The Yellow Peril!

Rupert is one of those dogs who is happy with whatever you do or wherever you go! really laid back, he loves camping and last weekend he was allowed to sleep in the caravan with me (spoilt or what?) I woke up in the middle of the night just to check he hadn't chewed anything to find him lying belly up stretched out on the bed next to me.

His training is coming along very nicely although I haven't really done much to move on just lots of basics, I can trust him off the lead with distractions now and he can tell the change in the tone of my voice from a first asking command to a I meant it the first time sort of command, where he looks at me as if to say"oh, I didn't realise you were speaking to me."

Amy has told me she is taking him and Summer on her course with Mary Ray next week, she will concentrate on Summer for the Agility and try Rupert in the obedience, so either he will come back the star of the show or Amy will bring him back complaining that I now have 2 dogs who take the micky out of her! lets hope for the former to be true..

This afternoon we are all off to Golden Valley agility show in the caravan for the weekend, but this time he will be sleeping in the awning with the girls, but he won't mind, he will be exhausted from playing with all his friends, it's a hard life being so popular.

Rupert Meets Richard Curtis

We arrived at the venue for 10am to be met by the man himself, Richard caught my eye a few years ago when Amy and I saw him at Earls Court, he works his dogs in a very quiet way totally in tune with their behavior and incredibly motivational so I thought the opportunity to spend a day learning some of his techniques would be beneficial to Rupert's ongoing training, not because I want to go on to compete in HTM but because I love the learning opportunities different handlers and disciplines can offer. In preparation for the day I had taught Rupert to turn left and right with the help of a treat, and as it happened it was one of the techniques we used in the mornings session. We were split into two groups of eight so the session worked 10 minutes of training followed by 10 minutes of rest, during the morning this worked well for Rupes, but I could tell he was getting tired by the lunchtime break, he then had 2 hours of rest as immediately after lunch we looked at music and accents and changes in the track to make the most out of the interpretation. Rupert did struggle a little in the remainder of the afternoon so I just sat on the floor with him playing little games instead of asking him to try anything new, making the most of our 10 minutes off by writing plenty of notes for the future. Actually Rupert worked incredibly well, I haven't done as much offside work as I had planned and this already showed in his ability to work on my right, but only after a couple of goes he was trotting along in a nice position quite happily, we mainly worked off lead and for a 5 month old puppy in a room of 16 dogs all working for treats or squeaky toys! his focus was really amazing, their wasn't a single occasion when he thought anyone else was more interesting than me, so we both came home very tired and very happy.

Mucky Pup

This is the problem with having a Border Collie Puppy masquerading as a golden retriever!! after the refreshing rain yesterday afternoon the corn field was rather wet, our farmers are brilliant at creating a nice pathway for walkers so our trouser bottoms don't get too soaked but sadly Rupert and Dylan thought it might be fun to see if there was anything hiding in the corn!! both of them came out very wet and rather muddy! but with very large grins on their faces.
I'm on the countdown to our training day with Richard Curtis and thought I had better do a bit of training so we have at least got a small repetoir to show him, so I have begun to use left and right spins in his heelwork, not only can this be used to remind him to race back to the correct heelwork position but it will also be very useful on the agility field in the future.

What lies ahead

Rupert has had a great weekend (as always) I have now started walking him with one other dog, usually either Ben or Summer, I was expecting him to try pulling on the lead to get in front or just to the other one, but he has been really good and hasn't had a tight lead once. I have also been letting him off the lead, only in areas where I have complete confidence he is safe, and his recalls from distractions are again coming on very well, there are a few times when I have to ask 2 or even 3 times but once he realises that I really mean it and there might be a tasty treat in store he soon comes trotting back.
Yesterday I took him for a walk to the training field where there is a large pond being the home of some very large expensive fish!! this pond is surrounded by a low electric fence to stop the Herons from poaching, Rupert's curiosity got the better of him and found out he does not like electric fences! the poor baby was not happy, but later in the day when he was out walking with Ben he didn't give it a 2nd look so maybe he wasn't scarred after all.
This Saturday I have booked Rupert and I onto a day course with Richard Curtis, I am not planning on doing any heelwork to music competitions but I am interested in his training methods and so Rupert and I armed with our clicker and plenty of tasty treats will hopefully come home with a few new tricks up our sleeve.