Spike and Axel 'Searching'

Yay! Great videos!

I love the difference between them. Spike's energetic obedience, compared to Axel's chilled out obedience! They both looked fantastic!

Love the way they're actually looking. Great way to train scent work.  

Axel was a bit tired there. They'd been running a marathon before I cornered them.
Spike is very fast and energetic. I usually have to let him retrieve for 20min before doing obedience just to burn the edge off.

One of the negatives of having dogs that know how to follow a scent trail: They find the feral cat hiding in the bushes. Luckily it got away and I hope it stays away.
It's been fighting with my cats and sneaking into the house to steal food   

Aww, poor Axel! That was especially good work then, considering he was tired!

Oh dear... The good thing about feral cats, though, is that they're often a little more suspicious than domestic cats. Once they're really scared away, they usually keep their distance.

I hope so.
Last one cost me R500.00 in Vet bills when Xan got it and it bit him all over. Luckily it got loose and ran off.

I know the feeling. Demps has caught cats before and it's terrifying!

You don't realise just how much damage a cat can do, especially the feral ones!

Especially with the bacteria on their claws.

And the bites! My sister once picked up a cat and immediately dropped it (it was instant) and was bitten 6 times on both her hands. Cats are vicious!

They can be, yes! Not surprising, though, as humans never domesticated them. Cats domesticated themselves.

Brilliant! Jess used to love scent training. We used to have short steel poles, rub your hands on one then.... find the person.

What scent do you use?

As for cats.... chilli is 11wks now & ...... how can I put this nicely?????
She takes a flying jump at Cons trackie pants cord. He's no longer brave enough to get up for a midnight snack without his pants!  

Youch!

      
That's classic!


For the babies I'm just using different treats at the moment. They're learning to use their noses and to differentiate between fresh and old scents.
As their retrieves get better and they start picking up dead objects from a stay, I'll start them finding their toys and make it gradually harder and harder.

Xan gets whatever I can find that's difficult and has someone else scent on them.
He's good.

Its great. If jess knows the word to find she is like a hound on a mission. She will not stop till she finds it. We play it as a game now & to this day she loves it.
If she cant point, (nose it) if its high she will sit & bark!

Keep up the work... they will enjoy it for yrs to come.

All dogs love this game.
I want to start laying tracks soon and have them start to learn to follow a track.
It's just hard work because everything is at least x 3 and sometimes x 6.
Sheba is my only dog truely useless at training. She has so MANY self confidence issues relating to humans.

Bless her!