The greatness of the Norwegian summer!

Postet den 13/06/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 2 kommentarer

If there’s something we up here in the cold north know to appreciate, it’s the summer! This year the summer was late. It’s been cold, dark and rainy, and it’s still wet and rainy. However, we’ve had several sunny days now, and even though I love the rain, it has been great to feel the sun warming my skin again.

Of course this has resulted in pictures of the dogs having fun! Enjoy some summer fun!
First: Luna and her good friend Alfred

And some pictures of Hugin, Luna and Pixel

Getting the dogs to cooperate when taking a picture isn’t always easy

Stikkord: border collie, cairn terrier, dogs, meadow, summer, whippet
Publisert i ClickerCanine, Foto, Sosialisering

Pictures from meeting the German Pinscher Sorrel

Postet den 03/06/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 1 kommentar

Yesterday afternoon I finally got to meet a friend of mine. We’ve been talking (dogs mostly – of course, what else is there to talk about?) for ages over the web, but never met before. Her German Pinscher Sorrel was great! I have been babysitting a couple of German Pinschers before, but never seen one so calm. They are usually like these intense, jumping, high energy dogs, but Sorrel was just such a sweet soul! However, she was a pain to take pictures of. Just like my Whippet Hugin, she was only interested in sniffing the ground, leaving no good moments for portraits. I did get a bunch of great pictures in total, though:

IMG_6017 copy

Stikkord: border collie, dog play, dogs, german pinscher, photo, photos, pictures, socializing, whippet
Publisert i ClickerCanine, Sosialisering

Luna playing in the water with Alfred

Postet den 28/05/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 1 kommentar

Sunday afternoon I invited Alfred and his owners to the beach so the dogs could have fun in the water. Their Jack Russel Terrier Ilex tagged along too, and we spent over two hours to find a nice, quiet spot on one of the small beaches down the river. We had to give up, and drove to a big pond instead. At least it was quite empty there, as the afternoon had turned to evening and the sun had started to hide behind some clouds. Luna has started to really like Alfred, so we are looking forward to the next meeting!

Stikkord: border collie, cute, dog, dogs, fun, funny, playing, swimming, water
Publisert i ClickerCanine, Foto

Luna posing in front of the camera

Postet den 26/05/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 3 kommentarer

Yesterday after work I took Luna to the soccer field to play with the frisbee. My boyfriend came too (he was the one driving me home from work) and we started taking some pictures. Well, he took the pictures, I worked with Luna and her attention. I think all the pictures are taken by John, and they’re edited by me. Here is the result:

We are soon going down to the beach with two of her friends. I want to see if she will follow me long enough to actually take a swim this time. I haven’t been in the water yet this year, so it’ll be fun to see how cold it actually is now! Hugin doesn’t like water at all, so he’ll stay at home.

Stikkord: border collie, disc dog, disc dogging, frisbee, photo, photoshoot
Publisert i ClickerCanine, Foto

Oh! The joy of playing!

Postet den 23/05/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 4 kommentarer

This is a video of me playing with my boyfriend’s dog Balto. Balto is a 9 year old German Shepherd and to me he’s both big and strong!

Stikkord: dog, fun, german shepherd, playing, positive, video
Publisert i ClickerCanine

My weekend with Emily Larlham

Postet den 20/05/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 8 kommentarer

I feel so lucky to have attended one of Emily Larlham’s seminars! Emily Larlham is such a great trainer! Out of all the trainers I know of, she is the only one I have yet to disagree with. I’ve liked all her training tips and ways of training, and it has been a true honor to finally meet her!

The seminar was all through fantastic! After this weekend I am left with great motivation and inspiration, and I have learned so much more than I expected to. Emily possesses a huge amount of knowledge and she is very skilled in teaching this to others. The different subjects talked about were backed up with examples, either in live showing using our dogs, or via film clips from her computer or in told examples that were easy to understand. Not only is she good in teaching, but her personality is also sweet and easy going. That makes it easy to relax around her, and it also makes it easier to ask questions, because you don’t feel stupid for not knowing.

It feels like I’m glorifying her right now, but I am so amazed after this seminar. I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating. She is such a great person and great trainer, and she really deserves all the credit! If you ever get the chance of attending a seminar or a lesson with Emily, I urge you to take it. Really! You will not regret it!

Emily Larlham went through a great deal of different topics during the seminar. It spanned from basic teaching and progressive reinforcement to dealing with shy and/or reactive dogs. I am not able to remember all the things she talked about, but I know it will stick to me when I am in these different situations myself.

My plan was originally to bring Hugin one day and then Luna the other day, but I knew Luna wouldn’t be ready for this. Training is so highly reinforcing for her, so she is yet not able to stand still and watch when other dogs are having fun training. She will bark and howl and jump uncontrollably around while lunging forward to where the fun is, and her stress levels will rise above the sky. We are, however, working on this, but it is quite a slow progress. It’s fine, cause I am in no hurry. Hugin is such a sweetheart, and I don’t mind bringing him with me for these kind of things, even though he doesn’t appreciate training as much.

Hugin was very tired after the first day. I didn’t even have time to unleash him when we got inside before he collapsed on the bed and stayed there for the rest of the evening. He was even seriously tired the next day. I barely managed to get him up in the morning, and getting him to work on the seminar was out of the question. He just wanted to sleep, so I let him. There is no point in pushing him to do something he doesn’t want to. I don’t want to ruin the fun of training, so we’ll take it in his time. No biggie!

«Oh my, gimme that treat. I want that treat, give it to me!»

We did manage to try some of the practical work, though! We managed to get him to look at a specific point, getting him to somewhat enjoy being touched on the top of his head (well, WE didn’t.. Emily did!), and nose- and shoulder targeting. Or, at least the beginning of it! One need a lot of patience when working with Hugin. He is so easily distracted and he’s really slow, because it is very hard to motivate him. I am not complaining about it, though. I am very happy with my loving whippet. He is so well behaved, so calm and so friendly. Who cares if training tricks isn’t his thing? I have a bed warmer and he is my best friend. And now I’m off topic!

To not make this blog post too long, I will end it now. Below I will post some of the pictures I took from these two days, and I might post another blog containing pictures later. I took so many pictures, and it will take me a very long time to edit them all.

Thank you, Emily, for inspiring me so much and for taking the time to visit Norway. I wish you and your family (both four-legged and two-legged family) the very best in the future!

To visit Emily’s website, click HERE!

The chin rest
Nose targeting
Hugin is getting a well appreciated neck scratch!
Limping on cue
Rear end awereness

Stikkord: clicker training, dog, dog training, dogs, Emil Larlham, Kikopup, positive training, progressive reinforcement, seminar, whippet
Publisert i ClickerCanine, Kurs og Seminarer

Cute and funny video: Teaching Luna to climb onto my back!

Postet den 15/05/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 4 kommentarer

In this video I started teaching Luna to climb onto my back. She is somewhat afraid of climbing on top of new things, so we had to take things slowly (in the sense of what’s considered slow for Luna). This is just the first step, and also the first training session on this particular trick. I will later post a follow-up training, and we’ll see how it goes!

I really like this training video. It shows that even though she is a fast learner, we have to make an effort — both of us. I am learning throughout the training what works and what doesn’t work, and I fail several times before I get it correctly. Training dogs is just as much about learning yourself as it is teaching your dog something.

Since Luna is such a highly energetic dog, I have started to end our training sessions with cuddle, massage and relaxation so we can build up a strong «off-button». If I don’t do that, she will become frustrated and try to find something fun to do on her own, and that usually means destroying something.

I hope you enjoy the video!

Publisert i ClickerCanine

Luna had a play date today

Postet den 09/05/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 7 kommentarer

Today I had arranged a play date for Luna with the border collie Alfred. Alfred is two weeks younger than Luna, but weighs nearly twice as much as her. They liked each other from the first sniff, and together with the jack russel terrier Ilex they played and ran around like crazy rabbits from the beginning to the end.

It is delightful to see Luna enjoying herself with new dogs. She’s not the most confident of girls, so it is great when all the training and hard work is giving results! Luna is such a sweetheart and has a strong body language, so as long as she’s able to relax she’s so great with other dogs. Attentive, alert, friendly, playful and always happy.

Stikkord: border collie, dog, dog training, dogs, play date
Publisert i ClickerCanine, Foto

More frisbee

Postet den 05/05/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — 4 kommentarer

Yesterday after work my boyfriend and I took Luna out for a small frisbee chase. She had a lot of energy after my long day at work, so we spent about five minutes of active frisbee play before we went home to John. Five minutes was enough to get rid of the worst energy, even though she could have kept on going for hours if I’d let her.

The pictures are taken by John and edited by both of us

Stikkord: border collie, chase, disc dogging, dog, frisbee, fun, play, pup, puppy
Publisert i Disc Dogging

Resource guarding

Postet den 02/05/2013 av Eva-Lena N. Buhaug — Legg igjen en kommentar

When I got Luna, she came with a pretty huge amount of resource guarding. Already the first week she growled at me for getting near something she viewed as her food, she later charged and attacked the cat next door when she was eating outside and she has been in several fights with Hugin already. Food is of very high value to Luna and she will do whatever it takes to ensure that she won’t loose it.

Resource guarding is a normal behavior and has nothing to do with being dominant or bossy. It’s about the fear of loosing the resource (food in this case). In the wild, food is very hard to find for most carnivores. Unlike for herbivores, meat is not growing all over the place. That makes it easy to understand why dogs instinctively finds food so valuable. Fortunately training the resource guarding is often very simple, at least when it is towards people. The only thing you have to worry about is to remove the fear of the food being lost. The earlier you start, the better and easier it is to train.

I started working with Luna’s guarding right away. When she first growled at me I backed up and gave her the space she needed to relax. That way she understood that she didn’t need to go further than to growl. In many cases dogs feel the need to be more extreme and possibly bite if they feel their human isn’t listening. I do the same thing (not the biting part though). If someone I’m talking to doesn’t hear what I’m saying I raise my voice a little bit or try to get their attention in some other way. If the human doesn’t listen and it happens over and over again, the dog might drop the warnings because his experience is that it’s no use anyway, and he will bite right away.

After the first growl, I started teaching Luna that when I got closer to her and her food, positive things would happen: she’d get more food! I do not want her to look at me as someone who takes her food away, but the one that provides her more food. In this way, there will only be happiness when I’m around her food and no tension or needs for guarding it.

Since I want to be able to actually take her food away if necessary (she might get hold of something dangerous for dogs), I started taking her food bowl for a second and rewarding her with praise and slightly more food. We had great progress in this, and after a short amount of tries, I can now take whatever whenever I want. I do not practice this too often. I believe it is very important that feeding times are relaxing for the dogs. This promotes safety and comfort for all parts.

I will post a video from Luna when she was 9 or 10 weeks old and she ate a rabbit out in the backyard and the neighbor cat came to have a look. The cat came back moments later (without me realizing it) and Luna attacked him. She still doesn’t like him at all, and she will react aggressively whenever she spots him outside the window. She used to growl at my cats too, but after a while she understood that they were not interested in her food and she’s therefore now careless of them when she’s eating. If I spotted the cat next door more often I could work on her aggression towards him, but we haven’t had the chance yet.

The cat next door

I am now working on her food aggression towards Hugin. I don’t want to train her guarding totally away. It is her food and she has the right to eat it herself. However, I do want her to be able to relax even if Hugin is nearby, and my goal is to not have to rely on feeding Luna in her crate or having to feed them in separate rooms. More on this training will be written in another post!

Stikkord: aggression, dog training, food aggression, force free training, positive reinforcement, positive training, resource guarding
Publisert i Atferd