Spent the afternoon enjoying a lovely play in the river :)
Polishing those heelwork skills up! Learning how to move her back feet so she is nicely in line with me
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
Another teeny tiny kong search. It takes her a while but gets there! Very happy with this progress
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
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.
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
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
Shredding is one of her favourite activities! Why throw away cardboard when it can be put to good use? This way I don't even have to break it up myself to fit into the recycling
Walking her brother around the yard 😂
Excuse the poor quality video, but I wanted to share the adventure we went on today to a nearby beach. I'm using my longline as there is a road very close by. If you have a dog and don't own a lone line, get one! They are excellent for allowing your dog freedom on walks while still keeping them safe and giving you a fall back if your dog hasn't quite perfected a recall yet. This one is from Houndagrips and it is durable, washable and easy to grip!