Zuko loves to run the lure course at the pet expo! 🏁
Talcon and Strider took on day 1 of the pet expo last night! 🥳🐾
This might seem like a long, boring, and uneventful video, but it’s actually night and day progress in this type of environment for Strider and something I’m extremely proud of.
While Talcon has always been an extremely confident, outgoing, and bombproof dog in every environment and situation, the same cannot be said for Strider.
I have shared over the years that he struggles in very specific types of environments and this one in particular has always been the worst. The very first time I ever brought him to one of these pet expos he was just under a year old and could not leave the safety/comfort of our booth without entering true flight mode and a complete state of panic. It broke my heart 💔
After that I saw similar behavior from him only inside certain stores. He just got extremely overwhelmed by what seemed to be all of the shelving and objects looming and leaning over him and the loudness/busyness of the environment.
So for years we have worked on building his confidence in all types of these environments, using Talcon as a role model, creating fun games for him in stores to play, rewarding interactions with inanimate objects in these environments, rewarding checking in with me, etc. Most of the time we practice in Lowe’s and Home Depot but we’ve also gone into various stores in our local dog friendly outdoor mall as well. I have not seen flight mode from him in a very long time! 🤩
Last night made my heart want to burst 🥹 I have taken Strider to the expo every year and never pushed or forced him past what he was comfortable with. Up until last night he has only been able to make it about 3 to 4 booths away from ours before he felt overwhelmed and we would turn back…
Last night he walked around the entire expo with Talcon and I!!!! 🥳🥳🥳 In the beginning you can see some moments of stress/overwhelm as we leave the area of our booth but he is able to work th
We are 𝐄𝐂𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐂 to be watching one of Zuko’s puppies over the Thanksgiving holiday! 🦃
𝘉𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘦 “Kelly” is staying with us while her mom is away! 💜💜💜
So far her first day with us has been a lot of fun and she has settled in really well! I thought this was going to give me my “puppy fix” but I have a feeling this will likely just give me “puppy fever” instead! 😅
Senna’s first time out on the bike this morning! Happy to say there were no crashes but man that girl was looking for squirrels the entire time! 😅🙈😬
This morning we met up with some members of the local dryland mushing club again to go out for a ride! We had a lot of fun and worked a little more on passing and being passed. I am hoping to try Senna this week and see how she does, and keep on working on encouraging Zuko’s‘s drive to pull and run whether there are dogs in front of us or not! 🚴🏻♀️🐾
Safe to say the bikejoring bug has bit us! 🚲
Today Zuko and I met up with a local dry land mushing group to work on some fundamentals for bikejoring and at the end of it we did a ride out on the trail with the group. IT WAS AWESOME! This was only Zuko’s third time trying this and today for the first time he went faster than a trot and we had the biggest smile on our faces. Excited to meet up with them again. Great experience for us both! 🐾🚲
Zuko and I tried bikejoring for the first time together today! 🚴🏻♀️🐾
We had lots of troubleshooting to do but for our first time out I’m really happy with how it went! We learned a lot together.
Initially Zuko would not go out in front of the bike, he stayed alongside it. So I walked with the bike and encouraged him out on ahead and about halfway through he picked it up and stayed out in front while I was riding!
Our next hurdle was that every time he felt resistance he would stop, he did not want to pull. This is likely because in our regular obedience pulling when walking is not preferred. We are still working on this one but he did eventually keep on going as he felt light tugging so I think he will get it eventually!
And the most important thing, we did not crash! 😂😂😂
Thanks so much to Basalt Tamaskan Ellen Sjaarda and Timberline Tamaskan for your suggestions and advice! We are reaching out to some friends and groups in our area to help us so that Zuko can keep learning!
Today Zuko and Senna went to their second barnhunt lesson! 🐀🐾
In this video Zuko is trying to locate two hidden rats, one on the ground and one up high, while two “dummy” tubes (one empty and one with scent) are hidden in the course as well to try to throw him off. Zuko also needed to climb up onto a bale and do one tunnel with a turn. He did great!
It was cool to see the comparison today vs. the first time we went. Zuko took awhile to warm up during our first lesson and picked things up towards the end whereas Senna nailed it the entire first lesson. Today Zuko absolutely crushed everything we threw at him while the entire lesson today Senna found her rats but was disinterested in them and just continued wanting to scan the entire course instead of alerting on them like she had during our first lesson.
I think she wants to find one outside of the tube. 😅🙈
Today Senna completed the novice, open, and senior ranked tunnels which was awesome! My fearless girl! Zuko completed the novice and open tunnels! We did not try him on the senior one yet but will next time!
Barnhunt is so much fun and we will definitely continue taking them for lessons!
I will put a short video of Senna’s last run in the comments as well where she decided to bark at her rat 😂
Big difference between the earlier video I posted of Senna finding the hidden rat vs. this video of Zuko finding it.
Senna…🏎️🏁🏁🏁 Whereas Zuko takes the time to carefully check almost the entire area and then eventually alerts on the hidden rat. The part I really liked during his search was that he first found the tube that contained rat scent and droppings (decoy) and knew that wasn’t right, and then found the tube with the live rat in it and you could see the difference in his excitement and enthusiasm.
Super cool experience, we will definitely go back to work more! 🐀🐾
Zuko working with the “instinct board.”
One tube is totally empty, one tube has a live rat, one tube has litter with rat droppings/rat scent in it.
The goal was for Zuko to only alert on the tube with the live rat in it and for us to praise him for that. If he would have hit on either of the “dummy” tubes we would have ignored it until he found the correct one.
*I’d like to add that the dogs met the rats in a cage first where the rats could see the dogs and the rats were so so open and friendly. They stood up to sniff and lick the dogs through the cage and did not seem frightened at all. It is the job of the instructor to desensitize the rats to dogs before they begin working in barnhunt as it is in the rats’ best interest. The tubes that the rats are in during the exercises are VERY thick and durable, it is impossible for the rat to get injured during the exercise. There are regulations for how long a rat is allowed to “work” during barnhunt and all kinds of stipulations for how they are housed and cared for, it is taken very seriously. While the dogs are first learning barnhunt we allow them to really ”hit” on the tube for longer so that we build their drive for the game, once the dog is understanding things and catching on the tube will be removed quicker as we don’t want the dog rolling the rat around in there and really disturbing them. 🐀🤍🐾
The Tamaskan Dogs and I went to our very first barnhunt lesson ever today!
Was so cool to see the difference in them. Senna was 100mph right out the gate and a natural. Zuko took a bit to warm up and is a lot more methodical than Senna but also got just as into it.
We will definitely keep this up! Was so much fun! Check out Senna doing the tunnel on her own with no prompt and finding the live rat hidden in the hay! 🐀🐾
An afternoon at the local farmer’s market with Strider and Zuko! No music or filters, just real life stuff showing our dogs dispositions out in public! This was both boys first time here at the market 🐾
