"First of all a hearty THANK YOU to Elke Kauth/ dog trainer at "Red Bone", but most of all to Dr. Ute Balschke-Berthold/dog trainer at "Cum Cane" - she made me see many things from a different view (thanks Ute ;o) !)
This section is under construction ... more photographs and text coming soon!
With different activities we try to keep our dogs fully occupied both physically and mentally. We believe this helps to improve the spirit of partnership as well as general obedience.
Practices and tasks are aquired by use of positive confirmation (mostly combined with food reward).
What kind of tasks could this be?
Leo and Diva hardly know anything else, than to do little tricks I ask them to do during our walks, there´s room for phantasy - some examples of our "repertoire" are the dog ...
... touches the hand of his leader with his muzzle
... touches an object like for example a tree with his forepaws
... to go on a tree trunk oder something similar and walk over it.
Both dogs are working with enthusiasm and it is always great to look into happy and satisfied faces afterwards.
But most high in favour for both Leo and Diva is tracking and retrieving retrieving. Here they can live out their breed attributes and instincts, without endangering themselves or other animals.
As dummy we use "fillable plush toys" oder other objects with a zip-fly. Now the dog can either retrieve (after just throwing it away) or else do a track, which you put before. At the end of the track the dog will find its dummy, that should be retrieved to the owner. The reward is the delicious contents of the dummy!
Attention: Tracking or other work like that should only be done with prior training under supervision and in open field or forest only after having asked for permission of the relevant person/owner of area!
