Iz & Wags

28/01/2021

Full house!

25/12/2020

Merry Christmas!

04/12/2020

We had a visitor the other day after all the lovely warm weather. Thanks to Reptile Rescue Incorporated - Tasmania this guy is now enjoying the sun elsewhere. Thankfully we found him before the dogs did!

18/11/2020

03/11/2020

Spent the afternoon enjoying a lovely play in the river :)

25/10/2020

First place in novice container! Actually our first time in a trial (albeit just a mock trial) and we have only been training this scent (birch) for less than 4 weeks. I'm super proud of my girl

16/10/2020

Polishing those heelwork skills up! Learning how to move her back feet so she is nicely in line with me

12/10/2020

Working on our freeze indication for scentwork. We are training this separately to the search using a coin, and working on adding distractions like pulling on the collar and being touched while still holding the indication. We practice this regularly the strengthen the indication when doing actual searches

09/10/2020

Enjoying a little paddle to cool down

09/10/2020

Another teeny tiny kong search. It takes her a while but gets there! Very happy with this progress

09/10/2020

A kong search for the teeniest piece of Kong I could physically cut (shown in the photo when you click into the video). This was an incredibly difficult search for her and she did an amazing job - I decreased my criteria for her indication because the of the difficulty of the search, normally I would push for a longer, more confident freeze indication. I couldn't see the kong in the wall and forgot exactly where I hid it - but she found it! A good lesson in learning to trust your dog, they are the expert when it comes to scentwork

09/10/2020

An active search with catnip scented fleece toys. She retrieves 7 in 1 minute. Excuse my ridiculous behaviour, I am trying to increase her arousal and drive for the retrieve 🤣 the threshold here is the hose stretches along the ground, which she has to bring the toy back across for it to count.

09/10/2020

Practising settling in a busy environment at Willie Smith's Cider Makers. Many small children and other dogs running around. Scally is generally quite excited by people and activity so training in varied environments is important to build up her environmental robustness

09/10/2020

One of the first kong searches we ever did. Scally is about 6 months old here. We are searching for small pieces of Kong stuck into the wall. Each piece is removed after it is found. At this stage we are just practising searching an area and not so much on a strong indication. She does very well here, maintaining focus throughout and finding every hide, even the difficult one above her head height

09/10/2020

We've trained such a strong freeze indication in our scentwork that it's become her go to behaviour when she wants something! 😆

09/10/2020

Practising impulse control - she has to wait for me to say 'ok!' before she can grab the bone

09/10/2020

A little bit of scentwork training. There a 2 small pieces of Kong hidden in the wood stacks. This is the first time she has searches this area so it's takes her a little while and her freeze indication isn't as strong as it usually it. This was also a particularly windy day, blowing scent all over the place and increasing the difficulty. I'm certainly happy with the progress we've made though, and she manages to find both hides