Rainy Day Fun

It was with great joy and pleasure that we got to go work in the rain on Saturday.  Raezor got two new subjects and got to work a beautiful scent cone that 5 people got to watch.  

She worked the scent cone perfectly into the first subject,  and spirited off when asked to go find a second.  She found him and raced right back to Kristi... well, not before licking both sides of the subject's face.


Both subjects were covered in 'odd' coverings....from camo netting to plastic bags... and no issues for her with that.  With both subjects we got to see what has become her signature when moving into the subject... a whole body melting wiggle from ears to tail.  It is very readable. 


Much appreciation to the people who went out with us; for being subjects, for taking pictures and for intelligent questions. 


Moving right along!!

Working Like A Pro.... Almost

She learned to find scent.  On the ground.  In the air. 


Then she began looking for scent.  On the ground.  In the air.


Then, she followed scent.  On the ground.  In the air.


The latest?  She is learning to use the wind!  She will have scent, lose it, and circle herself around to try to find it again.  She loses scent, she will stop, check the wind (I can practically see her pull out a puff bottle!), re position herself, and find the scent again.


The latest twist we added to her training.... a subject dressed in camo, covered in camo....


Amazing how a dog uses their nose, and their eyes become so secondary.  She followed a beautiful scent cone to the subject.... but couldn't seem to connect what she was seeing with what she was smelling.  She circled the subject twice, then moved on from the subject.  After a few feet, she realized she didn't have scent anymore, and went back to the subject.  Tentatively, she moved closer and finally believed her nose and her eyes and tossed herself INTO the camo cover with the person, dig dig digging her way in to her.


At this point, she had to be called back to get her to leave the subject, something Kristi hasn't had to do for a while.  Happily, her alert came without cue and the return to the subject was flawless.  


A long, well deserved,  happy puppy party ensued.


She looked just like a Pro.... Almost.  She's getting there!








Oh.... remember the vacuum battle?  With a LOT of work on our part, including leaving the vacuum in the oddest places in the house, and both of us nearly OCD-like having to touch it and make it move every time we came near it, Raezor now regards the stationary vacuum with little more than a cursory glance.  When it is running, it is a different story.  At that point, it becomes a sworn enemy that must be attacked at least once.  Then she lays down and watches all of her toys carefully to make sure the vacuum isn't going to take any of those away.
  
Her latest nemesis in the world?


Cows.  


Cows are EVIL.  Pure and simple. The puppy, who is half herding dog, believes all cows are evil.


Not sure how to fix this because I think we'd have a hard time keeping a cow in our living room just to get her used to it.  And I don't think I am going to be going up to any cow any time soon to pet them and show her that they aren't evil.  


Interestingly enough.... her predecessor, the purebred herding dog, felt the same way.  


Things that make you go hmmmmmm............

Coming Along Nicely

Raezor's maturity is showing through.  Don't be mistaken.... the puppy is still there, but her maturity is showing through.

Todays search problem gave her a trail to run with clues along the way.  Her experience has taught her what to do with scent she finds.  She has learned how to discern older scent from newer scent and and she has learned to cast for scent when she has lost it or hadn't found it yet.  She does all these things automatically.

Todays search clues gave her additional fun.  She found two of my shoes, my hat and my walking stick. ALL of which she gladly picked up and ran straight back to Kristi with.... exuding great joy!  She is not a wild retriever of things, but I think she thought they were her individual prizes for the good job she was doing.

We are getting there.  It is obvious that this game is something she loves.  Just a few more days she will be 9 months old and she can start the very adult process of sign offs to show what she does indeed know.

Our little girl is growing up!

Contemplations

Progressing, she is.   

Teaching, she is. 

Learning, she is. 

Problem solving, she is.

Entertaining, she is.  

Sweetness, she is.

Trusting, she is.

Contemplating, I am.

Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of the very old, wise soul that this puppy, slowing morphing into a dog, is. I don't just see it, it touches me.  It makes me turn around and stare, while the feeling of distinct familiarity takes hold.  It infuses itself within my soul.

I have said it before.... and I will say it again....

She has done this before.  

She has been here before.

Walk On Water?

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!

Teaching and being taught

 
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!

Moving right along.....

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!