Finesse isn't going to be her style. Her style is going to be more like that of a bull in a china shop.
She is figuring out that if she just shoves her way through... she will get to the other side of whatever it is she needs to get past.
We will of course hone this skill down to a bit of a finer art because we can't let her endanger herself. But in some things, it is fun as all get out to watch.
Like the above picture. She had the need to get on the other side of this body of water. She tried going around, but that put her too far away from us. Kaeden kept splashing to and fro with out a care, and that was driving her nuts. Finally she just said screw it and ran as fast as she could across the water.
The water wasn't as deep as she anticipated it would be, but she still flew across.... and from my perspective, she nearly succeeded in walking (or rather running) on water.
She isn't all bull in a china shop though. She plays games with herself by pushing her ball under the couch, then figuring out how to get it back. She taught herself early on, however, to not push it too far under to begin with, and to hook it with her paw, not just frantically shove her paw under the couch hoping to bat it out one side or the other. If you shove your paw in there, it forces the ball further back under the couch, making it impossible to get out.
The best part of all of this? It continues to show us how much of a problem solver she is.... she gets frustrated if she can't figure it out, but instead of giving up, she works that much harder at finding the solution.
This means, when the search gets hard, Raezor will get tougher and stick it through to the end, solving the puzzle as she goes!
Raezor has taught us so many things. For as much as we have taught her, I think our learning has been tenfold.
On a previous training day, it was obvious that Raezor discovered that Kaeden did search work too. Unbeknownst to me, as I worked Kaeden on a longer cadaver problem, Raezor sat in her crate and watched. I heard her howling from her crate, but it didn't occur to me that she was watching. That she was studying.
Until the problems were over and all the items picked up and we let the dogs out to just frolic. She did not frolic. She ran, lickity split over to where Kaeden had been working. She climbed, sniffed and investigated every spot he had been in. Too bad there was nothing there for her to find. To be sure the scent was there, but, as yet, she hadn't been taught much about it, so she didn't know what to do with it.
So we spent time working specifically on cadaver scent. Allowing her natural interest and rewarding it. Putting it out and directing her to search small areas and having that same party we have with a live subject.
Then Kristi decided to let Kaeden do more teaching. She leashed Raezor and Raezor got to watch as Kaeden worked his cadaver problems. It was as if she took notes. This first session, she absorbed the scenario and when it was her turn, she was at it big time. I could hear the "I'll show him!!" come from her loud and clear. Up the rocks, into the crevices, knowing no boundaries to where she could go, she found the items with the enthusiasm of a long trained cadaver dog.
So, for kicks, grins, fun and excitement I hid another source and had Kristi let her at it. Raezor checked where it had been, but directed well away from it... she expanded her search area like a champ and even had no qualms or issues with checking out the water near by. She checked all the rock formations and had an intensity that rivaled Kaeden's when he works.
Then she caught scent and maneuvered toward the source. At first, she blew right past it, but she practically did a back flip to get back to it.
We repeated the scenario a week later in a new location, with different sources, and by the time we worked the second problem, she was heading back to Kristi to tell her about it.
The power of the language you know. Dogs teach dogs. Because dogs speak dog.
Competition works too....
On to more lessons!
Saturday was a good dog training day. Fantastic weather... good winds. Great people.
We have found that if we let Raezor figure out pieces of the puzzle called Search Dog, it sticks better for her.
It was an interesting set of problems because she was plagued by visuals that disturbed her. Downed trees that took on the shapes of different kinds of boogey men were really bothersome to her. It was fantastic to watch her body language flip back and for from "I have scent" to "CRAP!! What the sam hill is THAT thing" and back to "I have scent" again. We let her work it.... let her take her baby steps forward until she got close enough that the scent of her subject overwhelmed whatever fear she had of the trees misshapen monsters. When that happened, it was adorable to see. She simply melted into a wiggly mass of happiness as she worked closer and closer to each of her subjects. Her first subject she actually climbed over the downed tree he was under and she landed on top of his head. She made the decision on her own to return to Kristi without having to be called, but not before she weaseled her way into her subjects face and thoroughly licked the living daylights out of him. AND she took the "show me" command to heart and flew back to the subject with out any encouragement or calling from the subject. Her second subject, she climbed the tree to get to her, had to have the face to face contact and then make her way back to Kristi without being called and blasted her way back to the subject without hesitation.
She is moving right along and doing a fine job of it!
