Went to Shrewsbury small/med show on Sat. Scandal was SO bad! We didn't even get past the first two metres of the first ring, as she was such a fruit loop, I couldn't get her to concentrate. Normally if Iask her to do 'watch', or a recall-present, she will be perfect, eventually I got the watch, but she completely refused to do a present, and kept coming into me side on to make sure she could keep watching the agility. And then when she did come in straight, stuck her head straight through my legs so she could still watch the agility. Flippin eck she is hard work. It took 2 attempts, and the 2nd attempt about 10 minutes, before we got a 5second wait. Built this up gradually. But was still yapping all the way through. Then snapped when I gave her food, and got my finger soooo hard, that it swelled up, and there is still a mark and bruise now, normally she takes food sooo gently but becomes an absolute monster at a show!
I'm in Blagdon now, the walks here are amazing, a little too amazing for Scandal, as yesterday I was walking her and Honey. I took them on a new walk and thought I would just take the two, as all 5 might be a bit hard to deal with. Well, that was a good choice (not to take all 5!). I let Honey off first and she was quartering the ground and getting a little far away, so I put her back on the lead as the light was going and I didn't want her running off. Little Scandal with a halo on her head was being great, I was walking along talking to Honey when I looked up and Scandal is about 200m away tearing after a hare. Called and called, nothing. Then the hare goes through the gate into another field, which is running back down towards me, so only sheep fencing between us. Thought Scandal would come back on her way past, as she would've only been about 20m away. Well, I was wrong, as Scandal had no intention of coming back, she was off straight towards the main road, which thankfully has sheep fencing round it, although I wasn't sure if this went all the way round at that time. Scandal found a gap in the hedge and went through it, back into the field I'd just been in (I by now was in the sheep field (with no sheep) and running back down to where I'd last seen her). But no Scandal in site. She must only have been gone for about 10mins but felt like an eternity particularly as I had no idea what direction she'd gone in, didn't know if she'd crossed the road back towards the house, so didn't want to call her in case she had found her way back, but had to call her incase she'd got disorientated. Oh dear the relief when I saw her again. She'll be back on a flexi/long line now but it has been pretty frustrating as her recall has been fantastic recently and I thought we were making a lot of progress. Every other time I call her, she will always come back on first call, and absolutely fly to me, she has a quicker response than the other two, but evidently no response at all when it matters most!
1 comment:
It is the chase instinct trigger Char. The same thing that made her do what she did at the show - you got 'bit' cos she wanted to herd/chase and could not cos on lead. With the hare she could run...My advice? If you want it that is, set up chase/exciting situations with other dogs and use your longline. I had to do this with Nellie as she much the same degree of instinct - I chose a snady beach full of dogsone lovely autumn Sunday morning.... (though initially I just did it with my own dogs running madly as they do on a sandy beach) and also on walks with Pop just as she was running on ahead and anywhere where there were pheasants, sheep that would career off, woodlands at times when deer would be about...and so on. When you can recall off all these on line without any tension on the harness then you know you've cracked it. Good luck Hx
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