Lulu performing fast sits with loads of drive

I've never really said much about my bitch Lulu. Lu is currently 20 months old.
I was extremely lucky to be gifted her by Margaret Connolly to whom I will be eternally grateful.

I first saw Lu when she was around 8 weeks old. She was lying in her crate and she was so laid back and gentle. Whenever I visited Margaret I always spent some time with Lu.
She's always been very clever and is extremely quick at learning new stuff. She's always had an inner confidence but I'd like to think that I've gave her the drive and focus she has now.

The fantastic thing about Lu is she's so placid and gentle indoors and has the fire of a high drive working dog outdoors. I take her down to a care home every week where she happily lies down beside the old folk and gets cuddles. She’s as soft as a lamb and never jumps up on them. Lu would make an excellent pat dog.

Outdoors, this bitch has tons of drive. She is like a rocket when she's working in the field and has a self assurance and inner confidence that’s hard to find in a soft dog.
Lu is absolutely bombproof. She would walk through a war zone and not blink an eye. I use her as a decoy when I'm training aggressive dogs because she totally ignores any aggressive body language and just plods along without a care in the world.

I've just shot a video taken in a dark wood in almost complete darkness. I'm using the night setting on the video camera. In this video Lu performs a sit and recall over a fallen log. She is whistled to stop during the recall and a ball is thrown over her head. She turns and marks the area where the ball fell. I then send her for the ball. She jumps the log and retrieves the ball to heel.
The quality of the video could be better but night work is hard going on the dog and it shows just how well she works to the whistle and also how well she covers the ground.

Charlie

I first encountered Charlie when Ena from 2nd chance kennels asked me to assess him. Charlie is an 11 month old liver and white English Springer spaniel.
Charlie had been returned to Ena after he had been acting aggressively. Charlie had also chased and bit a sheep while on holiday in the highlands. Whatever possessed his owners to let him loose in that environment is beyond comprehension.

So this was the 2nd time in Second chance for poor wee Charlie. Charlie had just been returned to the kennels that morning. I was looking at Oscar and Sam who had been falling out with each other at meal times. After I had worked with Oscar and Sam I had a look at Charlie. To be honest he looked happy as Larry. In fact my son Louis played with him for over an hour and Charlie was really content. Charlie was then released into the large exercise area with a few of the other residents. Charlie was having a ball. He was in his element, showing no signs of aggression or possessiveness whatsoever. My analysis was that in this situation Charlie was not aggressive.

Ena is very particular about where her dogs are placed as she was adamant that Charlie would have to be homed with a family that had experience of Springer spaniels.

The next time I heard of Charlie was when Kirsty called me saying that she had homed Charlie and he had nipped her son while he was riding past Charlie on his bike. Charlie was also chasing shadows in the house and was very aggressive towards strangers entering the house. Kirsty was really concerned that she had homed a monster. I spoke to Kirsty for some time on the phone and agreed to see Charlie.

Charlie was pulling at full strength, running in circles and not listening to anything.

I arrived at Charlie’s new home, walked in the door and was lunged at by a crazy spaniel stressed out his head and willing to defend the realm. I totally ignored him giving him no eye contact and proceeded to walk around the house totally ignoring him.

We then walk out to the park which is just over the road from the house. Charlie was absolutely stressed to the max. He paid no attention to food and was pulling at full strength, running in circles and not listening to anything.

I decided food not going to work so I dug out my faithful training line and ball. I placed him on the line and began to get his attention with the ball. I worked away with him just throwing the ball and getting him to return to me. I then progressed to getting him to look at me before I threw the ball. I then progressed to getting to wait while I walked a few paces before throwing the ball. All in all a very productive session.

We then returned home and I witnessed Charlie’s antics with stealing things and chasing shadows etc. My advice on curing this was to avert Charlie’s attention by getting him to go down and get clicked and treated. I also noticed that Charlie was getting petted for doing nothing, sometimes even for being bad. Also Charlie was following Kirsty all around the house.

My advice at that time was :

1. Don’t let him follow you when you leave the room and don’t acknowledge him when you enter. Make sure you dont make eye contact - eye contact is acknowledgement to a dog.
2. Continue to exercise him as we had done in the training session - use the ball to get hisattention. The ball is a great way to teach the wait command. I use wait because it almost takes the place of the stay and the leave command but you teach the 2 together.
3. Work on getting his attention when you're out walking especially when he sees a distraction. Remember and reward him when he succumbs to your instruction. MAKE SURE HE NEVER WINS.
4. Keep the English commands to a bear minimum. Use interesting sounds,hand signals and body language to communicate. This way you won’t set him up for failure when fails to respond.
5. When he carries on in the house get him to lye down, click and treat him.
6. When he lifts something in the house - take it from him – don’t ask him for it - it is yours NOT his. Immediately get him to sit and look at you for 5 seconds then treat him. This way you turn negatives into positives.

The next time I visited Charlie he was a lot more settled in the house. The family had really put the work in with him and he had responded positively. Kirsty was concerned about Charlie’s dislike of bicycles. I thought we should tackle this head on so we walked over to the park and got Kirsty’s son Robert to be the decoy by cycling back and forth. I put Charlie on a 12 foot line and each time he ran for the bike I turned and walked in the opposite direction. Each time he turned towards me I whistled and treated him when he sat in front of me. I kept working with him and before long he was desensitized to the bicycle. We had made great progress then we encountered a minor setback. I loose dog approached us and was displaying signs of aggression. I placed Charlie behind me and shooed the dog away but by this point Charlie was really stressed and actually nipping at my heels to get at the dog. Unfortunately these things happen in the real world and there is not much that can be done other than to ignore it and praise the good stuff. Charlie had done really well in this session so it was important to end on a good note, praise him and get him back home ASAP.

I suggested that the desensitization continued along with all the other work.

Charlie has never been socialised to the day to day occurrences of normal urban life.

The next time I seen Charlie he had improved again. Kirsty was still concerned that Charlie was showing aggression towards other dogs. I showed Kirsty a few techniques with regards to off lead training in the garden and around the house. These included clicker training the wait command. We then walked over to the park and Charlie was working pretty well. We noticed a dog walking on the lead and I tried to get him desensitized to the dog by working him on a long line and rewarding him each time he turned towards me and came back.
We then stood in the park for around 5 – 10 minutes with Charlie on a loose lead and we just chatted. It was at that point the Kirsty said. “it’s like he doesn’t understand anything around him” The penny dropped. Kirsty had hit the nail on the head. Charlie has never been socialised to the day to day occurrences of normal urban life.

I recommended that Charlie should be taken to a pedestrian precinct of the opening of a shopping centre and just sat down and socialised. Also small sessions of walking up and down streets, sitting to allow people passed and generally just getting used to existing in a busy town.

Hopefully Charlie has found his forever home.

I’ll continue to work with Kirsty and Robert and hopefully we’ll make Charlie more and more streetwise and obedient. The important thing is that I truly believe Charlie has found his forever home. His new family all love him to bits. Charlie is a high drive spaniel, bred for his fire and willingness to work. It’s obvious that his previous owners were just not up to handling a ball of fire like Charlie. I really like this wee fella. He genuinely wants to please and through time I’m sure he’ll make a super dog.