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Location: B'ham (nr the airport)
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 2,963
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I hope so. TBH I'm getting really bored with it now. We've done nothing in about 5 weeks of the course running that he hasn't done before. So I'm wondering whether he really needed to do this at all as he already knows this stuff.
Anyway, this morning he played up. He worked a little bit for the treats and then went wild for his toy. He loved it and played when told to do so but then once we all stopped so that the trainer could explain the next bit to us, he wouldn't get started again.
He wouldn't eat his breakfast or dinner yesterday and as a rule I don't feed him in the morning if I take him to training. So he should have been far more enthusiastic about the treats on offer this morning.
Now as far as I'm concerned, until today Zane has mostly been good at what I'm telling him to do. He knows these commands I'm using and does respond, whether or not there is a reward on offer.
So I think he's just had a bad day and wasn't really interested in training this morning. Just like we all have bad days where we really don't want to be doing our work, study etc or whatever it is we do.
I knwo that's no excuse though. At the end of the day he needs to be able to respond as and when I tell him to do somethign otherwise I don't have that overall high level of control needed to progress.
Because of his behaviour I have been told that Zane is now not suitable for Sch training (bitework) and it's doubtful that he can do the obedience. I find this a bit strange when on the whole he does much better in training than many of the other dogs in the class.
It's not that much of a problem though - I can take Yiannis and can still work on Zane at home, in the local park, whenever we're out and about etc. Then as Yiannis progresses I can spend more time focussing on Zane again. Training is an ongoing concern in my household so nobody has or will lose out.
I have been told also that it is because he is a SL GSD. Yiannis is too but he's far more likely to play, speak, bite, obey on command whether for a toy or food reward (or just a pat on the head, he doesn't seem to care).
Unfortunately, as I said before, Jenzi is my only WL GSD and she'd be fantastic at it if she had decent hips. She can do the BH and has the temperament to go on but her physical limitations prevent her from doing even a basic retrieve over an A-frame. Frustrating as she needs so much more to stimulate her than the boys do.