Well…I don’t know!

The Wednesday after my last post I got my latest charges to fill my “empty nest”. What with everything that’s happened over the last couple of months one thing and another my last puppies went and I’ve just had Solei, which was rather quiet!

My latest two are red sable sisters and were four months old yesterday. Then we went to ringcraft as usual last night and I ended up with a third…he’s a month older but probably won’t even stay a week. After the way he was last night it was decided it would be a good idea to give him a change of scene for a few days and as he already lived with T and S has a bitch in season I got him! Which I’m actually delighted about but we won’t tell them that 😉

So all is fun for the next week with two 17 week old girls, a 22 week old boy and Solei! Just the way I like it 😆

Solei is a nightmare as usual 😛 I really do despair. He really wasn’t getting it (targeting) at all so I rang up my trainer to ask her advice and she suggested I just left it completely for 2 or 3 days and went back to just asking for sits, downs and stays. In the house his sit and down have always been rock solid, first command and in the case of down my command is “lie down” and he’s usually dropped before I’ve finished the down bit!

So imagine my utter disbelief when (having last practiced sit/down less than a week before) he was all confused as to what I wanted and it was taking multiple commands (and sometimes reinforcing it too) to get him to do either and his down wasn’t there at all – he would drop his front but leave his bum up in the air (think play bow).

After his time off I went back to the targeting and it all suddenly seemed to click. His sit and down were back and he was actually touching my hand! Can’t tell you how happy that made me 😆 After all this time he was actually targeting! I even managed to get him to do either hand and even follow it a bit. Thing is that was only half a job…the hand targeting was just the start, so after he seemed to have mastered that I brought out the pole. Solei being Solei can you guess what happens next? Yup, he was terrified of it!! At this point I’m contemplating sending him to the cats and dogs home… 😆

So ever so slowly I start trying to desensitize him to it. Our trainer suggested cream cheese on the end but even that wasn’t going to be lure enough. I worked out if I put a bit of cream cheese on and then stuck a bit of ham to the cheese that was just about acceptable. He was also eating his meals next to it and just generally whenever possible trying to get him to be near it! He was still nervous of it and if it moved so much as a millimetre he was off across the room but eventually he would actually touch the end of it with his nose – and it wasn’t a one off! He was consistently touching it when I asked over multiple days. He was even starting to become braver when I moved it as long as it was done in a certain way and would actually follow it a bit.

He’d made such fantastic progress and we were almost ready for the ultimate goal of getting him to follow the pole round the cone. He would follow my hand round the cone and as he was following the pole (more or less) it was just a small step and then we’d be all ready for his first agility lesson on Sunday!

Then all of a sudden he was absolutely terrified of the pole (even worse than before) for no reason…only thing I can think of is the floor was mopped (he doesn’t like brooms, mops..etc either and they’ve got handles like the pole I suppose) and it started after that. Not only is he seriously shying away from the pole but I’ve been using his biscuit thrown on the floor (only one piece) and he’s actually even running terrified when I drop 1 piece of that on the floor….which is exactly how I’ve been rewarding him with no problem for the last few weeks.

It just doesn’t feel like he’ll EVER get it because it’s constantly one step forward and two steps backwards with him….I almost wish I could start again with a new dog but there’s no way I could ever let Solei go (and he probably knows it 😛 ) and I want to do this with him anyway. I’m finding him so difficult to understand….I just do not get HOW his brain (what brain? 😛 ) works, nor do I understand why he keeps going backwards either because he seems to forget or gets scared for no reason.

To cap it all he showed really badly on Sunday too – much the way he used to be before I discovered the miracles of a change of bait. I really hope it was just a one off because the last thing I want is for him to go back to that. He won’t be showing for too much longer anyway so I want to make the most of it and it to be fun for us both!

Anyway, after his omg it’s coming to get me performace we didn’t go for his first lesson last Sunday and I abandoned targeting completely for about 48hrs. The first session back I just did a bit of sit, down and a small amount of targeting my hands. His sit & down were great, his targeting was great for the first two and then a bit reluctant and he was still jumpy with the food on the floor but not quite as bad.

Now I still haven’t reintroduced the pole because I didn’t want to rush him. His targeting my hand isn’t too bad, though not as good as it was, and he’s definitely less jumpy about food being dropped but I have to be a little bit picky about when I work with him. He just seems a bit off generally the last few days…quite tired, though he’s far from off his food(!) and he still has moments of wound up excitement.

If he turns out to be really good at agility it’ll all be worth it! At least that’s what I keep telling myself 😛