August 2, 2008 - Stop thief!

What do you do when you have a really high drive dog still in obedience training? Watch them very closely!

Lately Mika's drive has been so intense that she gets caught up watching other dogs work that she loses her head around balls, tugs, and other items we use as prey during training.

Today, while working a late night session in the large training building, Mika was on a climb bench and we were watching another student do bite work his dog. The Helper was a Masters student. She asked me to keep an eye on her dog and give him a correction on the electric collar if he got to barking a lot or tried to break the "down" command.

As soon as The Helper started teasing the dog with a puppy bite sleeve, The Helper's dog began barking from his bench. I gave him a correction but it seemed to have no affect. I tried again and, barely phased, he kept barking. Meanwhile, with my attention on the Master student's dog, I didn't notice that Mika's drive was building more and more--unchecked. Next thing I knew she lept off her climb bench, ran across the training hall, jumped up and grabbed the puppy sleeve, and tore it from the hands of The Helper. Then she promptly began to run circles around the room with the bite sleeve in mouth, looking for somewhere to lay down with the sleeve and chew it to her heart's content.

It is really dangerous to have your dog out of control during this type of work. In this case it was kind of funny, but only because nobody got hurt. There's a big part of me that is really proud at the way her drive is developing but I would be really irresponsible if I let her continue to lose control in these situations. For now I have to watch her very closely.