If a picture is worth a thousand words, is a video worth a million words?

The latest with the retrieve....

We are now working on several things in order to put it all together. He will scoop his head down and pick up the dowel off the cans (or the dumbell of the floor). He will take the dowel and hold it indefinitely, including me stepping into basic position and heeling him around with it in his mouth.


We've created some drive for the dumbell...


He will already retrieve other objects from basic position (over the jump as well). The final step will be putting this all together.

Some obedience from two weeks ago


Protection

Videos to share!

Some tidbits of Nikon's bitework. Nikon is working on learning the bark and hold behavior, and bringing more power and commitment to his protection work.


We are making progress on our formal retrieve. We are currently working on the correct "hold" behavior. It looks very easy, but it is actually pretty difficult training a young ADD dog to calmly "hold" with focus and no "chewing" on the object. Training this seemingly simple task requires a lot of time and patience on my part.


This is Kenya's son, Bogey, trained and owned by Kim LaSerra, running an EX JWW course.


Before Christmas, I "borrowed" a puppy from Julie. Her name is "Ana" (Alta-Tollhaus Havanna) and she is a Zamp daughter. Zamp was the German Sieger (VA1) in 2006. This is Ana playing chase and fetching (second half).


Ana and Nikon


Ana and Coke

This is our acquaintance Laura Green with her GSDCA Nationals 2009 competitors and ribbons. The dog on the right is Kenya's son, Lance (Alta-Tollhaus Par Four [a gazillion titles]). Lance is titled in conformation, tracking, rally, and several venues of agility. He also has OFA Excellent hips! Congrats, Laura, Lance, and Jeannie!

I am ordering the show pictures of Nikon because I liked the sample one I saw and thought his handler (Mike Spadavecchia) did a great job with him, little ring training that he has.

In the mean time, I took some fall portraits at Julie's










Ron made a video of Sunday's bitework. Nikon is at 00:02:07


Some newer training pics...




























Obedience pics from Julie...

This past Saturday we attended Ray Silvertrust's show at the forest preserve in Libertyville, IL. Alta-Tollhaus originally had 12 dogs entered but due to illness, work, late entry, and other conflicts, 7 dogs were shown. "G" pups Garbo and Gunner got their Baby Puppy VPs. Roman (Nikon's half brother out of Kira) got VP in the Junior Puppy class. Brody, Caisson, and Cadence got their second and fourth VPs in the Senior Puppy classes.

Nikon is now 13 months so he moved up to the Youth Dog (12-18mo) class and also moved up from VP - "Very Promising" (highest award for puppies) to SG - "Sehr Gut/Very Good" (highest award for young dogs). Schumi was out because Becky is sick, so it was Nikon vs. his half brother (by Markus vom Status Quo) Logan vom Huerta Hof. The judge, Herr Hans-Peter Fetten of Germany, said that if he could combine the two he'd have the perfect dog! Logan placed first, so Nikon was awarded SG2 and a cute trophy to boot.

I presented Nikon for his dental notation, but it ended up being a wash. He still has somewhat of an overbite. The judge is obligated to evaluate every dog over 12 months against the same standard for dentition, so it was his recommendation to scratch the dental notation rather than have him submit his findings of an overbite. He advised us to wait 4 months and try again, stating that he had seen dogs with such an overbite correct itself with a little more time. Nikon has always had an overbite and it has slowly gotten better. We will wait and see, no biggy. The bite is not important for Schutzhund anyway, as long as all the teeth are intact (which they are).

After the show, we found a secluded park area and did a round of bitework. It was supposed to be Nikon's first time going in the blind, but since we didn't have a blind, Ron backed himself into some shrubs. This is my first Schutzhund dog and the first time I've sent a dog into a "blind", so I stopped Nikon short the first few times but better to stop them short than give too much line and allow the dog to get "dirty" on the helper (crowd the helper too much, nip at the sleeve, etc).

I know, I know, I have sorely neglected the blog, again....

Nikon has come along way in Schutzhund training. In my previous post, the pictures showed us working on developing ball drive for obedience and practicing simple skills. Since then, the ball and toy work has really come together, I'm slightly less of a klutz and better time my releases and rewards. Nikon knows all of the out-of-motion exercises and Ron said he has the best stand-out-of-motion for a dog his age (we were having trouble with the sit out of motion and the auto-sit so I decided to teach the stand before he was trained to always sit). He's learned the recall to front position, the finish position, and is getting better at the about turns. We can do the full heeling pattern with the toy.

In tracking he is doing long, SchH1 type tracks with 2-3 turns. No articles yet. We will train the indicating behavior separately and make it a fun, reward-based game. He's a good tracker and any problems we've had have been handler issues (read - my fault).

His protection work is probably the most improved. Several months ago we sort of hit a wall where he didn't understand what a sleeve was for and didn't really see it as a prey object. Instead once he matured a little more we made it less of a game and more "real" to him. Since then he has steadily improved with each session. His barking has always been good. His confidence and his grip have really improved. He's doing longer escape bites, taking drives and stick hits, and soon will go into the blind.

Currently, Nikon has his AKC "STAR" (puppy obedience test), he is three times VP rated under three different judges at a club, regional, and Sieger show, passed his herding instinct test at 10 months, and has 60 points towards his UKC championship. He being shown this weekend for an upgrade to SG rating, will take his AKC CGC test next week, and will hopefully finish his UKC championship in December.

Kenya is polishing her obedience for her BH test, which I planned to do next month but will probably wait for a closer (cheaper) trial.

Working Nikon in obedience with trainer Ron Stokes at the Working Dog Club of Michigan in Marshall, MI. Photos by Chris Schwimer.










Nikon placed VP2 at the Central Illinois Police and Working Dog Association in Dunlap, IL. He won this big trophy.

A video Nikon learning some obedience using ball drive. I've never trained a dog like this before! (I mean, I've never trained a dog with a ball AND I've never trained a dog like Nikon) The heeling is a little "crabby" and not quite as tight, but this is a brand new concept, we've *just* started taking steps this weekend. Mostly we've been developing the ball drive, then using it to get faster sits and downs (not demonstrated here), and to fix his front sits which were very far away. He also had to learn to bring the ball BACK to me and not run off with it, and is still learning to "out" the ball faster to keep the game flowing.

This afternoon I was, erm, using the bathroom and happened to glance through our pairs of glasses on the counter and thought it made a cool idea for a picture.








Random kitchen bookeh