Monday, 24 September 2007

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.


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