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.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Monday, June 20, 2011
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!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Trailing: Learning From Marble Cake
Today's lesson in scent theory is a little different. If you have never made a marble cake, step one for this lesson is "Buy a cake mix for marble cake" and step two is "Follow the directions until you have one cake pan of pale batter and one bowl of dark." Take up a small ladle and use it to drizzle a trail which starts thin and ends with a good blob. The thin start is your starting point and the blob is your victim.
Now take a knife and draw it across the line you just made. A deer just crossed your trail -- see what it did to the hanging scent? It's been drawn sideways into a point. If your dog were to follow the scent exactly, you might think she was "crittering." How can you check which she's doing? Let her have her head for a minute and see if she comes back to the line you were on. If she doesn't usually pursue deer, then she's probably not going to start now, and she'll have learned something important about how scent is moved. A car or bicycle will draw scent similarly, so work crossings on low-traffic streets where only one vehicle is likely to have passed between the trail's laying and running.
Now take the knife to a different part of your cake trail and pass it back and forth across the same spot several times. This is a higher-traffic street or footpath. If the scent was hanging heavily to start with, the dog would understandably believe that the person had gone three ways at once. Rather than letting her make an arbitrary decision, teach her to cross the thoroughfare first and check the other side, then choose a path after checking down the straight line. Your training partner should show your dog a straightaway first. Once your dog has mastered a straight-line crossing of a traffic-muddled scent, she can learn that the victim may also turn to travel along the road. If she learns the turn first, though, you may have trouble convincing her that the straight line is possible.
Now finish following the directions on the box and enjoy the results!
Now take a knife and draw it across the line you just made. A deer just crossed your trail -- see what it did to the hanging scent? It's been drawn sideways into a point. If your dog were to follow the scent exactly, you might think she was "crittering." How can you check which she's doing? Let her have her head for a minute and see if she comes back to the line you were on. If she doesn't usually pursue deer, then she's probably not going to start now, and she'll have learned something important about how scent is moved. A car or bicycle will draw scent similarly, so work crossings on low-traffic streets where only one vehicle is likely to have passed between the trail's laying and running.
Now take the knife to a different part of your cake trail and pass it back and forth across the same spot several times. This is a higher-traffic street or footpath. If the scent was hanging heavily to start with, the dog would understandably believe that the person had gone three ways at once. Rather than letting her make an arbitrary decision, teach her to cross the thoroughfare first and check the other side, then choose a path after checking down the straight line. Your training partner should show your dog a straightaway first. Once your dog has mastered a straight-line crossing of a traffic-muddled scent, she can learn that the victim may also turn to travel along the road. If she learns the turn first, though, you may have trouble convincing her that the straight line is possible.
Now finish following the directions on the box and enjoy the results!
Puppy Training Video
Puppy training may not be what everyone else watches this video for, but it's what stood out to me. See all that food? See how early this little rugrat starts her training? And yet she still has a unique personality.
The Video
The Video
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