Reply To: Alyssia & Spring (DRTDT)

[Alana McGee]

Indeed it is hard to acclimate dogs to shifts in weather like that. If Spring has no interest in being outside to play in those conditions, don?t force it! It should be fun- for both of you!

If you didn?t see the alert- don?t worry about it. What this is a lesson in, and a good one for everyone, is when you are engaging in an area, 100% focus on your dog. Someone could be talking at you, and it?s great if you hear them and acknowledge, but priority is to Spring. Hides/ truffles can happen right out of the gate like that in real life too and you want to be prepared. Especially if your training or working on skills like staying at source and confidence building.

Antecdote: This happened to me last year. At the time Lolo & I were working on staying at source in the field. I parked the car. The grass parking strip abutts a forest we hunt in regularly. I let Lolo out of her crate to go shake off travel and before I had my tools out of the car, literally 5-10 seconds, she had alerted, looked at me, and moved on to another one before I could bring her back for a proper reward sequence.

Needless to say I am much more aware the moment we are even near an area.

Always be ready!

This is a great size area for you guys Alyssia. It?s been fun to watch her progress through it, but yes, start doing more buried hides! Spring can totally do it with gusto. If helping her orient by walking to the section of the yard they are in, so be it. That is just fine. Really is. Where your body is focused, Spring directs herself.

But also, just like this set up, if you?re pressed for time- just do what you can do! Again, we all know this, but it?s a game. fun fun fun. that?s what should be happening.

That first hide is great. Man her tail. Gets me every time.

1:01 great job backing away and removing pressure, allowing her more space to move.

Hide 3 I love how she pushes her head under leaves. She is showing a lot more confidence than a few weeks ago about interacting with other stimuli, aka pushing things out of the way to get at source. That is great. I like everything about this hide, and how she approaches it, and her thorough check after. That is actually really handy she does that naturally and will come into play later.

Well done both of you. We don?t have too many comments. It looks really good.