I have not been posting, but we have still been working on things! The video taking, management and editing was just too much. I just wanted to record an absolutely groundbreaking outing that Sei and I had.
Sei struggles greatly to feel comfortable in new places. I decided to try to see how he felt about an empty sports field complex near the farm. No people, no dogs, a road with some noise in the distance, and the sound (but no sight) of children playing in the distance. I hoped that this would be a perfect step up in difficulty from the backroads around the farm. We did about 15 minutes of wandering around and sniffing on a 6ft leash. Sei was in his standard ‘new place nose glued to ground’ mode. Took the odd cookie here and there, but not consistently. Did a bit of the ‘go out to the end of the leash, stare out into the distance and whine’ thing. He eventually started doing really well at keeping the leash loose as we wandered around (I don’t really care about being in the right position in these circumstances, I just don’t want to get dragged around). This was pretty consistant with Sei’s current comfort level in new places.
After 15ish minutes, we went back to the car and grabbed my longline and some discs. I really didn’t figure he would play, but thought I would confirm it. He likes to prove me wrong if nothing else 😉 He wanted to play! A lot! I even dropped the long line (which definitely makes me nervous, even in fairly safe places like this). We only played for a minute or two because I wanted to make sure to end before he was done. I didn’t intend to take video, so this was taken with my phone stuffed in a tree. The quality reflects that.
Then, THEN, when I just sat down in the grass with the intention of letting him wander and sniff on the longline, he came over and demanded cheese. I figured that if he wanted it as badly as he was indicating, he could probably do a few low level tricks for it. I stood up to move away from the tree, and he starts heeling! Did I mention that we have never worked on heeling? We did a few more things, no planning, because I never expected this. Sei has NEVER wanted to work in a new place before. Not once. And this was high quality stuff! I couldn’t believe it.
These stills, as terrible as the picture quality may be, make my heart happy. Look how happy he is!
Adventures in Dog Training 