With just over a week to go before the beginning of Dec, we still have a few Advent Calendars left if anyone would like one? They are £15 with £2 postage. I have a couple of Turkey and Venison and a handful of Ostrich left 🎄🎅 let me know if you’d like one!
#jrpetproducts #jradventcalendar #dogadventcalendar #dogtreats #christmastreats #naturaldogtreats #scurriesdogtraining
🎄 Advent Calendars now in stock 🎄
If you feel like spoiling your pup this December, we now have in stock the great JR Advent Calendars 🎅
If you’d like one, let me know!
#dogadventcalendar #jradventcalendar #jrpetproducts #itsnearlychristmas #spoileddogs #positivedogtraining
💥ONLY 1 SPACE LEFT ON OUR PUPPY CLASS💥
Book now to get the last remaining space on our next puppy class starting November 5th!
https://scurries.co.uk/book/puppy-course/
#puppytraining #dogtraining #recalltraining #looseleadwalking #puppylove #newpuppy #oxfordguncompany #positivedogtraining #forcefreedogtraining
Do you struggle with your dogs recall?
Does your dog drag you around your daily walks?
Or do feel like your dog isn’t always listening when out and about?
We can help!
We have just released the dates of our next Recall and Loose Lead Walking class starting in November 🦮
https://scurries.co.uk/book/recall-and-loose-lead-walking/
#recalltraining #looseleadwalkingtraining #dogtraining #positive #dog #positvedogtraining #positivedogtraining #scurriesdogtraining #dogrecall #happydogs #practicemakesperfect #educatingdogowners #forcefreedogtraining
🌟 ANIMATING FOOD REWARDS 🌟
The next game with play with our food rewards is called "get it", this is a great game to fulfill your dogs desire to chase, catch and consume.
🔸 HOW TO 🔸
✅ Start of with your dog in front of you and count out 10 treats, have 5 in each hand.
✅ Bowl a treat out to the side and at the same time say "get it" so the dog knows it can chase it.
✅ Once the dog has consumed the treat, wait for them to look back to you and bowl another out to the side and say "get it".
✅ Continue until you have one treat left and feed this one back in front of you.
Remember this is a great reward that lasts longer than just a treat fed to the mouth and can be a great reward for all sorts of behaviour, especially recall!
Have a go and let us know if your dog likes the game!
🤩 MORE HEELWORK EXERCISES 🤩
Once we have taught the basics of a good heel we can now have some fun with it and mix up our rewards and start adding in distractions.
In this little video we are heeling away from the foodbowl, the distraction, and then rewarding the dogs heel by running back to the bowl and letting them eat it, hence the distraction becomes the reward!
You can move this on by having food bowls in front and behind you and mix up where you send the dog, forward or back etc., and you can start to heel around the bowls to make it even more challenging!
🌟 ANIMATING FOOD REWARDS 🌟
If you have trained with us before, you know the first thing we like to educate people with is how to use food rewards in other ways than just offering one piece.
Did you know that there are scientific studies that have also shown that the anticipation of getting the reward is rewarding in itself, so the anticipation of the food animation reward game is rewarding as well as the game itself...double win!
Ensuring food animation games are part of your reward structure can also help that all important recall, where we like the reward for recall to be fun, not getting the dog to sit! The games help the recall reward last and keep the dog with you, rather than them taking one treat and doing a drive by treat grab to then run off again!
We will be taking you through a few of the games that we play with food, starting with catch. We like to start these games from Puppy and catch is one of our favourites, usually because it is rather hilarious watching food bounce off the puppies!
🔸 HOW TO 🔸
✅ Have your dog in front of you, paying attention to you
✅ Bowl the treat out underarm slowly up into the air towards your dog, don't throw it like a missile as they won't be able to catch that just yet!
✅ If they fail to catch just let them find it from the floor
Continue until they get they can catch, yes it is that simple! It might take some dogs a while but they all get there in the end.
Once the dog is reliably catching most of the food, I like to put a "catch" cue on it, so before throwing each treat I will say "catch".
You can then play catch for as long as you like, we tend to keep it going for 20-30 seconds.
Have you taught your dog to catch? Let us know in the comments!
Evie hunting
Hunting Practice in the woods with Evie
🤓 QUICK TIP 🤓
Now we have reduced the amount of food in our luring hand, we are now going to look at adding the cue and removing the lure. Once the dog is reliably following the hand up we want to see if we can remove the lure so that the dog is now doing the behaviour in order to get the reward, rather than doing the behaviour because the reward is there (the lure), this is the important part of moving on our training.
🌟 HOW TO 🌟
🔸 Continuing with the two treat method from the last stage, start to add the cue to tell the dog what they are already doing, just as you reposition and before you set off say the heel cue, this doesn't have to be "heel", use what cue you like!
🔸 Now it is time to have a go at removing the food lure. We will do exactly as we have been doing, repositioning the dog with our body language and giving the cue just before we set off. Our hand will come up and we will set off confidently for just a few steps, usually a little less than we have been achieving at the last stage.
🔸 Once you have taken the number of steps, mark whilst you are still moving (if the dog is still in the right position) and then stop and reward with a treat from your pocket on the same side as the dog.
🔸 If at any point the dog loses their position or their head goes down, stop, go back to the start point and start again, only this time take less steps than the last rep, before rewarding.
🔸 This number of steps is now going to be termed your heelwork baseline and next time we will show you how to increase your duration in a structured manner!
Do let us know if you have found this series on heelwork helpful and how you are getting on!
And here is @the_spaniel_trio_2022 Murphy smashing his 20 yard blind, which is a Gundog Club Grade 4 exercise 💗
I do love my job 💗
Here is Tiggy, still not yet 1 but smashing her blind at 20yards at a “hotspot”
A little parade on the return but super work from this young lady
🤓 QUICK TIP 🤓
The next stages of heel.
Now we have practiced the hand down/hand up method the dog should now be able to walk a number of steps with the hand up. So it is now time to reduce the amount of food in the hand.
🌟 HOW TO 🌟
🔸 Take two treats and have them in the hand on the side of the dog.
🔸 Reposition the dog and walk forward with your hand down and deliver one treat and then raise your hand up.
🔸 Walk forward for the number of steps that you have been reaching with the hand up, with your hand up.
🔸 Once you have taken that number of steps, mark whilst you are still moving and then stand still and deliver the other treat in your hand.
🔸 Repeat and start to focus on your body language now so that you are looking forward, whilst still able to gaze down to check the dog is in position when on the move, and relax, so that you look like you are walking normally!
Repeat this stage in lots of different places, you can up the number of steps you are taking if the dog is doing well.
Next week we will look at adding the cue and removing the lure!
Hope these tips are helpful and let us know how you are getting on!
💐 HAPPY EASTER 💐
Hurrah! It is the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, we hope you have lots planned with your dogs this weekend and that you get lots of time to relax and enjoy time with them!
We are off to the Kimble Point2Point on Saturday, Thame Country Fair on Sunday and a Charity Working Test on Monday! Busy, busy!
A gentle reminder to keep all chocolate goodies out of reach from your dogs, cocoa can be toxic to dogs so be sure to avoid a vet trip and manage and prevent any accidents!
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#easter #easteregg #easterbunny #easterbasket #easterholidays #easterholidays2022 #easterdogs #besafe #besensible #easterpuppy #easterpuppys #eastercelebrations #bankholiday #bankholidayfun #bankholidayvibes #dogadvice
🤓 QUICK TIP 🤓
The next stages of heel.
Now we have taught the dog the repositioning cue, we will then start to add movement. But, instead of the conventional luring method, we prefer Jo Lauren's idea of the hand down/hand up heel work to begin with to really raise the value of that heel work position before removing the food or using a lure.
🌟 HOW TO 🌟 (assuming teaching left hand heel)
🔸 Have lots of treats in your left hand, we like to use Primula as it makes everything much easier!
🔸 Reposition the dog and start to walk forward with your hand down allowing the dog to consume food as they are walking along. If you run out of food, re-load and continue.
🔸 Once you have done this for a few repetitions, start to raise your hand up and take a few steps. If the dog maintains heel position, mark, then reward by continuing forward with the hand down.
🔸 Continue to hand down/hand up or bar open/bar closed as we like to call it and gradually increase the amount of time that the hand is up. before marking and rewarding with hand down.
Check in next week for the next stages of how we teach the heel cue.
Let us know how you get on with this stage, as mentioned this is from Jo Laurens book Force-Free Gundog Training. https://www.forcefreegundog.com/
🤓 QUICK TIP 🤓
How to get started with your heel position.
Before adding any movement it is a good idea to teach the dog how to come into the heel position. We start off using food to lure the dog into position and gradually phase this out so that the dog is able to locate this position on a subtle body language cue or verbal cue from wherever they may be positioned around you.
This can also be used to bring the dog back into position when loose lead walking so it is one of our favourite exercises to teach dogs of all ages!
🌟 HOW TO 🌟
🔸 With the dog in front of you take some treats in your lef hand and lure the dog behind you, whilst taking a step back with your left foot.
🔸 Turn the dog and lure forwards again whilst stepping your left foot forward to meet your right foot.
🔸 Mark and reward when the dog is level with your side and standing straight, aligned with you.
🔸 Repeat numerous times with the food lure, once the dog is reliably following the lure, remove the food from your hand and lure with an empty hand as above, mark when dog is in position and then reward with food.
🔸 Work towards reducing your body language cues and add a verbal cue when the dog is showing an understanding of the behaviour.
Give it a go, let us know how you get on!
🌟 NEWS 🌟
Emily is now a Foundation level instructor for The Gundog Club. The Gundog Club was launched in January 2006 to help people train their gundogs through participation in a non-competitive graded training scheme and is a great way to achieve both obedience and a breed specific understanding between dog and owner!
https://thegundogclub.co.uk/
Our Progressive Classes aim to offer training towards completing the Gundog Club Grades.
The Gundog Club Field Tests are open to all gundogs regardless of their ancestry. Pedigree papers are not required and cross-bred dogs are welcome to enter the scheme. Pet gundogs are warmly welcomed and encouraged to participate.
Classes are now available to book on the website commencing in April.
Springer spaniels
Will never chill in the house and bounce off the walls unless you walk them 10 hours a day 😆
Evie didn’t get the memo 📝
Remember back in the day when the phone signal used to go down at midnight? — does that still happen?
Well, just in case, I'm getting in there now! Have a wonderful night and here's to successful gundogs of 2022!
