What have you been up to ???

Okay Okay …

I know I haven’t updated on the doggy stuff for a while

so here’s a bit on what we’ve been up to …

On the nose ...
.
We’ve started to play with a little bit of tracking. Just simple straight line tracks for now and our aim is to get the nose down and heading in the right direction “on track”! Krash and Carrie are having a go at this stage (yes, a Malinois and a Dalmatian - what a combination!) Chilli might even get a play at it a little later on.
.
Krash tends to want to run and often overshoots the food on the track, but that’s okay, so long as he’s following the track. To start with, he was a little confused as to where “tracking” started and that the jackpot at the end was the finish … after a couple of goes he had his nose down so I decided to start putting the harness on him at the start of the track and taking it off when he’d finished – it definitely helped. He worked out that once the harness went on it was time to start "doing something". I think he feels a little bit important too, with his brand new harness – a gift to him from friend Marty – Krash says “thanks”!
.
Carrie also joined us to try her paw at tracking and, as you know, if there’s food involved, Carrie will do almost anything! She worked out very quickly that following a track would lead to more and more treats! All going well, we will reduce the rewards vert soon and may also be able to add some curves in our tracks next week.
.
Thanks to Kath and Lisa (who are also having a go with their GSP’s learning by trial and error just like me) for trudging along with me and hunting down strange places to play at! Also thanks to Justin who has been ever so patient in answering my never-ending questions on "what to do next"!

.

.
.
Puppy Stuff
.
Party has finally decided that bringing her toy back to me to play with is more fun than zooming around the backyard with it all on her own! Yay - finally!!! Our training basically consists of play, and play, and play, and play … we are implementing a few control games now but I'm very careful not to make things too serious ...
.
.
Getting to know a Belgian is quite different to getting to know a border collie (something I can compare to). They are very tactile dogs and their interaction is often very physical – teaching the boundaries of where that physical interaction becomes bad manners is the challenge. Party is also very stimulated by her environment – new things are sooooo exciting. We’ve been doing lots of flatwork, follow me/my hand and tug rewards beside me (thanks Simone!) and sending out/around cones, poles, trees for a game of chasey reward (she loves that) and sending to the tunnel for a tuggy after a lightning-speed exit!
.
We will start some target training this week … hmmm, how yet, I am not sure. Free-shaping is not a Belgians favourite method of learning; they much prefer clear instructions of your agenda and then like to add their “twist” to it! So targeting will be an interesting challenge … stay tuned.
.

.
The serious stuff that pays for the fun stuff …
.
Work has been hectic, to say the least and I am sure once “Gorgon-itis” ramps up to full speed ahead we are going to be abolutely frantic! I feel like I’ve been around the world and back in the last month, working from locations all over the Perth outer-metro areas, from crawling around under huge mining machinery, accommodation units, barges and aircraft, trucks, busses, cars ... to inspecting bananas and apples ... all destined for Barrow Island!
.
Good news ... the detector dogs arrive in about 8 weeks time … I’m really looking forward to starting work with them and doing what I really came here to do! We’re starting out with beagles, for the beginning of 2010, to be followed up with Labradors early next year. This training will be a whole new learning experience for me … will update when I have more ... if you’re really lucky I might even be able to manage some photo’s!

.

Other stuff ...

.
One good thing about being busy … I’ve be so busy I’ve managed to break my habit of biting my nails! Yay ... don't ask me how but amongst all the manual work I've managed to grow a nice set of nails (no, they are not false!)
.
Also, night trials started this weekend and continue now until March next year - yippee!

Party will be going to some more shows soon (she had one today and was very excited to see the judge!)

.

The heat of Summer has got us running with the lawn mower and whipper-snipper as everything decides to start growing at a rapid rate, we need to mulch the gardens (eeewww, back breaking stuff!) and the gum leaves are starting to form their little fire-hazard bundles around the block, poisoning the unwelcomed weeds is neverending and the demand of keeping everything watered is just another task to add to Mum's busy day of looking after the block … don’t even mention Christmas!

.

Back to the early bird airport shifts for me again next week for another two weeks ... rising at 2am isn't the easiest time of the day to be asking your body clock to adapt to ... on that note, think I'll be off to bed to put some credit in my sleep bank ...

.

All photo's on this post are "Party" at approx. 5 months old, taken today Saturday 31st Oct.