November 2005 – Alta-Tollhaus

November 28, 2005

Published by Julie on November 28, 2005

New Question

How do I figure out Rafe's head? He

works well in training, then gets to a show and loses

focus entirely—sometimes just wanders off to visit

the stewards or look at dogs outside the ring.

Fortunately it was just practice. Corrections don't

make a dent, so I don't bother. Right now my only

idea is to make him start over every time his

attention strays at all.

It is clearly not a "lack of brain" problem, since he learns things quickly and

understands the exercises, just seems to have no sense

of responsibility about working. Being beautiful

apparently is sufficient.

Cheers!

November 7, 2005

Published by Julie on November 7, 2005

Sunday they just have the one-hour pick-up and

drop-off time, so it was busy. I was waiting for the

dogs to come up front when one of the kennel staff

came out and asked which ones I wanted. When I said

the shepherds, she replied, "Oh, they are the BEST

dogs."

Well, we knew that.

Cheers!

November 3, 2005

Published by Julie on November 3, 2005

People who don't know him think he looks

dangerous--and that is good, since he is a big

pushover. When we walk, those afraid of dogs cross

the street. I like having a big, dark shape beside me

at night.

On the other hand, the DSM shepherd people had him in

their laps in two seconds.

Re the figure 8, the judge was just shaking her head.

She said something like "he certainly is pulling

everything he can think of today."

Now that it is all over, I am re-thinking. For all my

previous dogs the solution to heeling problems was to

go back on leash and correct. And that is what I did

with Rafe, but now I think it was a mistake. His head

seems to see heeling on leash as something totally

different from heeling off leash, so when I took the

leash off in the ring he was not sure what to do. We

are now back to trying a bit of off leash work, just

to see. I am correcting him by walking into him, etc.