Author: Sturmfalken

SAR Training – Great Bear

/ Sturmfalken
Today we went to the Great Bear Recreation Area for SAR training. It sure is a beautiful, beautiful place and I now understand why there is a purpose for snow-shoes.
First we let the young dogs out to let them play and socialize a little. That way they got off a little steam. First M. and his two pups went out to do some run-aways. Then Indra and I got to do swissies. 
Swissies is an exercise where the helper takes the toy, runs away but doesn’t hide.
He’s just going into the opposite direction. Once the dog is ready, you let the dog go, the dog runs to the helper…
… comes back and indicates and then you shout “SHOW ME!” and run, with the dog, to the helper where the dog is rewarded. 
We’ve done mainly obedience in the past week but it sure has paid off. Indra showed some beautiful swissies and she impressed everybody. She’s done an amazing and beautiful job today and I am so proud of her and Judge. He got to do “mini-swissies” today.
I call them mini-swissies because he’s not doing the indicator yet. 

Our "Backyard"

/ Sturmfalken
This is our Backyard. Pretty cool, huh? The only thing that’s giving me a headache is that I sink in pretty deep they further I go out. A little to deep to actually be able to do much Obedience wise. However, it’s awesome for the dogs to run and run and run some more and I can’t wait for the snow to go away and for the green to come back out just to see how beautiful this place is and to get back into some serious obedience training. However, just because you sink in doesn’t mean you can’t try to work them.

It’s going waaaay into the woods. I don’t know how far it’s going into the woods but a 160acres is some serious land and I am thankful that we can use it for the dogs and can use it for SAR training as well.

 

The things you do for the dogs…

/ Sturmfalken
…whew… I just got back from training. It’s around 1AM and I just made it back. 
We went to a trainer around 1hour30minutes away from here. He evaluated the dogs and from next week on we are going to take private lessons for around 8 weeks. Since none of the dogs won’t have the attention span to actually work a full hour completely concentrated we are going to break it down and work all three of the dogs, one after another. So each Thursday I’ll be driving out to finally get the training I was looking for. To learn new techniques, to learn more about the rewards, when to reward, how to reward at the right moment, when yo correct the dog and so on and on and on. We literally break it down and start from scratch. While I do know a lot about positive training you are always learning. You can’t stop educating yourself on how to do it right. Even the worlds best trainers are still in training. 
So yeah, it’s definitely going to be long and late nights on Thursdays. Wednesdays I am planning to go to the Schutzhund Club as much as possible. The thing is, it’s over two hours of a drive and it takes even longer to get there then to the personal trainer and I am not even talking about the money thats going to be involved. Schutzhund training is expensive in the US. I can’t even comprehend the fact of how expensive it is. In Germany it’s nowhere near that expensive. You pay your 20 dollar club membership per year and thats it and I am not going there to specifically get them trained in Schutzhund. Right now, the most important thing for me is a rock-solid foundation. There is nothing more solid then Schutzhund Obedience and that’s what I am shooting for. 
Anyhow… it’s getting late and it’s going to be a long day tomorrow. I better go to bed. The dogs are already knocked out. Yukon is dreaming, I bet he’s chasing down bunnies. 🙂