The early stages of search dog training are quite exciting because things are moving quite quickly. This week Skye has progressed with her game of hide and seek to the point where she is now coming back to tell me she has found - with a bit of prompting.
I have had a few days off and also been practising in the evenings on the days that I have been working. This weekend saw the whole family (we have 4 kids) plus Skye heading off to Warwickshire for a family wedding. Skye slept in the van and we enjoyed some training in the grounds of Ettington Park, a fine manor house that is reputedly the most haunted hotel in England!
The game has now progressed so that when Skye arrives at the body they ignore her and I hang back. She began to get frustrated at this as she wanted to get on and play with her toy and so started barking at the body. I praised this as it is no bad thing, continued to hang back and then recalled her to me. Once she arrived I prompted her to speak and then ran with her to the body asking her to show me.
A couple of days of this and she is getting the idea. This is the really important part of the training so I will continue at this for a while now to get it nailed. I am doing the run outs into the wind to get her subconsciously scenting for the body and I am varying the distance and location as much as possible.
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