we're just working on go, sniff, sit as though this is an obedience combination.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Shepherd Puppies in Atlanta
I have been asked several times since moving here, "Are you going to have puppies? Where can I get a shepherd like that?" I have a few business cards from Dustin's breeder, who has only bred one litter since, and a few from a pleasant local breeder who has his cousins. I send people to the Atlanta German Shepherd Dog Club.
At the meeting the other night, held at the Atlanta Humane Society, I happened to glance in a window at the puppies drowsing on the other side, and called over a couple of other club members. We agreed -- they looked like purebred GSD puppies to us. One tried to climb out the window to us while his two littermates slept.
I went back today and took pictures. There are more available at the no-kill Atlanta Humane Society website. I can't possibly take another dog -- four is more than plenty -- but I can try to get these little guys some attention. The male who tried to climb out the window tried to climb up my arm today; he's a cute confident friendly little cuss who reminds me very much of Dustin as a puppy. Apparently his name (at present) is Billy. I can't picture it fitting him for long, though he might grow into a William. He's the bold-looking one in the following picture; the other is a sister who looks slightly less shepherdy, either a product of an odd outcross or of a second breeding to a part-shepherd, but who knows?
The third pup in the litter is a "coat" by the look of him. I have not yet seen him awake, so his AHS picture is better; look for Bobby.
I also spotted two other female puppies, one mysteriously labelled male on her sheet and blue-collared despite the spay scar and other telltale signs of femininity -- and also the fact her name was Brianna. As soon as she realized I was looking at her, she began trying to climb between the bars of her cage. She's a pale black-and-tan cutie pie who spent every second she could licking like mad on my finger. She might not make a bad search dog, actually. She seemed willing to do anything to get to a person!
The one that sticks with me, though, is Scout, and not just because that's the official name of my son's toy puppy that plays music. I'm a sable junkie. Very few people know what sable shepherds look like, and tend to take them for mixed breeds; this cutie is labeled as a German Shepix. I'm pretty sure she's not a mix. Sables are cool. In strong sun, a clean and well-groomed sable shines like tigerseye. In shade, they vanish. Sunny's favorite game was to lurk ten feet away from me in the woods with her ears flat and her mouth shut to hide any telltale pink flashes. I swear, she laughed at me looking for her. Anyway, meet Scout. She was a little anxious about being held in the air, but was gravely sweet with her paws on a solid surface.
They also had an adult shepherd, with no "mix" on her label. Kelly moseyed up to the front of her kennel with a curious wag when I stopped to look at her, but didn't care for the flash. Her label said she had been treated for heartworm and would have to be kept quiet.
I'll try to post stuff like this every so often. It's not dog-training, but it's somewhere to send people who ask me where to find a shepherd for a pet.
At the meeting the other night, held at the Atlanta Humane Society, I happened to glance in a window at the puppies drowsing on the other side, and called over a couple of other club members. We agreed -- they looked like purebred GSD puppies to us. One tried to climb out the window to us while his two littermates slept.
I went back today and took pictures. There are more available at the no-kill Atlanta Humane Society website. I can't possibly take another dog -- four is more than plenty -- but I can try to get these little guys some attention. The male who tried to climb out the window tried to climb up my arm today; he's a cute confident friendly little cuss who reminds me very much of Dustin as a puppy. Apparently his name (at present) is Billy. I can't picture it fitting him for long, though he might grow into a William. He's the bold-looking one in the following picture; the other is a sister who looks slightly less shepherdy, either a product of an odd outcross or of a second breeding to a part-shepherd, but who knows?
The third pup in the litter is a "coat" by the look of him. I have not yet seen him awake, so his AHS picture is better; look for Bobby.
I also spotted two other female puppies, one mysteriously labelled male on her sheet and blue-collared despite the spay scar and other telltale signs of femininity -- and also the fact her name was Brianna. As soon as she realized I was looking at her, she began trying to climb between the bars of her cage. She's a pale black-and-tan cutie pie who spent every second she could licking like mad on my finger. She might not make a bad search dog, actually. She seemed willing to do anything to get to a person!
The one that sticks with me, though, is Scout, and not just because that's the official name of my son's toy puppy that plays music. I'm a sable junkie. Very few people know what sable shepherds look like, and tend to take them for mixed breeds; this cutie is labeled as a German Shepix. I'm pretty sure she's not a mix. Sables are cool. In strong sun, a clean and well-groomed sable shines like tigerseye. In shade, they vanish. Sunny's favorite game was to lurk ten feet away from me in the woods with her ears flat and her mouth shut to hide any telltale pink flashes. I swear, she laughed at me looking for her. Anyway, meet Scout. She was a little anxious about being held in the air, but was gravely sweet with her paws on a solid surface.
They also had an adult shepherd, with no "mix" on her label. Kelly moseyed up to the front of her kennel with a curious wag when I stopped to look at her, but didn't care for the flash. Her label said she had been treated for heartworm and would have to be kept quiet.
I'll try to post stuff like this every so often. It's not dog-training, but it's somewhere to send people who ask me where to find a shepherd for a pet.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Retrieving, Thinking and Philosophy of Mind
Quite a long time ago I read a philosopher's paper which I do not remember well. I think it was Dennett, and I think it was on decision-making, but what I do remember vividly is that he wrote about throwing two tennis balls for his Labrador. The dog would race back and forth between the two for quite some time, then choose one apparently at random when he was tired enough.
Now, what is surprising here is that I didn't try this on one of my own dogs sooner. I think this must be a paper from when my husband was in graduate school, when we had a dog who didn't care to fetch, or from my undergraduate program, when the dog was at home with my parents and school had nothing to do with my retreats there. However, Dennett was recently brought back to my attention by a secondhand social contact, and I tried to recall if this was his story.
Then I formed a hypothesis. Not all dogs are Labradors, bred to take directions. Some breeds, particularly herders, are required to make snap decisions on their own, and the German Shepherd Dog is one of those breeds. I expected that one object would bounce more or further, and that my dog would go after that one. Then, of course, I whistled for Dustin.
His current obsession is magnolia cones. They bounce and skitter tolerably well, and saved me the trouble of finding two reasonably well-matched balls in this chaotic household. Also, it's not too hard to fit two in one hand to throw together. And it turned out I was right: one cone always activated the naughty-sheep protocol by bouncing further, and he chose that one without hesitation every time. At first he would bring it to the less-traveled cone, good herding dog that he is, intending to bring both, but then he would switch to retrieve protocol on realizing only one would fit in his mouth. Then, of course, he brought the bouncier one.
I suppose the moral of the story is that before one generalizes about the simpleness or complexity of canis lupus familiaris minds, one must first examine multiple breeds. Labradors, as my friend Mary is wont to say, were bred to do what they were told, however it might be conveyed, by men who went to the training field with a six-pack and a gun. Those who stayed in the gene pool were the ones who could figure out how to what they were told, not those who made up new ways to do things. Herders, on the other hand, have to make snap decisions on controlling the individual sheep (or ducks, cows, reindeer, what-have-you) to conform to the large-scale directions given by their handler. Two or more lambs (see previous parenthetical) may take off in different directions at once, and the herding dog has to have a plan for that or devise one on the fly.
Of course, that does lead to an inventive streak the rest of the time. Sunny took to doing her obedience exercises with flair, and I suppose that the AKC guidelines don't say the dog can't walk from front to finish on her hind legs while whooping to the ceiling. At least, they didn't before she came along. I haven't checked the handbook lately. Dustin, asked to herd ducks, decided it would be more fun to push them into a group if he could then excite them into standing tall and quacking wildly, then do a sort of Evel Knievel routine over them. He seems to feel that it's rude to boss around such small and harmless creatures -- give him a good big rude sheep any day.
Or, of course, a naughty magnolia cone.
Now, what is surprising here is that I didn't try this on one of my own dogs sooner. I think this must be a paper from when my husband was in graduate school, when we had a dog who didn't care to fetch, or from my undergraduate program, when the dog was at home with my parents and school had nothing to do with my retreats there. However, Dennett was recently brought back to my attention by a secondhand social contact, and I tried to recall if this was his story.
Then I formed a hypothesis. Not all dogs are Labradors, bred to take directions. Some breeds, particularly herders, are required to make snap decisions on their own, and the German Shepherd Dog is one of those breeds. I expected that one object would bounce more or further, and that my dog would go after that one. Then, of course, I whistled for Dustin.
His current obsession is magnolia cones. They bounce and skitter tolerably well, and saved me the trouble of finding two reasonably well-matched balls in this chaotic household. Also, it's not too hard to fit two in one hand to throw together. And it turned out I was right: one cone always activated the naughty-sheep protocol by bouncing further, and he chose that one without hesitation every time. At first he would bring it to the less-traveled cone, good herding dog that he is, intending to bring both, but then he would switch to retrieve protocol on realizing only one would fit in his mouth. Then, of course, he brought the bouncier one.
I suppose the moral of the story is that before one generalizes about the simpleness or complexity of canis lupus familiaris minds, one must first examine multiple breeds. Labradors, as my friend Mary is wont to say, were bred to do what they were told, however it might be conveyed, by men who went to the training field with a six-pack and a gun. Those who stayed in the gene pool were the ones who could figure out how to what they were told, not those who made up new ways to do things. Herders, on the other hand, have to make snap decisions on controlling the individual sheep (or ducks, cows, reindeer, what-have-you) to conform to the large-scale directions given by their handler. Two or more lambs (see previous parenthetical) may take off in different directions at once, and the herding dog has to have a plan for that or devise one on the fly.
Of course, that does lead to an inventive streak the rest of the time. Sunny took to doing her obedience exercises with flair, and I suppose that the AKC guidelines don't say the dog can't walk from front to finish on her hind legs while whooping to the ceiling. At least, they didn't before she came along. I haven't checked the handbook lately. Dustin, asked to herd ducks, decided it would be more fun to push them into a group if he could then excite them into standing tall and quacking wildly, then do a sort of Evel Knievel routine over them. He seems to feel that it's rude to boss around such small and harmless creatures -- give him a good big rude sheep any day.
Or, of course, a naughty magnolia cone.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Getting Back To Work
Tracking has been irregular lately. I'm trying to get the most possible good out of the fewest and shortest possible work sessions, generally between prying the rugrat off my leg. Luckily the rugrat likes watching the dogs do stuff outdoors while he sits in his stroller, and tracking makes a happy change from ball-chasing.
Today was hard-ground cold, which is somewhat unusual down here, so I decided to try a polishing technique that some people use as a primary technique. My dogs are mainly trained to find articles and down on them, and then figure out that there's a line of tracks between -- a sort of connect-the-dots approach that I learned from Mary Adelman. My critique of it, at this point, is that the dogs tend to get gung-ho and launch from each article, or blast past turns and then circle to correct, rather than keeping a close nose from start to finish. Today, since it was too cold for ants to get on the food, too cold for the mice and squirrels to be foraging (and in this yard full of nut trees, it's pretty obvious when they're not out), and generally bright and clear otherwise, I went ahead and put a bit of cheese or dried gizzard into each footprint of a short track for Dustin.
Mind you, I mean a really short track for Dustin. Putting food in each footprint means doing a deep knee-bend at each pace, and it's hard to manage the food bits unless you're barehanded, so forty paces with an article every ten paces was all I could manage, along with a turn at fifteen and thirty-three paces. Then I went in and tended to the child, and ended up running the track about two and a half hours later.
Dustin happily snoodled up the goodies in the scent pad beside the tracking flag and headed off down the line. I slowed him down and showed him that the first footprint had cheese in it. He sniffed, stared, pondered -- and lay down on the human-scented article before consuming it. And on the next one. And the next. All told, he put his elbows to the ground (though didn't always bring down the back end) some forty times.
I couldn't fault him for it, either. Since the goal is to have a dog who will do the VST, which has articles of many different materials, I start off with an "Anything could be an article" approach. I have four Schutzhund-appropriate leather articles from Morgan Struble, and treasure them, as I'm far too poor to go cutting up any good leather I happen to have or buying bitsies. Business cards from Mary, gone ratty in my elderly wallet, seemed appropriate for use. So did a laminated ID from the Four Rivers Canine Search, Rescue and Recovery days, fair game for such use because it gave my now-departed Sunny's breed as "German Sherhrud." That may just be my favorite typo of all time, as Sunny certainly didn't conform to the GSD standard as written by any organization in any country. One of my articles is a dead 9-volt battery; another is a large alligator clip, which is nice for holding together the business cards, badges, and defunct ATM cards until they're due to be dropped.
Today, of course, the track was full of things I had handled. As far as Dustin was concerned, they were all quite tasty scent articles.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
PAWS bill in House and Senate
The full text of the Puppy Uniform Protection and Safety Act, Senate form, is available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:SN03424:@@@P. Enjoy. It's an exercise for logicians. I mean, the exercise parts seem reasonable though unenforceable, seeing as we don't have enough USDA employees to inspect our slaughterhouses, never mind trying to determine the appropriate amount of exercise for a Pekingese. The weird part is the beginning, defining a high-operations breeder as someone who produces more than 50 puppies a year for sale as pets AND owns at least one intact bitch over the age of four months.
So, if you own an intact bitch over four months (personally I don't like to spay that young) but produce fewer than 50 puppies per year by her (oof!), you should be fine. Likewise, if you don't own even part of a reproductive bitch but successfully pull more than 50 puppies out of a hat, you're fine. Presumably that last is meant to put rescue operations in the clear. However, also, if you produce more than 50 puppies but they're not being sold as pets -- work, say, or show prospects -- it sounds like you're still in the clear. Since anyone can claim they're producing working or show prospects, this pretty much defangs whatever is left of the bill. It's in large part a dead damn waste of ink and time. The only real hazard in it for most respectable breeders is for those who take the extra care of their dogs to co-own them, which can increase the number of puppies you produce in a most unfair manner if you co-own ten of your dogs for their own safety.
Now, if we were funding the USDA to actually enforce the already existing animal welfare laws and giving them the artillery necessary to go after Joe Redneck's huge and heavily-guarded chicken-wire puppy mill operation once they're done cleaning up our food supply, that would be great. As it is, this bill makes a lot of mild-mannered law-abiding retirement-age dog fanciers who adore their critters very nervous and accomplishes very little else. It also, incidentally, completely overlooks catteries.
So, if you own an intact bitch over four months (personally I don't like to spay that young) but produce fewer than 50 puppies per year by her (oof!), you should be fine. Likewise, if you don't own even part of a reproductive bitch but successfully pull more than 50 puppies out of a hat, you're fine. Presumably that last is meant to put rescue operations in the clear. However, also, if you produce more than 50 puppies but they're not being sold as pets -- work, say, or show prospects -- it sounds like you're still in the clear. Since anyone can claim they're producing working or show prospects, this pretty much defangs whatever is left of the bill. It's in large part a dead damn waste of ink and time. The only real hazard in it for most respectable breeders is for those who take the extra care of their dogs to co-own them, which can increase the number of puppies you produce in a most unfair manner if you co-own ten of your dogs for their own safety.
Now, if we were funding the USDA to actually enforce the already existing animal welfare laws and giving them the artillery necessary to go after Joe Redneck's huge and heavily-guarded chicken-wire puppy mill operation once they're done cleaning up our food supply, that would be great. As it is, this bill makes a lot of mild-mannered law-abiding retirement-age dog fanciers who adore their critters very nervous and accomplishes very little else. It also, incidentally, completely overlooks catteries.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Focusing Energies
I've been off getting published, and so have not been posting much. Sorry! I'm also doing a quick typo check of the second edition of The German Shepherd Dog Handbook by Dr. Mary Belle Brazil-Adelman, which is coming out for general purchase soon.
I've also stopped tracking with Bruce for the moment, and am letting him do a little general maturing. He is, very gradually, rediscovering object permanence and focus, both of which would be a help. I'm wondering if anyone else has discovered serious mental damage in their dogs from a case of parvo and its related high temperatures.
Dustin is more rewarding, and I've been working him at least a couple of times a week lately. He's still prone to drifting off on other interesting things, but he'll mostly stay on the line if the payment system strikes him as good enough. Luckily, he'll still work for Charlee Bear's treats. Today I laid a track for him in our outrageous grass (the lawnmower's part replacement is apparently lost in shipping) while all was still wet and ran it once it had dried out. My shoes are still sodden, but he did quite well on finding all the articles and was willing to keep going. He also didn't unload his bowels on the track, which I greatly appreciate.
I'll post the third part of Scentwork for Showdogs soon. Meanwhile, if you're trying it, practice, practice!
I've also stopped tracking with Bruce for the moment, and am letting him do a little general maturing. He is, very gradually, rediscovering object permanence and focus, both of which would be a help. I'm wondering if anyone else has discovered serious mental damage in their dogs from a case of parvo and its related high temperatures.
Dustin is more rewarding, and I've been working him at least a couple of times a week lately. He's still prone to drifting off on other interesting things, but he'll mostly stay on the line if the payment system strikes him as good enough. Luckily, he'll still work for Charlee Bear's treats. Today I laid a track for him in our outrageous grass (the lawnmower's part replacement is apparently lost in shipping) while all was still wet and ran it once it had dried out. My shoes are still sodden, but he did quite well on finding all the articles and was willing to keep going. He also didn't unload his bowels on the track, which I greatly appreciate.
I'll post the third part of Scentwork for Showdogs soon. Meanwhile, if you're trying it, practice, practice!
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