On Edge
Re: On Edge
Will follow this with interest Bill as I have his litter brother here.
Don't be backwards at going forwards
Re: On Edge
I'm sure he'll make a great dog. But I've always liked the look of the one in your avatar, James.James wrote:No Naj, that's different breeding all together. He's out of my open winning bitch to ftch samsir babblerNaj wrote:Is he by that cracking looking dog on James's avatar?
Naj
Naj
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trekmoor
- Member
- Posts: 16074
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:38 am
- Dogs: Too many and not enough !
- Location: Central Scotland
Re: On Edge
Edge has behaved well in the house all evening which is more than can be said for my two cockers ..... I've come to the conclusion they are both AC/DC ! I'm fed up hauling Charlie off the pup and Billy isn't much better !
The pup has now been outside my garden for a very short period of time with no problems. He focused on me very well but I think I was lucky that no birds flew past. When a bird flies over the garden he at once runs after it and throws himself against the fence to try to keep up with it. I haven't had a pup to train with his degree of birdiness since I trained a little cocker bitch for a friend about 5-6 years ago. She took a bit of stopping and maybe Edge will too. She eventually won a Novice test .....but no birds flew past during it !
Tomorrow I'll take Edge into the strip of woods behind my house and see what he makes of woodlands. The only furred "game" in there is squirrels and although there are woodpigeons, starlings, blackbirds, crows and magpies in or around the woods there aren't any pheasants. I will need to know just how far he is prepared to chase birds for and then I can adjust his training around that..... I hope.
This pup does not appear to be "hard" in nature, in fact I think he is a bit of a softy .....it's just that he is a hot softy . That could change as he gets older, I can remember describing my cocker Charlie as being fairly soft and sensitive when he was 11 months old..... I was very wrong !
Wullie
The pup has now been outside my garden for a very short period of time with no problems. He focused on me very well but I think I was lucky that no birds flew past. When a bird flies over the garden he at once runs after it and throws himself against the fence to try to keep up with it. I haven't had a pup to train with his degree of birdiness since I trained a little cocker bitch for a friend about 5-6 years ago. She took a bit of stopping and maybe Edge will too. She eventually won a Novice test .....but no birds flew past during it !
Tomorrow I'll take Edge into the strip of woods behind my house and see what he makes of woodlands. The only furred "game" in there is squirrels and although there are woodpigeons, starlings, blackbirds, crows and magpies in or around the woods there aren't any pheasants. I will need to know just how far he is prepared to chase birds for and then I can adjust his training around that..... I hope.
This pup does not appear to be "hard" in nature, in fact I think he is a bit of a softy .....it's just that he is a hot softy . That could change as he gets older, I can remember describing my cocker Charlie as being fairly soft and sensitive when he was 11 months old..... I was very wrong !
Wullie
If at first you don't succeed .....find out if there is a booby prize !
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Don't do what doesn't work - do what does.
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Don't do what doesn't work - do what does.
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trekmoor
- Member
- Posts: 16074
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:38 am
- Dogs: Too many and not enough !
- Location: Central Scotland
Re: On Edge
I got very little sleep last night. Edge was kennelled with Libby but she would have nothing to do with him so Edge began to howl. He has a low and quite melodious howl but I don't want my neighbours hearing it at 1 a.m. in the morning. I went out and put Billy in beside him and that did the trick, there wasn't another sound out of him all night but I was "on edge" by then and couldn't sleep. I think I got about 2 hours kip.
My wife got up at 7.10 a.m. to take the dogs out and I looked out the window to make sure everything went O.K. She put Edge on a lead and he dug his heels in and wouldn't budge so off came the lead and Edge got left in the garden while my wife walked the dogs for 5 minutes. Edge decided he did want to go for a walk after all and tried to leave the garden by squeezing under the 4 feet wide by 6 feet high garden gate. He got himself stuck and couldn't get back out.
He remained like that until my wife returned a moment later but he still could not get out. I watched with interest as my wife lifted the gate up on it's hinges enough to let him wriggle free. Once free he went exploring and this time he went into the narrow gap between the shed and one of the kennels. He promptly got himself stuck in there too and I thought I'd have to move the entire shed to extract him.
Edge extricated himself by somehow managing to crawl under the kennel for several feet to emerge looking a bit scuffed but happy onto the garden path. None of the cockers I've had here has tried that , I should have called Edge "The Weasel !"
Since his efforts to thoroughly explore or escape from his new environment now had me well and truly awake I took him into the strip of woods behind my house for what I think was his first woodlands walk.
I took a lead with me but did not use it as I wanted to see how he'd behave in the wood. He didn't tear the place apart but he wasn't in the least bit frightened either. Luckily no birds flew past while we were in there and after a moment of just letting him sniff around I threw a plastic "knobbly" dummy for him , it was the first time I'd tried him with that dummy, he hadn't even seen it. It was a wrongly timed throw , he wasn't looking and didn't know I'd thrown anything.
I walked towards the dummies fall area among some longish grass and some cut logs to pick it up myself. Edge , meanwhile was just exploring his surroundings but he encountered my scent and at once picked up the dummy and brought it to me. I managed to take a photograph of his first ever "blind retrieve" with me.
I was pleased with his first woodlands walk so I went back indoors before anything went wrong.
Wullie
My wife got up at 7.10 a.m. to take the dogs out and I looked out the window to make sure everything went O.K. She put Edge on a lead and he dug his heels in and wouldn't budge so off came the lead and Edge got left in the garden while my wife walked the dogs for 5 minutes. Edge decided he did want to go for a walk after all and tried to leave the garden by squeezing under the 4 feet wide by 6 feet high garden gate. He got himself stuck and couldn't get back out.
He remained like that until my wife returned a moment later but he still could not get out. I watched with interest as my wife lifted the gate up on it's hinges enough to let him wriggle free. Once free he went exploring and this time he went into the narrow gap between the shed and one of the kennels. He promptly got himself stuck in there too and I thought I'd have to move the entire shed to extract him.
Edge extricated himself by somehow managing to crawl under the kennel for several feet to emerge looking a bit scuffed but happy onto the garden path. None of the cockers I've had here has tried that , I should have called Edge "The Weasel !"
Since his efforts to thoroughly explore or escape from his new environment now had me well and truly awake I took him into the strip of woods behind my house for what I think was his first woodlands walk.
I took a lead with me but did not use it as I wanted to see how he'd behave in the wood. He didn't tear the place apart but he wasn't in the least bit frightened either. Luckily no birds flew past while we were in there and after a moment of just letting him sniff around I threw a plastic "knobbly" dummy for him , it was the first time I'd tried him with that dummy, he hadn't even seen it. It was a wrongly timed throw , he wasn't looking and didn't know I'd thrown anything.
I walked towards the dummies fall area among some longish grass and some cut logs to pick it up myself. Edge , meanwhile was just exploring his surroundings but he encountered my scent and at once picked up the dummy and brought it to me. I managed to take a photograph of his first ever "blind retrieve" with me.
I was pleased with his first woodlands walk so I went back indoors before anything went wrong.
Wullie
If at first you don't succeed .....find out if there is a booby prize !
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't do what doesn't work - do what does.
.
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't do what doesn't work - do what does.
.
Re: On Edge
Quite an adventurer you have there!
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Mike A
- Member
- Posts: 635
- Joined: Thu Feb 06, 2014 2:27 pm
- Dogs: Ned , Wilf and Milo
- Location: North Devon
Re: On Edge
Nice looking chap you've got there Wullie , I'm going to enjoy this !
Re: On Edge
I'm going to keep tabs on this thread, I was very interested in how James's pups turned out, being nicley linebred to Ricky and the litter being by Babbler.....
Sounds just how I imagined, tasty!!
Sounds just how I imagined, tasty!!
Luck is defined when opportunity meets ability.
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trekmoor
- Member
- Posts: 16074
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:38 am
- Dogs: Too many and not enough !
- Location: Central Scotland
Re: On Edge
All continues to go well with Edge. Since his very first "mistake" inside the house on Saturday when we first got him , he has not peed or poo'd in the house again. He hasn't done either of those things in the kennel or run either , he saves it all up for the garden and he is just like a GSP I once had in his "dumping" style . The GSP wanted to always be on the move so he dropped his load as he moved..... Edge does the same so my kennel maid, alias The Soup Dragon, is kept nice and busy cleaning up after him.
So far he has chewed nothing in the house but I have given him a toy . It's just a strip of towel with a big knot tied in the middle but Edge likes to carry it around. Charlie and Libby are trying to get more attention by pinching his toy but Edge just ignores that and waits until they get bored with it before taking it again himself.
Libby is still in the huff at not being the focus of attention anymore and she does not play with Edge . This does not bother him at all, he makes no attempts to play with any of the dogs.....he seems to be a "person" pup. He spends most of his time in the house lying near my feet .....or on them if I will let him.
His favourite form of play with me is definitely retrieving .....he'll do anything to get a retrieve into his mouth including entering light cover.
Sometimes I find treats useful when training pups, especially for sits and recalls. I'm more than a little bit wary when using treats to encourage a recall however. If the pup gets the wrong idea it may drop dummies in expectation of a treat. If this happens it is mostly the trainers fault but I am not perfect ..... sometimes, try as I may, I get the timing of the treat wrong and then have to correct the fault of dropped dummies that I caused.
Edge had never had a treat in his short life until he came here. He would not accept or eat a treat unless it was in his dinner bowl. That is just beginning to change. He has now accepted a treat from my wife's hand and two treats from my hand so I will very soon begin training him to sit while using treats. I find a judicious mixture of pressing a pups backside down plus giving the pup a treat when that backside touches the floor usually begins to get the desired result rather quickly. I also give a lot of praise both vocal and physical for sitting on command.
When doing this I usually give a double command, I use a vocal command and a whistle command one after the other. To this is added a hand signal. All this done at once might be thought to confuse a pup but it doesn't seem to.
Very often it is my hand signal that the pup understands first , since dogs can't understand words anyway , it doesn't matter at all if a pup is taught an audible signal to sit which could be either a vocal one or a whistled one.....or both.
I find Edge to be a much "cannier" sort of pup than I'd expected. He likes people and he likes any form of play training. He is very good for a pup his age at giving me "focus." He is calm in the house but he sort of wakes up outside in the little strip of woods behind my house !
So far he has not seen a bird in those woods but I have a feeling I could control him if he did see one ..... I'm still uncertain about that.
I tried "hunting" him in the wood this morning and he was soon darting from side to side in response to my own movements. I will have to be careful not to use my hands much while doing this as he at once targets the hand and tries to get to it. So far his "quartering" distances are far better measured in feet than in yards and I am unsure whether to allow him to run with my other dogs. My cockers range very widely and if Edge decides to follow Libby the brittany he'll end up back doon in England !
There is very little chance of him encountering a rabbit in the woods and fields around here, even experienced dogs only find one or two per year each in most of the places I can hunt. If he sees a bird things could get a bit exciting but he will soon be taken further afield where there is more cover and more likelihood of him seeing birds..... I cannot keep him wrapped up in cotton wool forever.
A couple of pics of him retrieving from light cover in the wood this morning. He didn't hesitate for an instant to enter the cover for this large home made dummy.
Wullie
So far he has chewed nothing in the house but I have given him a toy . It's just a strip of towel with a big knot tied in the middle but Edge likes to carry it around. Charlie and Libby are trying to get more attention by pinching his toy but Edge just ignores that and waits until they get bored with it before taking it again himself.
Libby is still in the huff at not being the focus of attention anymore and she does not play with Edge . This does not bother him at all, he makes no attempts to play with any of the dogs.....he seems to be a "person" pup. He spends most of his time in the house lying near my feet .....or on them if I will let him.
His favourite form of play with me is definitely retrieving .....he'll do anything to get a retrieve into his mouth including entering light cover.
Sometimes I find treats useful when training pups, especially for sits and recalls. I'm more than a little bit wary when using treats to encourage a recall however. If the pup gets the wrong idea it may drop dummies in expectation of a treat. If this happens it is mostly the trainers fault but I am not perfect ..... sometimes, try as I may, I get the timing of the treat wrong and then have to correct the fault of dropped dummies that I caused.
Edge had never had a treat in his short life until he came here. He would not accept or eat a treat unless it was in his dinner bowl. That is just beginning to change. He has now accepted a treat from my wife's hand and two treats from my hand so I will very soon begin training him to sit while using treats. I find a judicious mixture of pressing a pups backside down plus giving the pup a treat when that backside touches the floor usually begins to get the desired result rather quickly. I also give a lot of praise both vocal and physical for sitting on command.
When doing this I usually give a double command, I use a vocal command and a whistle command one after the other. To this is added a hand signal. All this done at once might be thought to confuse a pup but it doesn't seem to.
Very often it is my hand signal that the pup understands first , since dogs can't understand words anyway , it doesn't matter at all if a pup is taught an audible signal to sit which could be either a vocal one or a whistled one.....or both.
I find Edge to be a much "cannier" sort of pup than I'd expected. He likes people and he likes any form of play training. He is very good for a pup his age at giving me "focus." He is calm in the house but he sort of wakes up outside in the little strip of woods behind my house !
So far he has not seen a bird in those woods but I have a feeling I could control him if he did see one ..... I'm still uncertain about that.
I tried "hunting" him in the wood this morning and he was soon darting from side to side in response to my own movements. I will have to be careful not to use my hands much while doing this as he at once targets the hand and tries to get to it. So far his "quartering" distances are far better measured in feet than in yards and I am unsure whether to allow him to run with my other dogs. My cockers range very widely and if Edge decides to follow Libby the brittany he'll end up back doon in England !
There is very little chance of him encountering a rabbit in the woods and fields around here, even experienced dogs only find one or two per year each in most of the places I can hunt. If he sees a bird things could get a bit exciting but he will soon be taken further afield where there is more cover and more likelihood of him seeing birds..... I cannot keep him wrapped up in cotton wool forever.
A couple of pics of him retrieving from light cover in the wood this morning. He didn't hesitate for an instant to enter the cover for this large home made dummy.
Wullie
If at first you don't succeed .....find out if there is a booby prize !
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't do what doesn't work - do what does.
.
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't do what doesn't work - do what does.
.
Re: On Edge
Really enjoying these write ups - thank you.
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trekmoor
- Member
- Posts: 16074
- Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 9:38 am
- Dogs: Too many and not enough !
- Location: Central Scotland
Re: On Edge
Edge hasn't been in the kennel since about 7.30 a.m. and yet he still hasn't widdled or pood in the house and it is very nearly midnight ........ I'm beginning to think there must be something wrong with him !
He is very laid back in the house and wants nothing more than to lie at my feet with his knotted towel. If I move from one chair to another he moves too then resumes lying beside my feet. I remarked on this to my wife saying that he seems to like me. Wish I'd said nuffin ! Her reply was instant ..... "He doesn't have much sense then !"
I hate it when I feed her a good line !
If all is well tomorrow (Tuesday) I think I will take him for a 5 minute car journey , probably along with Billy. Charlie or Libby would lead him astray a bit too much. I intend taking him into thick woodlands and then down to a little stream that runs through the woods. I'd like to get him used to water and if possible, swimming before what is jokingly called summertime in Scotland comes to an end .....if it ever got started ! I avoid putting pups into water during the colder months in case the cold makes a pup dislike water.
Wullie
He is very laid back in the house and wants nothing more than to lie at my feet with his knotted towel. If I move from one chair to another he moves too then resumes lying beside my feet. I remarked on this to my wife saying that he seems to like me. Wish I'd said nuffin ! Her reply was instant ..... "He doesn't have much sense then !"
I hate it when I feed her a good line !
If all is well tomorrow (Tuesday) I think I will take him for a 5 minute car journey , probably along with Billy. Charlie or Libby would lead him astray a bit too much. I intend taking him into thick woodlands and then down to a little stream that runs through the woods. I'd like to get him used to water and if possible, swimming before what is jokingly called summertime in Scotland comes to an end .....if it ever got started ! I avoid putting pups into water during the colder months in case the cold makes a pup dislike water.
Wullie
If at first you don't succeed .....find out if there is a booby prize !
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't do what doesn't work - do what does.
.
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't do what doesn't work - do what does.
.