Three babies and a puppy later

Darling Golden Retriever puppies.     Photo: Elin Kile

 I used to be really active on the blog.. then I had a baby, then a new puppy, then another baby and then yet another baby! So needless to say I have been rather inactive here on the blog for the past five years. I hope this will change now, since I have some quite exciting plans for the near future. 

 In these times of Covid-19, a lot of people have gotten puppies, while at the same time puppy classes have been scarce. This I believe has left a lot of new dog owners and young dogs in desperate need fore some online help! This is where I come in. I figured that I will write a series of posts about the different basic things all dogs and their human should learn. Hope you guys will like it!

Macabre dog training

 The other day, on our morning walk, Eddie and I found a dead ptarmigan. It had apparently died violently, but apart from blood on its head and being a little eaten by some crows on one of the legs, it was in good shape. My first thought was "jackpot!". You might find this odd, but Ive been training my golden as a gun dog, and until now I had not had any real game of fowl to train him with. The closest thing I've had before was some pheasant and ptarmigan wings, and the plumage of a pheasant. So this was much better, this had the right weight and feel, since it actually was a real bird!

A pheasant wing I've used for training

 As I didn't know if the bird was full of parasites or not, I took the precaution of freezing it before starting to use it in dog training. To my great relief and joy, Eddie only slightly hesitated the first time I asked him to retrieve the frozen bird, and in most instances he has retrieved the bird without hesitation when we have practiced.

The plan for this summer is to train Eddie to do something that in Norwegian is called "blood tracking" and in Swedish it would translate to "game tracking". Basically what you do is create a trail of blood drops and you also drag a deer foot behind you. This trail is then followed by the dog. The practical purpose of this is to train dogs to find hurt animals, like deer that has been hit by a car or wounded but not killed during a hunt. Game tracking is also a sport however, and that is what I hope Eddie and I will be able to participate in before the year is over. So when Eddie isn't retrieving whole frozen ptarmigans, he gets to locate dried deer legs or drops of blood that I have hidden around the house. I can't wait for the snow to melt so that we can finally begin proper training outdoors!

My previous dog Link and I doing some tracking.

 I do realize that this isn't everybody's cup of tea, but for me it is as fun as it gets! Although the macabre part of it isn't lost on me...

Puppy classes

Link as a puppy.

When I had Link I didn't attend any puppy classes. I figured I would train him at home and that he would be exposed to enough dogs through my job as a assistant at a veterinary clinic where many of the employees bring their dogs to work. He got along with everyone and everything so well, that I could not in my wildest imagination see that this would ever be a problem. But then disaster struck. He got ED, elbow dysplasia, at the tender age of 9 months. He was put on pain meds and kept from other dogs, not allowed to play nor go for longer than 10 minutes walks. He had surgery at 11 months of age and then a 2 month long period of inactivity before he begun more active rehabilitation.

Link, the Danish Swedish farm dog Sally and a mix breed dog named Snusan. Link was fine with dogs he knew or at least had had a chance to meet and check out.

After all that, he started being dog reactive and before long he literally lunged towards all dogs we met on walks. I got a lot of help from other dog people and I also participated in a course for dogs with dog reactivity/aggression. Things got better, but never good. Link was always good with other dogs when off leash, but walking him on leash always meant that I had to keep an eye on our surroundings to make sure we wouldn't come too close to other dogs. It wasn't always very pleasant.. So we most of the time tried to time our walks to when there are as few other dogs as possible out and about.

Off leash Link never had a problem with other dogs.

As you might understand, I am hoping to avoid this problem all together with Eddie. That is why we are now participating in a puppy class and also trying to attend the local retriever clubs training sessions on Tuesdays. We have also participated in a few field training sessions with the same club. So far everything is going really well, lets hope it continues like this! What is most important is working on keeping calm and focused around other dogs. Eddie is relatively good at both those things, but we have to continue working on it. Wish us good luck!

Eddie at a training session with the retriever club.