Hi and welcome to my new blog. I thought long and hard about this as I was unsure anyone would want to read about the daily highs and lows I have training my hounds, especially as I am helping so many people train their dogs.
However, I suddenly realised that actually it is not a negative to admit there are areas you need to work on and to admit that we are all learning every day. My hounds teach me new things everyday.
For example today I decided to take Poppy out for a recall session on some ground we have not walked in before. I have taken other dogs there and the park is a lovely spot for young dogs to explore. We have done a lot of work on recall recently and have practised both with and without a whistle.
I decided not to have the whistle today as I wanted to see how much she had learned without one. Where we went is fairly quiet but you meet one or two dogs and there are people out walking and running so just enough distractions to put our homework to the test.
It went very well. Poppy was great to begin with but as her confidence grew she strayed a bit further away and I couldn’t see her in some of the long grass. We practised recalling and she came back every time. I think the one thing I will change next time is take some higher reward treats than the sausage I had and I will take the whistle.
I decided that she had done so well we would practice some loose lead walking on the way back. Poppy is a puller so this is difficult for her. She wants to get everywhere at warp speed. Patience is definitely a virtue with Poppy. I think we stopped and started every couple of metres. I really have learned a lot of patience but as we got close to the car we had a couple of lovely Eureka moments so I think we will continue the Recall a couple of times a week and put more emphasis on heelwork in the coming days.
NED, Bolt and Maisie are on a rest day today because we went to the park last night for their running session. I find with lurchers that if they run for an hour they do need a rest the following day and they tend to sleep anyway.
However, we are working on Shush and Speak. The amount of people walking past the house has increased during lockdown so we are having fun learning to shush instead of barking at every single person that walks by. It makes me laugh how little things can change the equilibrium in the household and there is always something to focus on.
Looking forward to blogging again tomorrow x