Focus and Heeling

Now that Kastle has excellent focus in heel position while I am looking back at him, we have started to do more with me looking straight forward. Also began moving in Fuss position, just one step at a time. I'm terrible. I have no idea how to move or where to reward, but I'm working on it. Kastle did well.

Introduction to the Pinch Collar

I introduced the pinch last night. Wanted to go for a leisurely walk around the neighborhood and I wasn't feeling 100%. Kastle almost yanked my arm out of the socket going down the driveway, I thought "enough is enough" and put a pinch on him. Oh boy. He lunged to the end (I'm standing still this whole time waiting for him to acclimate), screamed, got pissed, lunged again, screamed etc etc - he did this maybe 5-6 times and then tried to buck it off. Literally. He leaped up and down on all fours like a bucking bronco and then threw in 1-2 spins for good measure. After that he sat down and offered eye contact. Then we went for a 2 mile walk and he was fine LOL Jason made a comment about being excited to see what happens in protection later with that temper. This pup just makes my day.

Belated Pictures

One of the photos I've been consistently taking since I got Kastle did not turn out at his 6 month picture session. I meant to get it done again every day between then and now but it was either too late (and dark) when I got home from work, or raining - or both. Finally took it tonight. Only a week-and-a-half later and he has already gained 6 lbs! I am almost at the point where I can't pick him up. The weight is part of it, the other part is that he kicks like a donkey while in the upswing, once I'm standing he's pretty good but my goodness!

From now on I will probably have to do this shot instead of the above...

Tracking Length

Kastle's track was 200 paces, 8 corners, 70% food. This is the longest track he's done yet, by double. Extremely, extremely pleased with his pace, rock-solid consistent through the whole track. Rarely have to check him for speed or remind him to keep his head down. He pays as thorough attention to footsteps with food as without. In fact, he tends to get more intense on those without food. Checks the entire footprint from heel to toe. He's a lot of fun to track!

Basement Box Work

I introduced a new element to our basement box work. I am now asking Kastle to Line Up. This is something he previously did not know so this was a hard-thinking session. He comes back to me from the box straight on and then I ask him to Line Up - he needs to swing around my left leg and come between my legs, pointed back to the box and ready for the next run. I am sending him there with a whispered "Go" - it's working extremely well.

Hold Training

More time working on the Hold with the dowel. Tonight I introduced a dowel with a rope attached and did a couple of small tugs. The tugs with this particular puppy make him clamp down harder to hold on, which is exactly what I wanted. He's doing quite well with this so far.

Basement Box Work

More box turn work, he's pretty much got it nailed these days. The speed is getting better and better as well.

Basement Box Work

Lies built us this amazingly awesome Push Board for really cheap ($31!).

The purpose is to have it at home to work on proper box turns, aka swimmer's turns. Kastle love, loves the push board - he loves to slam into it and he's learned extremely quickly how to do a proper one.

Obedience at Schutzhund

Realized today that Kastle will lure with a higher value treat (not just plain kibble anymore, he'd rather offer eye contact instead - oh well), such as string cheese. I decided to use this method at Schutzhund to work on some prolonged heeling and just see how he looks overall now that he's grown so much in a short period. I was pleased with his focus, his prance and how well he did in the group - absolute focus. I was no pleased with my handling or my speed - I need to practice!

He is totally comfortable over the wall now and is starting to apply speed. I need to be cautious and make sure I reward for coming off the wall low because I can see a desire/tendency to want to just leap off the far side.

His Voraus is still pretty fast and we extended the distance I was sending him quite a bit.  Speed to positions after the Voraus and coming to me were absolutely fast and correct - love!

Support Your Breeder - We Got Hats! :-)

Rinus sent us hats! Love them!

Of course we immediately loaded the boys up for a photo shoot with the new hats! :-D

Here are our bad-ass boys! LOL

Kastle was not at all sure about this whole hat-on-his-head thing, he was pretty sure it should go in his mouth instead...

But he finally cooperated, which resulted in a mullet-head look, like some odd surfer-dude haha.

 

Ike & Kastle van het Basjes Huis (Kastle at 6 Months)

Here is my 6 month old cutie!

And here he is with his big brother!

6 Months Old!

Today Kastle is officially 6 months old and he weighs 49 lbs. We tried to get all the pictures done that we've been consistently doing for each age milestone. It got dark too fast and there were some pics that ended up not turning out.  Here are the more formal shots. No more luring with the mass amounts of peanut butter that I used to use as it gave him the runs bad last time so this time I tried to use string cheese. Didn't work that well. Gave up on that and asked him to stack for me because I asked and then rewarded at release - he was a little confused and wanted to offer a sit and down and such but we ended up capturing some of the pics I was hoping for!

 

He tried to self stack for me, which was ok but not exactly what I wanted so I helped him out :-)

My big boy and I!

Agility Class #2

Agility class for Kastle tonight. Started off with tunnels and then went back to flatwork. He had to sit and stay while I moved 5 feet away, back to him and called him to me, on the right and the left. Same thing over the jump and then we did some luring while walking and switching hands and sides of the dog. Kastle does not care which hand the treats are in or which side of him I am on.

Flyball Practice

Kastle is doing well in Flyball. He sort of resents when I leave him at the box for the initial call-backs (which are really just restrained recalls) and is starting to dodge when people try to grab his collar. I don't care for that but not sure what to do about it right now - plus, once we have the sequence down, that won't be happening anymore anyway. He is starting to get faster and faster I think and his box turn is beginning to look like a real turn too.

Basement Obedience

Tonight's session involved working on the kick-back stand (Steh) for Schutzhund. Kastle likes this motion a lot and is really starting to get into it. I also did a little Around the cone work. His speed to the cone is moderate, his speed from the cone to me is really fast. I am thinking this is going to translate into all of his retrieves later so I'm going to start building his drive to run from me to objects now. We'll see how that goes. I am working on his heel-side focus now more and more too, that's going really well. Applying his Fuss command and expecting him to stay focused even while my hand is moving. Continuing the Hold the dowel work as a little bit of a pressure exercise. He's responding really, really well to that so I am thrilled. A tiny bit of position reinforcement - aka, I will pull the leash and see if he will break his sit or down - which he does not at all.

Balance Those Drives

Randall Hoadley (Jason's Training Director from the DFW Working Dogs Club in Texas) worked with me and Kastle a bit at the Schutzhund Trial he was judging. I've been told numerous times that he has balanced drives (the puppy, not the man hehe), but not that defense is his more prominent right now. Randall showed me the proper way to play with him to bring his prey drive out and give him a nice, calm, firm grip on what we play with (soon to be a leather tug with one handle). Definitely some things to think about and work on!

Puppy Agility Class #1

Kastle started Puppy Agility tonight in Kalamazoo. The facility is extremely small so I'm glad there are only 3 other dogs in there. There are two larger dogs that are older and very laid-back and then a co-worker's small dog that is energetic but has plenty of room to be so. Kastle is the biggest and most excited. He did really well. Everything we did tonight he had already at least been introduced to, if not had down pat. Oh well, review is always good. Plus, the space was tight, unfamiliar dogs and running around so that was excellent for him to get used to! :-)

We did target, tunnel, jumps, post jumps and some "with me" exercises. I toyed with leash pressure positions (staying in position when I pull on the leash) too. The highlight of the night (for me) was having the opportunity to practice his exercises on the wobble board (sit-down-stand). He LOVED the wobble board! That was a ton of fun and a great challenge as well!

Flyball

Kastle is fast! He ran and jumped a ton at flyball (not high jumps, only 6 inches), and tugged, and box-turned and in general got a ton of exercise. He ran neck-and-neck with Pan, who is 1.5 years old. He's doing wonderfully on the box - our biggest problem is that anything we put in the way to help his turn be tighter, he hops over and then looks very pleased with himself LOL Love this puppy! We ended up putting a very high barrier up and a person in the way to clean up his turn. We'll see how he progresses, so far so good :-)

Nationals

Kastle and Ike made the trip with Jason and I to the Schutzhund Nationals in Kansas City, KS this year. It was a lot of fun, I learned a ton and got to see a lot. There aren't any photos of the boys, but they got to work too. Only a group photo of the people :-)

Flyball Practice

Kastle seems to have lost control of his rear-end. We need to go back to rear-end awareness training. He was a little wiggly and crazy over the jumps. But, his box turn is coming along nicely and he's finally grasped that running away from me over the jumps is good.