Dutch Shepherd Forum

I've been trying to find time for a week now to write a little bit about Endeavor's history, and training with me. I'll get as far as I can before work and continue later on.
Endeavor is from Vandalia's Havoc/Soco '14 breeding. Her previous owner/handler does SAR work, and picked up Endeavor for that purpose. "She was an evil...evil puppy" was mentioned a few times in our conversations. She had worked with numerous trainers from Montana to D.C., and none could keep her from leaving the source scent and following game trails. From my experience with her, this is probably very true. I was warned, and shown that her prey drive is high, and she gets over threshold almost instantaneously. Again, true. Considering that I've been looking for a more driven tracking dog that I can run with and do some agility and guarding work with, I figured getting a dog her age with her traits would be a great fit. Things couldn't be going better here. She's super affectionate, loves the whole family, and doesn't herd the kids terribly much.
I've been working to control her prey drive. I don't want to stifle it, just establish control. Two weeks ago, she bulled past me and took off after a rabbit. Zero control until she lost the rabbit. Up to that point, I had been able to maintain low level chaos (leashed) as long as I saw the game first and called her off. Obviously not good enough. The previous O/H said she didn't go for a flirt pole because as soon as she realized it wasn't an animal, she was disinterested. So I made one out of deer hide. She's nuts for it. I'll probably need to make a few more! We've been working on building focus on my commands when she's in full bore on the tug. It's working well. I'm going to start adding some changes to the game, namely taking her into the woods with it, having different people run the tug while I work the dog. Right now, she outs slowly, sits when yelled at about it. She'll stand up from a stay, but won't move more than a step or two if I flick the tug around her. Baby steps!
I really couldn't be happier. I'm lucky as all hell I came across the posting for her. I honestly didn't expect to get a response.

Great story, Beautiful dog, and awesome pics.

Thanks for sharing.

Love the deer hide flirt pole! Great idea!

So, I happened upon a peculiar thing today. While working outside, En was doing well off leash. At one point, I heard a neighbor's dog start waking noise. I instantaneously tied to divert her to something she'd really enjoy. Not quick enough. She was already looking off in the distance for the noise. I gave a stern "leave it -come" that she ignored. I gave a "no" at 60% intensity. Nothing. Finally, I gave "bad dog". At that, she wheeled around and sprinted back to me. I'm guessing there's a history. Endeavor's old handler gave me a list of about 80 commands that she had had some experience with. "Bad dog" was not on the list. I hope I don't have to make it my safe word!