Saturday 17 August 2013

Tracking and rescue

Mawson is still a pretty young pup, and it is fair to say that I am (still!) new to being a dog slave. So, we are trying a bit of everything with him. That's as much to see if he will enjoy it, as well as us. If we are completely bored by something, there is little chance to make it fun for Mawson!
So far we have done obedience, agility and swimming. A tiny bit of Rally-O and trick/dance but that's just for fun... We wanted to do something for which he was meant for.
Hence, while Martin was away, I went to one of the rare tracking and rescue club training day. The club assembles only one saturday of each month for just about 5-6 months in the year. And saturdays are the agility and obedience training days, so it always clashes. But this time, all the stars were aligned.

The group gathers in a large area with fields and paddocks, they get together earlyish and you need to be at the locked gate by 8.15am. That wouldn't be too much of a problem if that place wasn't more (quite a bit more) than 1h  drive away and if I had gone there before...
Anyway we made it!!! and I didn't forget anything, even had my dirty socks as sniffy end of track targets...

Mawson is a little natural. He got really excited when it was his turn. As it was one-on-one training and there were a few dogs we ended up only having 3-4 goes each and it lasted to 2pm.
I was also very happy with the fact that, though we had a lot of waiting around, he was very settled. Even so settled, that he helped a little pup who had had previous bad experience with dogs.
A very interesting day. I got quite a few ideas so that we can do the training alone a bit closer to home. When we get the time, we will definitely do a bit more work on that.
I got a slight roundabout road on the way back, obviously entirely on purpose...! And mister pup was completely shattered and collapsed on his bed snoring.

So overall, that was pretty good. We will definitely continue some nose work. We also had a test at seeing Mawson under the gun. Not that we are hunters but we visited a winery a little while ago and they were chasing pesky birds away, and we thought why not seeing how he reacts. Amazingly, mister pup who is afraid of everything was entirely at ease!!! Not even a blink... He is weird...
The main thing that I would foresee as a big issue for his hunting prowesses would be his unability to contained his excitement when there is a prey anywhere near.....

Duck retrieve at a young age

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