Coming away from January’s SARDA training with a list of to-dos for homework, we set about nailing obedience issues once and for all (in theory at least).
In early January I had discovered that Venn walked much better on the lead if she was clipped to the front loop of her harness rather than the one on her back, and with this technique we were able to quickly shape some good walking habits to show off at the Jan training weekend. However, for various operational reasons that will become important further down the line, the SARDA trainers were keen to get us to work from the collar.
As a family, we had opted to put our dogs in harnesses for a couple of reasons. We first bought them for a canoeing holiday where the handle on the back provided a useful means of hauling a wet dog out of the water and into the boat. The second reason was that we never got around to teaching Kip to walk well on a lead, and so when the need for a lead arose she had the terrible habit of pulling hard and choking herself if we used a collar. Anyway, we bought the widest collar we could find in Venn’s size and got on with the process.
It didn’t start well. Venn really didn’t appreciate the change and railed against it by pulling hard. We made such little progress that I was starting to consider going back to the front loop of her harness, but it occurred to me that she walks much better off the lead than on it. By starting with the lead attached, but dragging on the floor while she walked with me for a few paces there was nothing to pull against. If I then picked up the lead but kept it slack we were slowly able to make progress.
Finally with something approximating heel-work to play with, we did multiple short sessions each day until the message started to seep in, and performance at home became pretty good.
However…
As discussed in earlier posts, dogs don’t automatically associate a command given in a certain environment with the same command given in a different setting. We found this to our cost when meeting up with trainers in woodland full of new and interesting smells immediately prior to the Feb SARDA training. Venn was utterly out of control and pretty much ignored every command I gave. Having driven some distance to tap into the experience of these trainers, it was a particularly disappointing experience to have to abandon the attempt to work her and drive home again.
SARDA training was the following day, and such was her performance that I briefly considered leaving her at home to have some time away from obedience work. However, domestic circumstances meant that this was not an option, so with some trepidation we met up with the others. At training the dogs work one at a time to minimise distractions, and when it was our turn to work, I put her through some obedience drills and she did surprisingly well. Same on the second go a while later.
At lunchtime, we went for a little walk on our own as she had been in the car for most of the morning. Sadly she was back to being in a very giddy frame of mind, with not much in the way of listening to me going on, so I was glad that we were out of sight of the others. This was particularly so when I had to grab her on a fly-by to get her back on the lead, and she was bundled quickly back into the car before anyone noticed.
The afternoon’s training began, and with some dismay it became apparent that we were going to be first up. I didn’t hold out much hope for either of our reputations being enhanced by the next 30 minutes, but got her ready and shuffled out to perform.
We were asked to run through the assessment criteria to see the stage we were at, starting with walking to heel. She did surprisingly well on the lead, and then repeated her performance off the lead. Blimey! Was not expecting that!
Emergency stop on recall next, and she fluffed the first go, probably because of the way I set it up. We reset and did it a couple more times without issue.
The “stay” for 5 min with the handler in sight, followed by 5 minutes out of site was possibly one of the longest 10 minutes of my life, but she took it well in her stride with a fairly flawless performance.
The final test was a recall from distraction with other dogs and handlers. Another perfect performance (though I got her back on the lead as soon as I could without it looking like unseemly haste).
When it was all done the trainers came over and congratulated us on passing the obedience test. Yay!
It was a good job I didn’t leave her at home after all. She really pulled it out of the bag when it mattered, and though I’m not fooling myself that there isn’t work still to be done, I’m really proud that she has got to this standard.
So now the stock test……
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