A wet training

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Yesterday proved to be a wet training day. With thunderstorms all around the rain was non stop but of course so were the dogs. Not much holds them back and a heavy down pore an distant thunder most certainly didn’t. Raina had a wonderful 2 acre blind HR problem which we did in about 40 minutes. One of the sources was buried 8 inches deep, the other under a bunch of leafy debris. She worked each out with little frustration despite it DOWN POURING as soon as we got to the area. Within 60 seconds the two of us, along with our flanker where soaked head to toe. The rain kept up for the first half with no avail. I was able to easily enough narrow down the sections of our area she had scent and by the time we worked out which two small sections we planned to detail the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Raina did great, and of course why would she ever let the rain bother her???

Jordis, Sören’s sister had her second batch of puppy problems and proved that she is quickly learning the game. Her drive is pretty outstanding. Keep a look out for her updates!

Eme had her second contamination trail, which was a bit different then she is used to. Typically we have different kids from the school as subjects or my team mates, yesterday we had a female handler from another team whom eme had never met nor trailed, and her 3 contamination trails (meant to distract her off the scent she SHOULD be following) were all boys she loves and trails at the school. Not once did she even deviate off her subject the whole time!! The ending was a bit of a mess due to her subject having been all down in the area the trail ended working her own personal dog, but eme went into airscent mode, worked the elevation and the scent pool and figured it out just like she would have to in a real search. Way to go Eme-lion!!!

Flashback Friday

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This weeks flashback post photos are of Otto, a 1 year old german shepherd that Elite Instinct Canine trained (from 8 weeks to 7 months) and placed into a Search and Rescue home.

Otto working on his bite

“Whatcha looking at?”

Otto playing with his handler

Otto is now starting his certification process with Amigo Search Dogs and by 2013 will be a certified search dog!

Sören- A few videos

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Well it hasn’t even been 24 hours since Sören has entered our life and he is adjusting quite well! Below are a few videos to hold you over till the thunderstorms can roll past and we can get some good video and photos.

 

Just after getting off the plane, we found a nice grassy area to potty them and wear them out before the trip home from Newark.

 

Last night once we got home we took a little walk and romp in the field alone without the other dogs.

 

 

This morning playing in the backyard, working on some tug drive.

Some weekend photos

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This past weekend was all about the adult dogs, we don’t want them to feel left out when the pups come especially the other working dogs. Below are a few pics from hanging out this weekend. Of course we did plenty of work too!!!

Raina portrait

 

Emeline

 

Abby

 

 

 

 

We are pleased to introduce…………..

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The Canine copilot pack is expanding once again! We are pleased to introduce Edgar von Ramhaus and Electra von Ramhaus. Both west german line working shepherds who will be an integral part of our future plans.

They are litter mates from Ayla von Julich and Asko vom Haus der Greene.  These pups were hand picked by myself and the breeder and will be an asset to the future of German Shepherds. We are VERY excited to be bringing these guys into our home and life. I searched far and wide for the exact combination of genetics, drive, temperament, and workability and found it in Ramhaus K9  I want to send many thanks to Christine for her patience with me as we struggled with puppy picking, arranging their arrival, and of course providing all the pictures and video!!!! These guys will be joining us Monday July 23, 2012 from Jacksonville Florida. 

Edgar von Ramhaus call name Sören- God of war (pronounced zoren)

Electra von Ramhaus call name Jordis-Goddess of the sword.

Our first negative trail

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Eme has had a good week, a lot of really challenging good trails set up thanks to the hard work of my teammates!  Today we attempted our first ever negative trail area. Essentially the scent article was collected from my subject and presented in an area he had NEVER been in. Instead a 30 minute hot track had been laid by another subject whom she had not been given a scent article for. This was a completely new concept to Miss Emeline as she has ALWAYS had her trail somewhere in the vicinity of where i have casted her.

Well she really did wow me today. I scented her on the tshirt and she gave me negatives in two directions saving the direction down toward the water where she did have the distraction trail as last. I sent her down there to check it out and she showed some interest in it, i told her no and casted her a bit further out same reaction but she steered herself back up to the scent article. She stopped and i re scented her again and she just sat down “um duh mom it’s not HERE!” You’ll see that around 1:20 of the video.

So proud of her!!

 

Flashback Friday

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This weeks flashback friday post is pictures of the canine copilot dogs out and about for Elite Instinct Canine training sessions.

Raina and I at Home Depot

 

Franky in the car waiting for the lesson to begin

 

Abby in a sit stay

 

Eme’s trail July 6th

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I compilation of video clips of Eme’s trail run on July 6th. Due to my surgery she hadn’t run a trail in over 3 weeks. This was run blind (meaning i had no idea where the trail went, but my flanker did who set it up) and was a bit over an hour old. Go to the link to see a map and more information about this trail.

The LKP (last known point) was the front door of the house when the angry teen fled after getting into a fight with his parents. The video is pretty shaky and not always focusing on me but you can catch her body language, her nose on the ground except in certain parts of the feild where the wind was blowing it and she had her nose up a bit more, you can also see her perfect 90 degree turn to the left following his exact path. Towards 3 minutes you will also see her throw her head left, and then a second after i do as well, she was giving me a proximity alert. In other words she was using a little of her airscent training without even really knowing it showing me the direction of the subject, you will see us go up the hill and then back down still following his exact trail, but as her handler i have a good idea of the location of the subject now.  At the very end you will see that even with a huge scent pool (the subject was out there the whole hour waiting and Eme has passed several of her airscent certification tests) and a visual on the subject she still trails right up to his foot.

What a good girl Eme!

Focusing on Consistency- Part 2 The Plan

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Abby and I reflecting on life

 

Everywhere in life we have a plan. Think about it, you have a plan for the night, a plan for the weekend, a plan for vacation, and a plan for dinner that evening. You even have plans for how your children will grow up or maybe how the world will end one day. Why wouldn’t you have a plan for your dog training session??????

Get with the planing program!

It doesn’t have to be documented in official memo style and approved by the president (though if you are working with a professional dog trainer they will help you get your plan solidified and ensure that it is beneficial to you and the canine) but at least know what you are going to do and how you plan on doing it. Now with that being said……….i change my plan a hundred times a day!!! That’s ok though, because i’m changing it based on my dogs AGENDA and the FEEDBACK he is giving me while we are training. You do not have a plan so that you have to stick to it like gorilla glue, you have a plan so you can keep focus and maintain CONSISTENCY in your training session.

Depending on the time of day, what i have already accomplished with my dog that day, and both our moods i will pick what the object of our plan will be. If i have been gone all day and Raina is crazy full of energy I will not jump right into long downs, that is not fair to her to drill such a static exercise. I would do something fun first like go outs where she gets to use her energy bursts for good. THIS is the main factor in working on the dogs agenda for your plan. I already know the process on how to train go outs, so i will start where we left off in our last session and see how she performs. Following my plan allows me to focus completely on the dog and keeping these as CONSISTENT as possible so we both learn with fewer mistakes.

I know this may  be confusing at first, or even extremely complicated and overkill, but you cannot be upset or mad at a dog who doesn’t have good obedience if you never bothered to train him right in the first place.

PLEASE remember bringing a dog into your life IS A LOT OF WORK. I can vouch first hand that it is fully worth the work you put into your pup or dog to have a wonderful canine copilot for the rest of your life.