Sometimes you just want to stop and sniff the roses, or the grass in Brego's case. On our walk yesterday, we weren't in a rush, the sun was shining so I let him fill his nose with whatever was so interesting. I wasn't worried about his emotional state, he wasn't nervous or over-excited and I know I could have called him on if I'd wanted to.
A video from our recent trip to The Sensory Shed. I love doing scent work, it's so enriching and mentally stimulating for our dogs and Brego thinks it's so much fun. We had a 30 minute session and he slept for most of the day afterwards!
What does your dog do when you let them off lead? Do they run off in to the distance or stick by you? By growing the skill of proximity and working on yiour relationship you will be more interesting than the environment and they won't want to run off.
Have you ever tried asking your dog to do something they know super well when they're really excited and it's like they've gone deaf? This is the skill of thinking in arousal - even if they're really excited, they can still listen. We're working on it here with Brego and it is especially important in recall training because they tend to be very excited. Brego loves this toy and can find it tricky to hear me and disengage. But he did brilliantly here - he comes straight away when I pip my whistle and even drops his toy.
Scenting is so much fun! Sometimes you might be surprised how your dog doesn't use their nose much and you have to encourage it. This was quite a tricky one as the treat was high up but Brego persevered and searched for over a minute without me needing to cue him again. It's not hard to get started at home, it doesn't have to be Police level training. Get hiding some treats and make sure to make it easy to start with - set up for success!
I love watching Brego playing with his friends! He has such an active playing style which can look a little intense. But you can see they break off, have a sniff then go back to playing which is a joy to see.
We've been putting a lot of work into Berties recall and look at how much it is paying off! He's come running straight back and even demonstrated some agility skills jumping over a log. We've had to put a lot of value into coming back and making sure it's better than whatever is out in the environment.
I took Brego to training class where we blind hid his toy and he had to sniff it out. You can see him searching really well and using that amazing nose of his. He went on for even longer than this video without further prompting and found his toy without any help. This was his first time in the field that day too so there would have been lots of other competing smells. Our dogs noses are truly incredible!
Bertie did so amazingly showing his skills off. It might look a little flashy (and it is so fun to train) but it is practicing so many different skills. He's being calm on the mat and disengaging from the ball. He's showing great proximity in his recall and then is going out to retrieve the ball. Great job Bertie!
Brego is showing off his waiting skills. Not only does he have to wait to get the ball until he's released but I've thrown the ball, which is very exciting. He's showing great self control but still being interested enough to get the ball when released. I let him celebrate with his victory lap.
Brego has a recall word but I've also trained him to come back on the whistle too. It saves me shouting at him and the whistle sound carries perfectly for dog hearing. As always, only pip your whistle signal once even if they don't come back straight away to make sure you don't dilute the signal.
Brego is true to his retriever heritage bringing back his toys. It took a while for him to get the hang of bringing it back and then dropping the toy but he loves doing it now.
Concept based dog trainer
