Dutch Shepherd Forum

I am so happy about this, I could spit .

Geyser, when told to "step," will put her front feet on a raised rubber feed bin (turned over). She can circle in each direction around the bin with her back feet on the floor now, all 360 degrees. That's great.

Next, we started "all four," which means for her to get all four feet up on the bin. She made it on the first session, and by the third, could do it reliably on cue, each time. Great.

Now for the spit-inducer. I've been wanting her to be able to get on my weight scale, which is about 12" square. It's digital, so you have to pop it first and wait for the zeros to come up, so there is a slight timing issue, since if you don't time it right, you get an error reading.

This morning, I decided to try it with her. She got "all 4" immediately, but our timing was off. On about the third try, she got it right...and so now I can weigh her easily by just telling her to get on the scale with "all 4" :fluffy: . Eventually, when she's got the behavior really down, I'll just say, "get on the scale."

BTW. she weighs 31.5 lbs at 16 weeks...she's grown so much!

She's exactly the same weight as Letty. I just had her at the vet on Friday and they weighed her.

k9katet wrote:She's exactly the same weight as Letty. I just had her at the vet on Friday and they weighed her.

That's interesting, Heather, as I belive Geyser was the smallest of the three when they were babies. She's getting so tall and long...it just amazes me.

BTW, I went to Tracy's foundation semiar this past Saturday, and found out you guys know each other! It was so cool that she knew Letty and then met Geyser.

I just loved Tracy. I got so much good stuff out of the morning, it was just amazing and I was very happy about it. And, Geyser did very well, too. Once they moved the jerko dog that was next to her barking constantly in it's soft sided crate, she was her usual angel self in the crate between exercises (whenever I'd hear a dog fussing, I'd look back, and it wasn't her...she was just lying there behaving herself, watching everything...good girl!).

I was also happy because she didn't show any anxiety at all in this new situation. We've been to two puppy classes, and also, did some restrained recalls at a training facility with a friend of mine after she was done teaching her agility class, so I guess she's become comfortable in training rooms with all those cues (equipment, crates, other dogs and people, etc.). I was curious to see how she'd be, as this was a totaly different venue.

How's it going with Letty?

Geyser was small but Asheley thought she'd grow once Letty wasn't there hogging all the food. LOL

That's great that you got to meet Tracy. I love her and go to her seminars whenever I can. When she was here in MN she used Letty as demo dog for the foundations day. She knows Vada well too. Did you work or audit? The exercises that you're working on sounded very familiar. LOL

Letty is doing great. She's like this young lady already.

k9katet wrote: That's great that you got to meet Tracy. I love her and go to her seminars whenever I can. When she was here in MN she used Letty as demo dog for the foundations day. She knows Vada well too. .

Tracy who?? I need some outside stimulation!!

Tracy Sklenar. Here is her website: http://www.lotp.com/

You would love her too.

She follows Susan Garrett's Say Yes training program which also includes Susan Salo's jump training and Greg Derrett's agility handling.

Here is Susan's blog:
http://susangarrettdogagility.com/

Thanks for the info!!!! And also the friend requests.
My girlfriend in Chicago has the #1 GWP in NA right now. And she said that if Susan Garrett had 1/100 of the motivational skills with humans that she has with dogs she would make less people cry and have much better seminars. LOL. I haven't been very motivated to attend any of hers.

I've been to a weekend seminar with Susan. She is brilliant. She's getting better with her people skills. Tracy has excellent people skills plus Susan's knowledge. I always feel motivated after working with her. I'm hoping to get Letty into Susan's Puppy Camp when she has another one. If you get a chance to see Susan then at least audit as you will learn tons.

k9katet wrote: Did you work or audit? The exercises that you're working on sounded very familiar. LOL

Letty is doing great. She's like this young lady already.

We worked.

Glad Letty is doing so well.

wow, good trick! I teached Dingo "op" (= get on) for SAR work, and now use it for anythig, like a scale, a table (vet), wood logs (fun in the forest ), anything really. I never noticed how much I used it untill I had my second dog, who did not train much SAR and never learned "op", I should teach her really...

Marjolein wrote:wow, good trick! I teached Dingo "op" (= get on) for SAR work, and now use it for anythig, like a scale, a table (vet), wood logs (fun in the forest ), anything really. I never noticed how much I used it untill I had my second dog, who did not train much SAR and never learned "op", I should teach her really...

My "op" is "hup," tho it's more of a hop on the thing for us. I use it like you do, for getting her onto surfaces, but I like the one we just did, "all 4" as it's a slightly different concept for her.

Don't you love training these things?

We've just started working on backing up, and sitting up is a work in progress. She learned to catch in one session! That amazed me, but I waited until she was a little older (15 weeks), where with my GSD, I started in on catch right away...and she just wasn't ready for it.

tell us about the "catch" concept? You teach her to catch something? (Dinner??)

Marjolein wrote:tell us about the "catch" concept? You teach her to catch something? (Dinner??)

I like her to catch whatever I toss at her .

We started out with a little, soft, egg-shaped fuzzy ball thing. Just her size and nothing that would hurt. Now I can toss her outside holeey ball at her, and other soft toys, and she loves catching them. I'll probably get a soft frisbee soon, but am very careful with those...don't want her leaping to catch them.

aha, but do you throw them straight into her mouth, or actually surprise her and toss it anywhere? Ivil catches anything too, but whitout the command Dingo is not that handy and often drops it, where Ivil is waiting to grab it Poor dog

Marjolein wrote:aha, but do you throw them straight into her mouth, or actually surprise her and toss it anywhere? Ivil catches anything too, but whitout the command Dingo is not that handy and often drops it, where Ivil is waiting to grab it Poor dog

I toss it right to her, after I say "catch."

Right now, I don't want her going thru gyrations to catch stuff...just want her to be able to catch.