Well we and the dogs had a splendid time at Camp again this year; cool weather made it comfortable though the second half of the week was rainy or threatening to rain much of the time, but certainly manageable and the fact that a blanket was appreciated at night was a welcome one indeed.
I mostly concentrated on various aspects of Obedience training with Ribbon and Thumper. Thumper learned a lot about dealing with distraction and temptation and also revealed to me the areas I neglected to work on as a younger puppy, such as the insecurity he demonstrated when a dog and stranger would first appear on the walkways. Worked on that with copious tasty treats and a clicker, and by choosing not to walk him with Ribbon since they would back one another up in an annoying show of defensive barking when together. (On her own with me Ribbon basically ignored the same things). Got to go in with sheep though I must say Thumper was not a ball of fire with them, following them around at a lazy walk... Worked on Really Reliable Recall with Thumper as well, and he started some real target training and shaping. He is starting to do well with the dumb bell retrieve and was video'd by Bonnie demonstrating a portion of the dumbbell retrieve to be included (possibly) in an instructional video by Bonnie and Leslie Nelson (Tails U Win! training center) . My little star.He also mastered 'chin', a very amusing (in a n understated way, for sure!) 'trick' whereby he would purposefully place his muzzle onto my cupped hand and leave it there in anticipation of a click-treat. Just funny how a dog doing 'chin' just suddenly goes very still in your palm while waiting the release, reward, or both.
Here is a picture of Teddy doing 'chin' in the dorm room.
Ribbon started some scent discrimination and continued target and shaping as well as specific Obedience exercises.
The other Ribbon sons had a good time as well with their people. Teddy learned a lot of shaped and targeting behaviors so he was quite well-versed in great tricks. He and the other boys all tried herding some sheep and he did well; also showed great interest in agility, as shown here.
Banner was a whirlwind of activity with his dad Nick, who sampled almost every single activity camp offers including, but not limited to: agility, frisbee, flyball, herding, obedience, Really Reliable Recall, Obedience, trieball, and I am sure I left something out! Here he is sitting with agility instructor Jenn, who took him in for tunnel games the last day.
Tache had a good week as well doing sheep (in a BIG way: still waters run deep I guess, since he seems the most low-key of the puppies but was insane in the sheep pen, absolutely predatory! (No injuries to hoofed stock were reported). He worked on Recall, some target and shaping, agility, and a variety of other activities.
We'd have liked to let everyone off lead together for some rough play but there is a limited amount of real good off-lead space at camp (250+ dogs on a small campus) and the boys showed signs of fast escalation of excitement that didn't bode well for safe play so in the end, a couple at a time would get some time together in an isolated corner of the campus. But all got plenty of exercise and oddly, none really showed much interest in playing with their mother after the first couple of attempts. (She is the epitome of 'bitchy' with all of them, it happens).
Anyway that was our camp, good friends and good dogs and great teachers and excellent food. Will return next year for more!
