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[quote] Before each search we played a bit of tug and I also primed him. [/quote]
Awesome- and perfect.
Yeah, we have no real concerns about what you are doing, everything really looks good, he is just a very different style than Vidoc and it is fun to watch them both. He [b]is[/b] a zippy firecracker. He’s SUPER fun to watch. You can just feel the energy coming off him.
As for the Blind hides etc- I just touched on that in Vidoc’s thread. Something to note though: While it is easier, and totally ok to do both dog’s hides in the same area (it is reality, trust me, we know this), do make sure that they both feel the same away about the environment, relatively. For example, if Vidoc seems to be able to do the soccer field, let him. It might be too much for Esprit yet with the openness and distraction, or vise versa, Vidoc may just run perimeter on the field.
Don’t push too fast (and we heartily commend you for not doing so, as with these two boys we know how easy it would be to throw them hard scenarios and get decent success. In the long run this is going to pay off in leaps an bounds. It already has. They are rock stars.)
The other thing: right now are you working one dog before the other more often then not? Also, we would be curious with Esprit, although we don’t think it is going to be an issue at all, to provide more physical obstacles for him that encourage him to interact with his environment. For example, if you see a low branch that would hit Esprits head carriage, place a target near that. [b]We want to be careful here though[/b]. Esprit is so fast with his movements we don’t want him to injure himself pushing past obstacles, but I guess we are looking for information on if you think that might later his alert sequence. We don’t necessarily recommend you do this, just curious on your thoughts on the matter. We doubt it would alter his alert significantly, but it is valuable information either way.
We wouldn’t think he would have an issue at all based on behavior we have seen, more likely he’d be overzealous and prone to injury in this regard but we don’t know unless we ask.
Another thing is if you have enough targets-you could have your helper place quite a few more- like 7 to 9, [b]but[/b] stop each dog after a certain amount of finds. Say Esprit goes out and finds three really well, and then you stop him, and then Vidoc goes out and finds 4 and you stop him. Then you can go retrieve the rest later.
Yes, contamination of space by previous found targets and other dogs, but we think these guys can handle that. You need to just be very aware in the scenario of what hides where found and where so you can correctly interpret the second dogs behavior when on odor and act/ respond accordingly. It is a very real world working scenario. We would suggest if you do this, you’d run Esprit first. And we would suggest you don’t do it in the large soccer field. That is too much space. If you do this scenario, do it is a smaller space. You don’t need to do this, but it depends on the logistics of your helper. Ideally you’d set up each scenario for each dog, but we understand reality, and this is another alternative.