Skye and I have had a great few days away in Northumberland this week. We joined Jacquie Hall at the Northumberland Canine Centre for a two day course specifically put together for SARDA trainees. Jacquie has been training dogs for over 25 years and instructing for over 20 years. Jacquie regularly competes in Working Trials with a Golden Retriever and a Chesapeake Bay Retriever.
Her other canine credentials are:
- Working Trials Reserve Ticket winner.
- A Member of The Canine Behaviour Institute.
- John Rogerson Associate.
- Hon.Training Adviser to Search & Rescue Dogs Association (England)
- Founder member / Senior Instructor - North Northumberland Dog Training Club.
- 15 years experience as a dog groomer & pet shop owner.
Thankfully the facilities include a large indoor arena as it was persisting it down all day on Wednesday!
There were 6 of us trainee handlers with our dogs ranging in age from 4 months old to 3 years old, 5 Collies and 1 Australian Cattle Dog. Skye was plumped nicely in the middle at 7 months old.
During day 1 Jacquie put time into training us as handlers, the dogs are the easy bit! We looked at some basic dog psychology including how dogs interact with each other and with humans, how to understand their body language and how dogs learn. Dogs are not too much different to humans in this respect and this part of the day was fairly similar to the coaching courses that I have been on in my work as a Mountaineering Instructor. The same basic rules of showing what is required, breaking it down into workable chunks and then joining it all together again were demonstrated nicely when we were all asked to teach our dogs to run an agility course. With dogs the reward element is a little less complex than with humans - we just tell them how good they are and feed them - the dogs that is!
One of the components of the SARDA Wales obedience test is a walk to heel on and off the lead. I have been struggling for weeks with this with Skye but with 2 minutes Jacquie had her looking like a Crufts champion and had showed me how. Its all in the timing! We also looked at loose lead walking, the importance of the dog recognising its own name (its amazing how many of ours were indifferent!) and the recall.
The beauty of this sort of training is that you benefit from all of the mistakes that someone else has made over 25 years and get an instant answer - rather than relying on trial and error.
The second day dawned bright and sunny so we spent a good part of it outside. Practical sessions were again complimented by some theory sessions including dealing with aggressive dogs. We looked at how to train the down stay position keeping the dog calm, relaxed and happy and repeated the exercises we had done the day before in the paddock with the additional distractions of new sights and smells.
The course ended with each of us recalling our dogs past all of the other dogs, walking them to heel through the other dogs off the lead and finishing with the dog lying down. We were all beaming like kids in a sweetshop!
The two days have given me new found confidence in my dog, answered all of the questions that I had about training a puppy that I want to use as a Search and Rescue Dog, corrected the mistakes I had been making and given me some new practical skills to develop my dog. They have also given me the knowledge to read other dogs and understand their interaction a little bit more - but I am by no means an expert!
Jacquie can help anyone with any dog - you don't need to be training a Search Dog so if you are struggling with your own dog have a look at her website, I can't recommend her highly enough. I also wish all of the other handlers the best of luck, especially Stuart and Jasper who have their Stock & Obedience test coming up in a weeks time after such a successful two days.
