Friday, September 9, 2011

Agility and Clicker Training - aka The Adventures of Little Whiskies Continued.

The summer has passed so quickly that one day we just noticed leafs turning yellow on trees. It was a good and intense, busy summer and we got a lot of things done and checked off the always long list.
We had lots of very nice guests and visitors from different countries and our last summer´s handler Adela came again to join the team.
I will try to make a post with photos and summary of the most important happenings.

I will also post some older news about the Whiskies (aka Galena x Nitro´s puppies) and pictures, which we have hundreds of and want to share them all with you!

And speaking of the Whiskies, let´s get to my today´s post!

So we got this new dog handler. Her name is Kristyna and happends to be a young, very talented dog trainer, using combined positive training methods. We are so fortunate to have her here (the only down part is that she  could come only for a month and a half) and that she agreed to show us some training methods and working with the Whiskies a bit.

First we started off with clicker training. We got so far only to four lessons, but given the terrible rainy weather and the fact that we are already in the full swing of fall training, it´s actually not that bad. Especially when seeing such progress on the puppies!

And yesterday, while the sun was finally shining for a while, we took out the agility hurdles finally!

The puppies had a blast and during one session that took us a bit over an hour, they all learned to go through the tunnel, follow us to and from it and got introduced to the slalom. And just because "why not" we also tought them to lay down, come and other little things.

The Whiskies are in heaven, they already learned to watch for us comming with the treat bucket and they already know fun is on it´s way!
They also start shaping up real nicely and watching them react to the clicker, learning obedience and agility basics, I get a more whole picture of their little personlities. It´s actually fun, as those things I thought about each one of them, also show up and confirm while Kristina or I work with them.

I am so happy we got to finally start working with the dogs on another level, which I´ve been wanting, talking about and aiming for, for a long time!

Stay tuned for more adventures and progress of the Whiskies! And since it is exactly four months since they were born, today, Happy Birthday to you - little, special guys!

JB grabs the octopuss all time favorite toy as she passes through the tunnel. 

JB getting familiar with the slalom. 

JB sits patiently. She can do also "stay" and "down". 

 JB follows Kristyna to the tunnel

 Playful Jim carries a toy through the tunnel.

Serious and foccused Johnnie learning the "tunnel" and comming on call, using the clicker method.

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