Day 10 – Training with Ike my new guide dog

Jan 20, 2011 | New guide dog Nama 2012-2020, Personal | 3 comments

Stopping on a hair pin.

Darragh and Ike are playing tug of war.  Darragh is standing but leaning over trying to pull it off Ike. It isn't easy though.

Ok. I don’t need to boar you with the details of the morning. The dog got up, had a bit of a rub, eat got groomed and had a nice poo. In fact, come to think of it, his owner had a very similar morning actually…………… hahahaha. No, I won’t go into that.

I’m still not happy with his solid spend at lunch. It was half two before I got him to go today. He really should have gone at 2PM when I took him first. Even when I tried again at half two he didn’t really want to go. I took him for a bit of a walk around by kennels, down by the sand runs and back up again. I could tell that he had wanted to go even at around half one. He was clingier and although he wanted to play, it was only for short periods at a time. He also stood at the door more often. He only really does that now when I put my coat on or he knows it’s time to go out. He’s really getting use to the routine at this stage. I have decided that I will no longer use the grass run while training. It’s not a good thing for him to get in to. I know that he was just holding it because he hoped I would give in and bring him to the grass like I did yesterday. I’ve decided though that even if it results in missing an afternoon walk, it is important to get this spending thing done right. The trainer disagrees with my approach He thinks that if I’m bringing Ike to grass in the afternoon while at work anyway it makes no difference if I do it here as well during lunch. I’d agree with this if the routine was set in stone and the dog was doing it perfectly but I know that the natural tendency for dogs is to go on grass. His major spend of the day is during lunch. I don’t think it is a good idea for this to be on grass for the first while. I think it would decrease his flexibility when it comes to spending. Of course, I understand the trainer is much more experienced when it comes to this and he knows what he’s talking about but I think for this I need to try it my way now. I let him go on grass yesterday but I don’t think it’s a good idea in the long term.

The trainer warned me about the first walk this morning. He told me that there were a lot of hills and in fact on one hill there would be a lot of steps as well. This didn’t sound particularly bad. I’m not someone who is particularly bothered by steps so I set off with a reasonable amount of confidence. What he didn’t tell me was the surface of the path was very rough. We had to slow our pace down a lot to allow me to walk over this but Ike didn’t mind. I wasn’t particularly bothered either. The main thing that annoys me about paths that are uneven and broken is it slows me down so that I can ensure I don’t trip over cracks etc. but that’s about it. When we got to the hill with the steps I had no idea where I was going as always. I knew they were coming up because the trainer reminded me but I had no idea they were so soon! This was perfect because although I was having a nice fast walk Ike was watching out for me. We were walking at a very nice speed when Ike suddenly and very sharply stopped. I’m use to this emergency stop from my days with Freddie as ordinarily he didn’t believe in slowing down when coming to the edge of a path he’d just stop dead in his tracks. I actually liked this about Freddie and I can see Ike getting into the same kind of thing. Anyway, to make it a little easier on the dog I slowed the pace again while going down the steps. Like he’s trained to do, he stopped at the top of each set of two or three steps and he waited for me to give him some praise before moving forward again. This was very successful I must say. Not as confident as I would have been use to in the past but technically it was done very well. I have great admiration for Ike. I am very certain that the way I worked him in this area was different to how the trainer worked him but he handled the transition very well. The next part of the walk was on a street that was much busier. There were small steps every so often to allow vans or something to access loading bays or something like that. The trainer told me after the first one when Ike stopped that there was no need to stop at these but the dog seemed more comfortable stopping at them so I didn’t encourage him to do any differently. Although I’ll probably continue going over similar points when I get home, it helped break this long road into smaller chunks for the dog to deal with therefore he got more praise.
The next part of the walk wasn’t as good but don’t get me wrong. It was far from bad either. Ike’s confidence simply dipped a lot and he required more encouragement and more praise for doing what he needed to do. At one stage I stopped to let him take his mind off his work because I thought he was starting to get over confident but one of the others on class commented that their dog did a lot of weaving on this road so I may have actually misread the signs that the dog was giving and misunderstood it as an increased sensitivity or a lack of confidence. It didn’t do any harm though. I’m still not sure he was weaving so it could have actually been a problem with his confidence or he may have been avoiding something. I’m not sure why. The movements didn’t really feel like obstacle avoidance but I could definitely be wrong. This led to the last part of the walk. Steps up the hill. This went very well actually. Ike continually reminded me of Freddie coming up here because he kept moving more to my right when we approached a step up. Sorry. I don’t mean to equate Ike to Freddie or draw comparisons. It just made me laugh today. At the bottom of the hill I had to correct Ike for a bit of distraction. This caused a dip in confidence that was very obvious to detect. Because of this he failed to wait at the first set of steps going up. However, although ordinarily my first instinct would be to correct the dog and make him do it again, I understood the reasons for it and let him away with it. I was still able to follow along even though he didn’t stop and at the next set he stopped perfectly and got the praise he’d expect for doing it the right way. I think I’m starting to understand how to deal with the confidence issues that Ike experiences. I’m not particularly happy with them but I think they will dissipate over time. I’m glad that I’m experiencing them at the moment as with the fantastic guidance of the trainer I am learning a lot about how to fix the underlying cause instead of just fixing the immediate problem. This will really help in the long run.

Unfortunately we missed the walk this afternoon because of the spending issue I wrote about at the start of this post so there’s not much more I can tell you about in this post. We have spent the rest of the day just sitting around. I’ve made sure to give the dog a few walks around the grounds of the centre and he’s been playing loads but overall, I think he’s getting as board as I am at this stage.

I’ve decided, I’m going for a pint or two tonight. I said it to the others on training with me and we’ve decided to go to a small pub near here called Hitler Kealy’s. I simply can’t handle any more time cooped up here. Even if it’s just going out for a quick drink or finding some way of going out for a walk somewhere, I really have to find a way of getting out of here from time to time. I am finding it very difficult to be stuck in the same area for so long.

I have to finish by saying I’m still very happy with our progress. We’re getting to know each other very well as time progresses. There are still a few small things to work out but we’re well on the way to getting there. I explained those things in yesterday’s post.

3 Comments

  1. Christine Stanley

    Really interesting post, Darragh. Very informative. Hope you enjoyed your pint!

    Reply
  2. torie

    Darragh i’m so glad things are continuing on the up.

    Ushi didn’t really like spending in the concrete run, but did eventually go. She would follow me if i walked around the side of the pen, so maybe try that? Or maybe he likes to go after his second feed! I hope you get it sorted anyway. You could even try walking him around when you know it’s spending time, then letting him go. Or maybe a good play session? It’s so frustrating when they don’t spend!

    Ushi is quite a confident wee dog. When she is bored though of a route, she tends to just stop. But remember, confidence breathes confidence. I can remember when I don’t have confidence I would lag behind sometimes. It took me about a week to stand up beside the harness-I was so scared of falling off a kerb!

    Take care, and keep it up. Xxx.

    Reply
  3. Liz

    Long time lurker on your blog and haven’t ever left a comment before – and I think I may have even posted part of this comment twice. My apologies.

    As a Puppy Walker for GDBA in the UK I’m finding your posts about being on class with your new dog fascinating. We Puppy Walkers always worry about “our” pup, always hoping that they will bond and work well for their owner, so I’m really enjoying following your journey with Ike and watching that bond develop.

    You mentioned in your comments on a previous post that you’d like to read a blog about a puppy in training over the course of a whole year well, I kept a daily blog for our 2nd GD pup in training who was with us 2008/2009. Initially it was just to keep friends and family up to date with his progress, but you’re more than welcome to take a look. His name is Harry and you can find him at Number58.net. We’re currently on pup number four and I really should start the blog up again for the current pup, but now I seem to spend too much time reading other people’s blogs instead of writing.

    Reply

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