Olive has become a lady

Over Chrsitmas Olive has become a lady, she is in her first season.

It's not much fun being in season, although she isn't coping too badly so far. Have been taking her out early in the middle of the woods where no one is around, and then doing training with her in the afternoon. We managed to find a new route on our walking this morning which is great, always exciting when you find a new walk you haven't done before!

Olive definitely seems more lethargic, I think she is just worn out from all the cleaning she is having to do at the moment - cleaning of herself, cleaning of her bedding, cleaning of her pants, cleaning of the floor. She is a busy little girl.

We have a show on the 22nd January so we have been doing a little bit of 'standing' practice. Although I really need to do lots more ringcraft with her. She is looking much more mature now in her body and head.

I have been doing training with her in an enclosed court yard area where there isn't any other dogs, which has worked out quite well so far as the training wears her out nicely for the rest of the day. She got 2 new dummies for Christmas, a pink and purple one off her grandparents. You can never have too many dummies!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQnH4o0ILVg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Bit of a break to try something different

We have had a abit of a break from gundog training for a couple of months, mainly because I have been so busy with work, and also because I have tried to briefly do some showing with Olive. I have given her the odd retrieve on a walk to make sure she doesn't forget but I haven't really had time to do some proper sessions with her.

I wanted to try showing, just out of interest really. We haven't bothered with Ringcraft classes as our local one is too late in the evening, so I tried to do some reading up about it on the internet and find some pictures of 'stacking' to copy!

I did practise standing Olive when she was a young puppy and I think this has been abit of a benefit to us now, as she remember how to stand still and let me hold her.

I first took her to an 'Open' show which wasn't too far from us and I am pleased to announce she did very well for her first time. We came back with 2 first places and one fourth place. More importantly, she coped well with the day, with lots of dogs barking and walking past, and people, noises etc,. She didn't stand aswell as she would at home, but she didn't do too bad. After this first experience I realised what I needed to work on was getting her to relax and stand in noisey, busy surroundings. She does try to put her tail between her legs and hump her back to begin with, but gradually she is getting better at learning to relax, and be more confident. Even though I don't plan to seriously show her, I have found this a nice little exercise to practise as it teaches both Olive, and myself, to stay clam in different situations and Olive to trust me to handle her and hold her whilst there is alot going on around.

I have since taken her to a Championship Show (Midland Counties) and she qualifed for Crufts in her Puppy Bitch breed class. She stood better at this show and we had a really nice day out. All of the people I met there were very friendly, welcoming, and helpful.

I have entered her in a few more over the next couple of months, so will keep you updated if I make it to them!

I now want to start getting back into the gundog training, we had a good session this morning and was pleased she is still quite sharp with everything. I really need to now start progressing with her, as we have been 'standing still' in where we are at with the training for awhile. As I am a complete amatuer I guess what I really need to do is get her to classes, so I plan to start taking her in the coming weeks.

Olive is 11 months now, a year very soon, and she is holding the 1lb dummy alot more comfortabley than before. Her heel is still good, and so is her stop whistle, She retrieves to hand 100% of the time if I say 'hold' as she is approaching. If I don't say 'hold' then she will ocassionally drop the dummy if she has been doing alot of running and panting. I guess this is something I will have to just keep working on and repeating. I want to get her alot more solid on directions when retrieving too. At the moment I put her in a sit stay, face her, and throw a dummy out left and right. I then send her to different sides using 'out' and a hand gesture to the side. She does this well, but then if i try to mix her up abit she gets ahead of herself and doesn't concentrate. This morning I threw a dummy left then right, sent her for the left dummy, she retrieved it, I put her back in a sit stay and threw the dummy back out to the left. I tried to send her left and she went right. I thought she would do this, as Olive can sometimes get ahead of herself and try and predict what I am going to tell her to do, rather than concentrate. So stopped her and sent right again. She got there in the end. Think I will have to keep practising the directions and throwing different combinations in to keep her thinking.

Tomorrow I have got a rabbit to try abit of cold game training with her. So excited about this, as been using the rabbit/pheasant dummies for awhile, and now so eager to try the real thing.

Did abit of pointing and then sitting when the bird flies off (to flush?) this afternoon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNSGpGNFzI8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54o2Y6uLf2Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Pheasant Pelt

I ordered a pheasant pelt from http://www.sportingsaint.co.uk/ to see what Olive would do with it.

It's like a pheasant skin with feathers that you can either buy already attached to a dummy, or separately. I bought it separate as I already have a few dummies, but probably would have been better to have got the attached version. I wrapped it around a 1lb dummy and put a few elastic bands around it to hold it in place. The dogs were VERY excited when I got it out, and were sniffing it like crazy. I thought it best not to throw it as could see it all falling apart, so just placed it down on a memory retrieve.

Olive has a habit of running full speed at dummy once sent and sort of pouncing on it when she gets there, never really worried about it as thought her enthusiam was good!... but when she pounced on the pheasant pelt a few feathers came out so had to re-think how I was going to do the retrieves with it. I decided to do blind ones so she didn't know where it was and therefore was sniffing around for it and not running full speed. This worked fine and no pouncing.

I was really pleased she picked it up straight away and retrieved as normal. The 1lb dummy is big for her anyway, and with this skin wrapped around I wasnt sure she would hold it, but she found a way. She delivered to hand and didn't drop it so all good. Although she was alot more reluctant to let go of it than usual and as I was trying to take it away kept trying to mouth it.

She loves retrieving anyway, but this pheasant pelt definitely made it super exciting for her. She was alot quicker on the blind retrieves too, I guess because the skin smells.

Once the skin is on, you can't really see the dummy, but Olive had no issues with knowing what to do, she knew it was for retrieving as normal, so thats great.

I think this is will be brillant training aid for progressing to cold game. I am pretty sure now if I put a bird down for her to retrieve she would know what to do with it.

Training Session

I got to take Olive out for a training session by herself today, which I don't get to do often. We usually take Olive and Wiley out together and take turns to train them, so I thought I would make the most of our 1-1 training session.
I bought a new dummy for her, which has ended up being really too big for her. But then it is good practise for her to get used to holding something alot bigger so I let her train with it. I did some more practise of dropping the dummy without her seeing, walking on, and then sending her back for it. I am doing this with one dummy dropped really far back, and one nearer. She gets the nearer dummy, comes back. Then I send her again and she needs abit more encouragement this time as she thinks she has already got the retrieve, and it is alot further back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhf-hzengH4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I then made her sit and stay while I hid the dummy in the woods, and sent her for it. She rushes off looking, and I let her hunt around abit and use her nose, and then she will find it and bring it back. I just want her to use her nose to find it with this exercise. I know that when we learn to do proper blind retrieves I will need to be stopping her and directing her to the retrieve as opposed to her just hunting around like this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhhJGXjZ73c&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I then tried to do a hunting exercise with her, we don't do hunting anywhere near enough. This is probably because I don't fully understand it.
I hid the dummy in the woods, not very far up, as wanted to start off easy. I then told her to 'seek' and sent her off in a direction (not the direction of the dummy). She went off really fast, alot faster than she usually goes when she hunts. I think this must have been because she was aware I had walked off and hid something in there. She went so fast I'm sure she missed out loads of ground at the start. But then she started to fall in a quartering pattern. She very quickly found the dummy and I could tell she really enjoyed the exercise. I think I will have to keep at this, but somehow set it up differently so I ask her to hunt, but she isnt aware there is something to find.
Then I tried to work with her on pointing (again something never work with her on) She points alot on walks. I took her on a big open field, and she started to come on point. I tried to creep up to her side and tell her to be 'steady', I got right up to stand alongside her and stroke her back. I read this is what we would be doing in Field Trials. She held the point. I notice when I do this she keeps looking back to me and then at the point. I think this is good, as she is trying to indictate to me? I then encouraged her to come forward, she shoots forward so I gave a 'steady' command and she calms down abit. We practised her flushing the bird and then stopping once it has flown off, as opposed to chasing. When I am walking her she points and then chases and I call her and she doesn't react fast to commands, she is in the zone chasing! I noticed she was much better at paying attention to me when I crept up to the 'point' with her, and she starts looking at me. I felt like we really made progress her. With pointing, and also general control when she is really excited. It felt like we were hunting together :)

Improving water retrieves

I have tried to take Olive out to practise water retrieves everyday this week in an attempt to improve them. She waits really steady when I throw the dummy, swims out great, gets the dummy, comes back and immediately drops the dummy and shakes when she emerges from the water. I have had to use a really firm 'HOLD!' to get her to keep on to the dummy, and have gradually increased length I am away from waters edge. To begin with we started out with me saying hold as soon as she got near the waters edge until she got to me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okfk6r1JWgI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

then after a few I was able to do some not saying hold at all. I think I will have to keep these sessions up for quite awhile before I am able to do just send her for a water retrieve and know that she will never drop the dummy. Still, I was pleased with the distance we got from the waters edge at the moment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LoxCxHhWKA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I have been continuing the 'out' command training by stopping Olive to whistle and then throwing a dummy out to either side and sending her for it, which is going well. I think I will continue with this slowly to make sure she really understands this command as she is still young.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvBrZsEvE4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Still doing the blind retrieves too, I think I enjoy these the most. I just drop the dummy whilst walking, and then recall her and send her back for them. I have started doing 2 retrieves now, so I will drop one dummy, walk on, drop another, walk on. and then recall her and send her back - she will find one, and then I send her back for another which she doesn't expect so she has to work harder. Here she is doing two blinds - on the 2nd one I sent her off in wrong direction so it was my fault she goes off round the corner looking for the retrieve. I need to concontrate more where my arm is pointing when I send her!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oAIZifEXPg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

She will be 9 months at weekend and still coming along nicely :)

Split Retrieve and 'Out' command

I haven't practised split retrieves with Olive in ages, so wanted to have another go and see if I can start progressing to teaching her directions when doing a retrieve. I haven't done directional work with her at all so this is something completely new. To begin with I just want her to concentrate on going in the direction she has been sent by my hand.

I started off with some VERY basic split retrieves...

2 dummies and going to the last one thrown first (in the books it says this is the easiest option for puppies) http://www.youtube.com/watchv=TCE_84FkG8U&feature=youtube_gdata_player

2 dummies and going to the first one thrown (I told her to leave the one I didn't want her to go back too, not sure if this worth doing or not?!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2UltuFVyqk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

3 dummies and going to the first one thrown. Happy with this as she is always following where I am directing her. Put a rabbit dummy in there to make it a bit more tempting as she loves that dummy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRuHG0DkPNM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I was happy with this so thought I would try facing her and starting a left and right direction to see if she would get it. I used the command 'out' for both sides with an exaggerated hand gesture in each direction. I am not entirely sure if this is right as I haven't been to a group class in so long, I am just training her from books at the min!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2S_DTN8qy8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I left it at that as it had been a good session and wanted to end on a high note.

From here I think I will try stopping her to whistle. Throwing a dummy left/right and directing her 'out'.

Went to the beach this weekend so mostly concentrated on having fun!

Taking it up a notch

I am trying to really push Olive and perfect everything now, as we are planning to do Working Test next month. Had a great session with her today doing different types of retrieves, trying to incorprate stay, sit to whistle, recall away from dummy, back command, into the the retrieves so we are perpared for whatever comes up in a test. She is doing well, if she's hot and tired she will concentrate a little less but generally I am so pleased with her retrieving at the mo.

Today I tried setting her off running, and then dropping the dummy down when she wasnt looking. I would then continue walking for a while, stopp her to whistle, recall her and send her back. She was super at knowing she is meant to be going off to look for something, and really eager. She found the dummy everytime and good delivery too. Very pleased :) :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aClhg2JA2Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I am hoping this is the start of her learning blind retrieves.

I also tried putting her in a stay, walking off and putting dummy down in woods, returning to her and sending her. Again she did super. I was really impressed as I tried this when she was a little younger and she struggled to concentrate on using her nose to find the dummy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3LLRG0X79w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Next water retrieves!!

Break through

I bought some new dummies at the CLA game fair at the weekend. I nice light puppy dummy and a rabbit one. I played about with Olive in the house with the puppy dummy, getting her excited about it and holding it, and then following me holding it. This worked really well and when I was throwing it out for her to get she was bringing it back presenting :)

YAY

So I took her out on the field later and practised a proper retrieve with her and when she was on the way back with the dummy I started running away and calling her and playing as we were doing in the house, i then asked her to sit and she did a nice present.

Think it's all starting to come together!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldJzehIaCT0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Vizsla Fun

Today Olive had a fun day out walking with her brother, our friend's Vizsla, Ruby, and a Vizsla they are looking after for the weekend called Chester. Chester is related to Olive and Wiley and comes from the same breeder. I also had a Yorkie called Dolly staying for the weekend, so she came too.

We went to the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge in Epping Forest. They dogs had a great time running around together, hunting, and playing. We practised a few stop whistles, which went well, and did lots of 'stay' for photos.

Update

We've had a break from training for a bit as I have been busy working a lot recently.
I managed to get Olive out to do some today, need to get back into practising every day to sharpen her up again. She is still delivering to hand 80% of the time but I am not worrying about catching the dummy off her anymore as I am continuing to teach the 'hold' and plan to incorporate this into the retrieve.

I did a long retrieve with her http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4tO95cRA-o&feature=youtube_gdata_player which was good she is still eager to run off and get dummy and return.
Good back retrieve http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ93AQkITns&feature=youtube_gdata_player
And hold still looking good http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP-kXK6fmDk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

So Olive is still coming along ok, and I know we are going to eventually get there with a solid delivery to hand and present. Need to work on hunting and water retrieves still though when I can find time!

Hold progress already!

Really pleased Olive has made progress so fast with this... and just in one day !

We started off at this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mWEDQD5H78&feature=youtube_gdata_player

which I was chuffed with!

and then added a heel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-K93a-BnM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

really pleased she got this, as heel and hold bit confusing for her at the same time, when I am saying two commands!

and then this (trying to mimic a present) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjueWmALDgs&feature=youtube_gdata_player
again she is slow with the recall but this was the first time I tried it, and I could see she wasnt sure what to do, as she wasn't concentrating on holding.

Teaching 'Hold'

I wasn't planning on teaching Olive the 'Hold' command, but we have been having a bad week with the delivery to hand so I thought I might try going down a different route to get there. Olive's delivery to hand has always been fairly good, but it is more a case of me catching the dummy off her in time, rather than her actually understanding that she is holding on to the dummy until I ask her to give it to me. I want to improve her pick up of the dummy aswell, which is messy (she is still very young so I haven't been too bothered about this), she tends to grab the dummy, and dangle it from one end bringing it back to me, or sometimes she will drop it and re-pick it up. She needs to eventually pick it straight up, get a good hold, and bring it straight back.

So yesterday I started by putting the dummy in her mouth, which she wasn't too keen on, I sort of expected her to be reluctant to hold it to begin with. Then I stroked under her chin praising her to stop her from dropping it. When her grip loosens and she goes to drop it I say 'ah ah' and she will keep a hold which is good. I was able to move my hands away and she kept holding the dummy. I gave lots of praise and repeating of the word hold. I found when I praised her she would get excited and go to drop it, bless her. I will try doing the hold with her later and building it up until I can walk around her and she holds it.

The big goal here is for her to be bringing the dummy back to me on a retrieve, and for me to say 'hold' and she will keep hold of it and 'present' the dummy to me.

Here she is holding the dummy...

Preparing

We have been reading up on all the things we need to be able to achieve for a Puppy Working Test, which is our goal, and practising them.

The tests that I think we could come accross are...

Memory Retrieve - Which is walking the dog at heel to a point, throwing dummy out, walking dog back at heel and sending the dog for the retrieve. We have practised this alot and Olive will always go out to get the dummy and bring back. The only issue we have is she is retrieving to hand 80% of the time but I have got nowhere with teaching the 'present'. Getting them to present the dummy isn't something they have to do but it will look alot better and I think most people teach it with dummies.

Half-way back - This is the same as memory, but on the way back after dropping dummy, you leave your dog in a stay half way. I then command Olive to go 'Back' and she should run back and retrieve dummy. Again we are fine on this one too, only issue being the present.

Half-way back with recall - This is same as above but after leaving your dog in stay, instead of commanding back you recall it first, and then stop it half way, and send back. This too us a little bit more time to learn, as Olive wanted to go back straight away as opposed to recall but now she is very good at it.

Seen Retrieve - Someone else throws dummy and you send you dog for it. We don't really get a chance to practise with someone else throwing dummy as it's only me and her, but I am pretty sure she would go for the retrieve. I do need to keep teaching her 'Mark' which is a good command for getting them to keep their eye on where the dummy is landing.
Simple split- This is one dummy out to left, one dummy out to right, and dog needs to be sent to collect one after the other. I have been told in Puppy Tests it doesn't matter which one first but have been training her to only go for the one I have sent her to just incase. We have ony started doing the split and it needs a little more work as sometimes she will get confused.

Water- This will be a dummy thrown into water, the entry on puppy tests will be shallow and gently sloping. Olive will go out for retrieve and swim but I need to work lots on the distance she will bring to me once out of the water. I dont practise this as much as I should.
And then Hunting Test, which I am not to sure how will be set up.

So we are just going throught these everyday and working on making them perfect at the minute. I don't know when I will feel ready to enter her, I would really like to get the present but I don't want to push her too far. I might try for a test late August or early Sept!

Hunting and Pointing

Took Olive out to practise hunting, which is something I don't really practise enough with her. To begin with I just release her from my side, I am trying to introduce the 'seek on' command for this. Then I walk from side to side into the wind and let her hunt out infront of me quite away. She is good at covering alot of distance, and isn't one of those dogs that stays by your side. I try and do the turn whistle as we go from side to side. If she comes up on a bird/rabbit she points which is great. She will hold it quite awhile, but sometimes will chase when the bird takes off which I NEED to get her out of. After awhile I do a stop whistle, which is sometimes a bit hit and miss when she is preoccupied hunting.

Photo taking session to practise 'stay'

Not been able to get much done

I was away at the weekend with the dogs in Norfolk so wasn't able to get any training done. Then it has been very hot Sunday and Monday, and very stormy today. I was only able to attempt 1 or 2 retrieves on the hot days, but we did get some swimming practice in.

I did some 'back' command practice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsyTPSteLhg which she is good at, I tried sending her back without any dummy to find, sort of as a 'send away' exercise and she went running off looking for a dummy, I then stopped her to whistle and recalled her.

I have some free time in the morning tomorrow so will try and get some progress done.

We have a Water Training day coming up on the 10th July which I am looking forward to. Olive is a strong, fast swimmer already. She will retrieve in the water, but always drops dummy as soon as she comes out of the water, so I will need to work on this more.

This weeks training

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewuD79AeY1U

--Exercise I saw in new book I bought 'Hunt, Point, Retrieve Dogs for Work and Showing' by Nigel Dear. I really like this exercise as is working on her retrieve, recall, stop whistle, and back command.

Also tried to start teaching a split retrieve this week. Very basic at the moment - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3kHRXJ10Gk

but she is getting the idea :)

How we are doing so far...

I took Olive out to practise lots of Gundog Training today and took some videos so I can see how we are doing and where we need to improve. I take her to lots of different locations so she learns to concentrate in different places with different smells. I sometimes bring my other Vizsla, Wiley along, so it is him you will here whining in the background for his turn! He also provides a distraction of other dogs for Olive.

So here is what we are working on at the moment...

Retrieves - Olive has improved alot on these lately and delivers to hand 90% of the time. I will still need to work on making the delivery perfect though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEGLr4OP4-k

Hidden retrieve - I use rabbit dummy for these as I think it might smell more?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhUBHrld-XY

Retrieve with stop whistle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLszvBn0YsY

Water retrieve - she swims well, but only with a shallow entry at the moment, I need to work more on getting her to dive in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGdS0uLfhdw

Stop Whistle - I haven't taught her to sit, or go down- she sometimes chooses to go down herself, which is fine so long as she stops.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7NO_qWz6Sw

We also do 'heel' and 'stays' when I remember to do them. So Olive is tired out now after a day of mostly training.

Meet Olive...

Olive is a Hungarian Vizsla. She is now 6months old. She is my 2nd Vizsla, but my first dog I have wanted to do more with than just own as a pet. I would like to show Olive and work her, but I am a novice at all these things!

I started some very basic Gundog training with her around 5 months. The more I learn about Gundog Training the more I realise how hard it is going to be to get her to a good standard, but we have definitely got the bug for it. At this point we have been to a couple of classes with a club, and 2 training days at Ashdown Forest. We still have lots to learn.