yes. she is digging at the proofing spots. sometimes she digs at the holes where we already pulled truffles out when she is having trouble. i usually just ignore this and she moves on. it’s not an alert dig, because she doesn’t look up at me (and she knows there is no truffle there).
right. so we went out to find the 4 truffles my wife hid. they cooked for about two hours and she did thorough proofing. the whole family was there so there was some commotion. after finding 2 out of 4 she got some cacti in her paw and the session ended when she ran off after one of our cats, the one that hates dogs and runs away from them.
we went out again hours later on lead and she found the other two truffles fairly easily. i will stay away from the cacti from now on.
the cat chasing really bummed me out. i feel that we have set her up for this with our stuffed animal playing and hard fetches.
when she was little (8,9 weeks) and we first tied up a stuffed animal on a string, she stalked it like a cat, or like a bird dog to be exact. i really wish i had seen the following video and worked on the stalk and point, rather than the catch and kill. we were simply thinking fun, exercise, get the energy out, but now she is conditioned to chase. WE have put the energy IN. the stalking behavior is gone. i realize this is partly because puppies are more cautious, and so i am worried that she may have lost the ability to stalk for good.
i am trying this with her now and rewarding pointing, but she doesn’t really get it and her points do not have the lifted leg like when she was a puppy. i can’t think of how to really get this working without a longline and an assistant. i am also interested in mouth exercises to refine soft holding and dropping of objects.
i’m glad to have found fenzi, as that may offer some other courses to help with this sort of impulse control. are all the courses $65? so we are talking $130 to move into FE530 on dec. 1? do they offer multi-course packages or subscriptions? should i ask for a scholarship? we are not making any money over here, and the amount of courses i would like to participate in is a little overwhelming. FE220? OB510? is there some other less expensive curriculum i could follow for obedience and skill refinement? fenzi is daunting, but with some sort of package tuition, daisy and i could be year-round students.
maybe i should check my local trainers again? traci stood me up twice, and then when we finally got together for 30 min. we just did truffle work. not what i needed help with. :/