Reply To: Shannon & Cricket (DRTDT)

[Alana McGee]

Kristin, I love that Callie insisted he pick it up – that is so great!

Ok – so I have two clips – one inside and one outside, but video limits me to showing you one 🙂 I am going to show you the outside one from the other day because it is the one we had the most trouble with and tell you about the big success you are missing in the second video 🙂

In this video I am wondering what I could have done better. I really didn’t feel like Cricket was into the game, I didn’t think she was having fun – we didn’t seem to be clicking. You can see she is in her new harness on a long line. We haven’t been working on the line enough because of my broken hand (cast comes off Thursday!), and she dislikes the harness, so I bet those two things threw her off. We didn’t do any more truffle hunting that night, we just relaxed.

[b]Plan[/b]: Work in the house on easy hides where she has had a history of a lot of fun while on the long line and in the harness. I am considering abandoning this big harness since it bugs her and just use her day-today one but use another cue to indicate we are truffle hunting (as you explained to Lois and Monza). I’m going to have to think on it; I don’t want the harness to make this a not-fun-game, but she probably needs the additional protection from the elements/forest that this harness or a jacket will provide.

I’ll work on more hides outside and hopefully feel confident to try a multi-target hide this week! I think I will work her off leash until the game is consistently super amazing fun outside.

Video you aren’t seeing: I did a three target hide in the house tonight. We worked on a floor she has never hunted on. She was able to move between the first and second hide with no problems! She got a bit stuck between the second and third, but she got it – rock star!