..... is hard - very hard I think, unless you are of a certain mindset and very focussed on a end-goal.
I've been trying with Mouse, but the 'don't do's' are starting to get me tied up in knots and are making me question everything I do when interacting with her and so I've decided to step aside of Khaki-ism and do pretty much the same with her as I have done my other pups and then see what I have at the end of it all.
I have enjoyed the training/play-games side with her very much. The whole gundog-aspect has given me lots of new ideas for training which Mouse and I have enjoyed. It's handy (and very satisfying!) if I drop something when out walking I can send her back to find it for me, and any sort of steadiness is always a good thing, but I'm really not getting on with 'The Rules'. Mouse spends half her day carrying things she finds around with her (mostly socks and shoes thanks to living with 3 blokes who seem to have to let their feet go naked everytime they step indoors) and I'm always in a dither now as to whether I should call her to me, make her come to me, take them off her,not take it off her, praise her, give it her back, swop it for something else, make her walk to heel with it, ask her to pluck it and make it into a nice cassarole, or what ! :roll:
Last night, for example, I was doing some gardening. Mouse was feeling perky and I hadn't done any training with her yesterday as she has a class today and I wanted her to be buzzing for it. But after doing some wrestling with her over the trowel, I started throwing some toys into the flowerbeds for her to retrieve. And she liked it. So I threw some more, and then I started agonising about if I should have thrown 4 toys in a row, or if she'd hate retrieving forever if I 'burnt her out' in one easy session, or should I be sitting her to be steady whilst I fetched them, and was I using 'the right commands', and should I be making her come directly back to me each time and presenting them properly, and how bad was it that she'd done a circuit with squeeky-penguin before she bought him to me, and should she even have a squeeky penguin, and how dreadful was it that the other dogs came into the garden to join in, and oh my life- Mouse was ambushing Flo to rob her of her tennis ball and bu$$er it..........I need a large G&T to contemplate the errors of my Ol' Gundogging ways! 8O
So I'm not sure that Pet-Doggery and Gundog-Doggery are that compatible. I don't want to wait and be patient in training. I don't want to ignore my pup for most of the time so that training-times become the be all and end all. I want my dogs to socialise and run about having free-time with the dogs we meet down the park every day. I want my pup to have a cuddle on my bed at night, and to rip the odd sock and shoe that my men-folk leave lying around because it teaches them to be more careful!
So for other people who have pet-working dogs, where do you draw the line? How much does Khaki-ism impinge on your day to day life with your dogs? Does it get on your nerves at all? Does it alter the way you live with your dogs?
I love the time I spend doing gundogging-type stuff, but I'm not keen on living The Khaki-Dream the other 23 1/2 hours in the day!
Becs and The Gang
I've been trying with Mouse, but the 'don't do's' are starting to get me tied up in knots and are making me question everything I do when interacting with her and so I've decided to step aside of Khaki-ism and do pretty much the same with her as I have done my other pups and then see what I have at the end of it all.
I have enjoyed the training/play-games side with her very much. The whole gundog-aspect has given me lots of new ideas for training which Mouse and I have enjoyed. It's handy (and very satisfying!) if I drop something when out walking I can send her back to find it for me, and any sort of steadiness is always a good thing, but I'm really not getting on with 'The Rules'. Mouse spends half her day carrying things she finds around with her (mostly socks and shoes thanks to living with 3 blokes who seem to have to let their feet go naked everytime they step indoors) and I'm always in a dither now as to whether I should call her to me, make her come to me, take them off her,not take it off her, praise her, give it her back, swop it for something else, make her walk to heel with it, ask her to pluck it and make it into a nice cassarole, or what ! :roll:
Last night, for example, I was doing some gardening. Mouse was feeling perky and I hadn't done any training with her yesterday as she has a class today and I wanted her to be buzzing for it. But after doing some wrestling with her over the trowel, I started throwing some toys into the flowerbeds for her to retrieve. And she liked it. So I threw some more, and then I started agonising about if I should have thrown 4 toys in a row, or if she'd hate retrieving forever if I 'burnt her out' in one easy session, or should I be sitting her to be steady whilst I fetched them, and was I using 'the right commands', and should I be making her come directly back to me each time and presenting them properly, and how bad was it that she'd done a circuit with squeeky-penguin before she bought him to me, and should she even have a squeeky penguin, and how dreadful was it that the other dogs came into the garden to join in, and oh my life- Mouse was ambushing Flo to rob her of her tennis ball and bu$$er it..........I need a large G&T to contemplate the errors of my Ol' Gundogging ways! 8O
So I'm not sure that Pet-Doggery and Gundog-Doggery are that compatible. I don't want to wait and be patient in training. I don't want to ignore my pup for most of the time so that training-times become the be all and end all. I want my dogs to socialise and run about having free-time with the dogs we meet down the park every day. I want my pup to have a cuddle on my bed at night, and to rip the odd sock and shoe that my men-folk leave lying around because it teaches them to be more careful!
So for other people who have pet-working dogs, where do you draw the line? How much does Khaki-ism impinge on your day to day life with your dogs? Does it get on your nerves at all? Does it alter the way you live with your dogs?
I love the time I spend doing gundogging-type stuff, but I'm not keen on living The Khaki-Dream the other 23 1/2 hours in the day!
Becs and The Gang