Finish

I can get her to go round the back of me and sit to my right. she does it reliable in the house and on a lead on way to woods. Nearly does it reliably in the woods following a recall from a distance. Who is this obedient dog.

She will heel nicely for short distances at running speed and when returning from woods on daily walks.

Still mardy in the evenings, probably best avoided. she needs to rest on her own sometimes.

Agility

We have been going to agility this summer. Willow is quite good at it. More details to follow.

We have also been running regularly, which is a great way to tire a dog like this out; maybe too much sometimes.

More Gnashing!!!

I bought a book by "AGGRESSION IN DOGS: PRACTICAL MANAGEMENT, PREVENTION & BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION - Brenda Aloff". Some funny language in it but seems like a realy good source of sensible ideas. And good explanation of what is going on in the first place.

logs!, willow, logs!

I have set up more jumps in the woods. Willow loves to jump over them. She goes over then back without a second command, but will stop in a down and then jump back if you catch her first. She really seems to enjoy this activity and will come from a fair distance if you go near one of the known jumps and shout logs! or similar. If I can stop her just bouncing over every object in the area in a random order she could be a fantastic agility dog. I saw some videos on the web the other day that showed a dog doing an obstacle then stopping right on the end of it (they must put thier paws on the end part to score). They were like statues until the handler called them on. Will Willow ever be like this? I doubt it but maybe.

Another thing I do is hide behind trees, they don't have to be big enough to hide me, but Willow find this a bit distressing and barks at me to follow her and stop messing about. If I persist she comes to me, which I think means she accepts my behaviour, and has given up thinking she can influence it. We have a good old game from time to time with me running between trees in the opposite direction to where she wants me to go!

Running - mixed results

Willow can run with me and can heel beautifully most of the time (off lead). I can make her down and go and wait and heel. The only thing is if you loose concentration too long she can dissapear off for minutes. This worries me because there are sheep in some of the fields near the woods I go in. I have tacken to making her heel with me near the sheep field, and go on after. She likes the game. When she does dissappear no end of shouting gets her back. Maybe she is not too far away in a down (her universal reaction to unknown shouted commands). I still need better recall from her, even when she is having fun. Unfortunately when she is in the woods she cannot see the point of eating, so although in classes she is a foodie, other times there is no reaction. She will come if you call and threaten to throw a stick. I am trying to teach her the touch command where in order to get something she has to come and put her nose to the palm of my hand. Hopefully if she does this at home she will still do it in the woods despite the non-interest in food.

More classes

We went on holiday for a while after christmas, and Willw missed 4 or 5 weeks of classes. In the first class back it was clear that she had regressed a bit, not in her tricks etc but in her attitude. Last night (the second class back) was much better, she was attentive and enjoying herself. She could do some distance work, and her recall is getting stronger.

More Progress

Willow can sit, down, find, come here (in most contexts but not all). She can do sit and down on hand signals. She still misinterprets sit as down when in the woods, and despite getting "up sit" right at times is very nervous of doing it either because she doesn't want to, or because she thinks the more we say things the more we want her to submit. She can "up sit" really nicely in training classes. She has lost a little of her "oh if I must" swagger about coming when called in class, but it takes enormous encouragement in the woods.
In the house she can fetch reasonably well, and we can enforce the right behavious if her can't be bother to get it, or goes back to the wrong place, or hides or whatever. she still hides every stick she gets in the woods, although Maggie tells me that this morning she got willow to return the same stick several times. Adam is so keen to do the right thing that he picked up a stick the other day to carry about when maggie was trying to get willow to "find" her stick.
The growling has reduced alot these last two weeks. Willow get sent away, or the lead put on and a few tricks performed if she growls. Maggie drys her outside because the enclosed utility room seemed to trigger more extreme reactions. We are both very observant of the growling and teeth showing. Generally growling is not dangerous, but leads to teeth showing which is not far from teeth showing with treatening noises which is one step from gnashing. We now do not tolerate any growling, we distract in the ways mentioned above if it happens.

More Gnashing

Willow let herself down again the other day. She has been reasonably behaved since and we don't really know what to do. It's hard to trust her totally really.

Continued great progress

Well we have been doing well. Willow reliable lies down and will run off like a whippet when you say so. People are amazed (are are we) at the speed. She continues to be high energy and the more walks the better. Her temprament is much improved since she spend two weeks in prison with other dogs. She barked herself hoarse. During her stay a friend with dalmations took Willow out walking and she was fine with the other dogs. We offered to reciprocate, which may be a lot to handle.

Adam went to a friend who adores him. She says he follows her around alot, which is what she does to Maggie. He went away just recovering from worm (long visible round worms - yuk) and came back slimmer and fitter with reports of having done several hikes of up to 6 miles up hill and down dale. We probably overfeed him, but he pesters so much we assume that we underfeed him. We also find he likes to stop very frequently to sniff things, so he is a slow walker. This is unlike Willow who probably run 10 miles for every one that I walk.

I took her running and walking (for Adam) today, and of course she still wants more. The agility class should be running again, so I will try to get in. The generic dog training classes actually worked out well, she got socialised and learnt one or two new tricks. She was bored though and her attention focused more on the door than on me. Treats helped with this and a fair few times she really wanted to work. The class was full of snappy, barky types and the dogs were occasionally agressive too!

I am teaching her to jump over things, as well as the heal on the way back from the walk; no chance on the way out. I am trying to make her look at me before I release her from a down, and teaching her to look when I say "look". so far so good. She might have a few agility abilities by the time we start. There is an agility class on Sunday morning in the summer at a place I like to go sailing and running, so that might form the basis of regular days out.