puppies inside: FLD Harley

Showing posts with label FLD Harley. Show all posts

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Just a couple more

September 25, 2014
Chippewa

Robert isn't the only one getting attached to his puppy...

A man wearing a white t-shirt and orange shorts is squatting on a tile floor, snuggling with a small yellow lab/golden retriever mix. The man is resting his chin on the puppy's head and has his arms wrapped around the puppy. The puppy is wearing the blue Future Leader Dog bandana.

John and FLD Harley.

A man wearing a light maroon sweatshirt and blue prison pants is outside. He is facing the camera and squatting down on cement and looking down at a young golden retriever puppy that is sitting down in front of him facing him. The puppy has a blue collar around its neck. The man is holding the puppy's head with his hands.

Abe and FLD Andie.

A man wearing the blue prison uniform is sitting on a lunchroom table stool and bending over toward a young golden retriever puppy that is lying on his back between the man's legs. The puppy's front paws are in the air and his mouth is open. The man is scratching the puppy's chest with both of his hands and looking down at the puppy. There is another man half our of view on the right also sitting - he is holding the leash of a small black lab that is asleep between his legs on the floor.

FLD Andie enjoys a scratch from Carlos. (FLD GeeGee is on the right.)

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

We work

September 12, 2014

Baraga

Tammy got the group working on our September skills right away.

A man wearing the blue prison uniform and a blue knit cap is standing on the left facing the camera. His hands are at his side and he is holding a leash in his right hand. A small yellow lab/golden retriever mix puppy is sitting on his left side. Another man, wearing blue prison pants and a long-sleeve white t-shirt is standng in front of a door with a window in it. His right hand is in his right pant pocket, and his left hand is holding a leash attached to a young yellow lab puppy that is lying on the tile floor on his left side. The puppy is facing the man and is wearing the blue Future Leader Dog bandana. A woman wearing blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt with a treat pouch around her waist is standing on the right with her back to the camera.

Tammy leads the group in the relaxation protocol. Corey is handling FLD Henry; Bart is handling FLD Farley.

An african american man wearing blue prison pants and a white long sleeve and glasses is standing facing the camera with a small golden retriever puppy sitting on his left side. The man is looking down at the puppy and the puppy is looking up at him. The man's hands are hanging down at his sides. The puppy's leash is lying on the tile floor attached to his collar. The puppy is wearing the blue Future Leader Dog bandana.

P and FLD Gage have great focus during the relaxation protocol.

Two men are sitting on opposite sides of a steel lunchroom table. The man on the left is wearing blue prison pants and a white long-sleeve t-shirt, his left elbow is on the table and his right elbow is resting on his right knee, his hands are clasped. The man on the other side of the table is wearing the blue prison unform and his resting his folded arms on the table. A third man is standing to the right, but his head is out of the picture. He is wearing blue prison pants and a white t-shirt. He also has a blue surgical glove on his left hand. His right hand is holding a leash attached to the collar of a young yellow lab, which is moving toward him from left to right.

FLD Farley is interested in the blue glove that his raiser, Steve, is wearing. Teammates Bart and Paul look on as Steve asks Farley to get into heel position.

A closer shot of the man standing, with the man sitting at the table with his arms folded. Now the yellow lab pup is just about to sit at the man's left side, his nose is reaching up toward the man's left gloved hand.

Steve demonstrates how FLD Farley can't keep his eyes off the glove. I show the team how to work on impulse control with Farley so he can ignore the glove.

Six puppies are lying down along a wall on the right, all but one are facing left. Opposte the puppies are a line of men dressed in blue prison pants and white t-shirts. The men are sitting or standing and looking at the pups.

Here the puppies demonstrate a nice down/stay.

We head out to the yard to do the CGC and IFT assessments. I am so busy helping Tammy that I don't get many photos...but FLDs Axel, Bear, Copo, Dax, Eco, Farley, and Gage (the puppies eligible for the CGC) are all successful.

A man dressed in the blue prison uniform is standing on the left, but he is only visible from the waist down. He holding a leash to a small yellow lab/golden retriever mix puppy that is standing on his left side. Both are facing the camera, but the puppy is looking at an older black lab that is being walked by from the right.

FLD Henry stands calmly as FLD Bear and his handler walk by during the loose leash walking portion of the IFT.

Tammy decided to add a tic-tac-toe game after the group CGC and IFT assessments. Lots of fun and good training!

An outside shot on cement with a white brick building in the background. A group of men are standing in the background with their backs facing the building. There are nine cream colored plastic chairs set up in three rows of three like a tic-tac-toe board. There are two men sitting in two chairs in the first row (furthest from the camera), one man in the middle seat in the middle row, and one man in the far right seat in the last row. The men sitting have puppies with them.

Tammy designates two teams - "sit" and "down." The game is played like tic-tac-toe, but the puppies on the sit team have to sit for the duration, or they are out. The puppies on the down team have to hold a down or they are out. This is a fun game that challenges the raisers and their pups to hold position in spite of the distraction of other puppies and handlers walking by.

Three men and their puppies are sitting in a row. The man on the right has a german shepherd, the man in themiddle has a yellow lab, and the man on the left has a golden retriever. The puppies should all be lying down, but the only one that is is the golden retriever! There is a man in the background on the left standing with a black lab sitting at his left side. The men are all smiling.

Unfortunately, two of the "down" team puppies don't want to hold position. A row or diagonal of puppies on the same team must hold position for at least three seconds after the last pup is in position. As you can see, only FLD Gage with P stays down. Steve and FLD Farley (middle) and Chad and FLD Dax (right) are disqualified and the game goes on.

Friday, November 28, 2014

On the spot at Chippewa

August 15, 2014

Chippewa

Without puppies to slow us down, Tammy and I get to the Chippewa Correctional Facility with two minutes to spare. The guys, as always, are waiting for us.

Two men are standing in front of a brick building looking at the camera and smiling. They are wearing white t-shirts. The man on the left has a blue baseball cap on his head and is cradling a small yellow lab puppy in his arms. The man on the right is resting his left hand on the puppy's side. The puppy's front legs are hanging over the man on the left's right forearm. The puppy is looking at the camera and is wearing the blue Future Leader Dog bandana with the name "Adell" embroidered in white.

Tim and Bryan meet us in the yard with their charge, FLD Adell.

A man wearing the blue prison shirt with green pants is squatting on a tile floor with a young yellow lab sitting between his legs. The man's hands are wrapped around the dog's chest. The dog is wearing the blue Future Leader Dog bandana and is looking toward the camera, with his leash hanging to the left. The man has his head turned to the left and is smiling devilishly at the camera. There is a woman in the background over his left shoulder, she is wearing a black shirt .

Harlan strikes a pose with FLD Ekco.

FLD Henry pays me no mind when we enter the chow hall where we will have class. Tammy starts the same training plan we put together for Baraga with the relaxation protocol. Eric does a nice job handling Henry.

Two men wearing blue prison pants and white t-shirts are standing with two small yelow lab/golden retriever puppies. The man on the left is stepping toward his puppy, holding his leash with his left hand. The man is looking at the puppy. The puppy is sitting and looking at the man. The man on the right's head is not visible. He is standing a step away from his sitting puppy (which is the same breed as the other puppy), and he is holding the leash with his right hand. The puppy is looking up at the man. In the background are steel lunch tables with attached stools, a white brick wall and two windows.

Eric (left) takes a step away from FLD Henry during the relaxation protocol. Henry's brother, FLD Harley, sits for his handler Brian.

This time Tammy decides that I will demo how to teach the stand. I hope I'm up to it - the nine-week-old Henry doesn't know stand and this is a tough crowd. Not because they are inmates, but because many of them are accomplished puppy raisers. My demo is rough.

I take Henry from Eric and ask the pup to sit. He swings out in front of my left side to face me, and sits. In the just over two weeks I've had him we've made good progress with sit, but not position; Henry is a long way from knowing "leg." I could use light leash pressure to help guide him back into proper heel position, but without thinking I reposition myself instead. I take a half step forward to encourage Henry to stand. It takes a couple of attempts before he stands, but then he sits right back down. This is one way to teach stand. Another way? I kneel down and with slight pressure forward on the leash I help him up with my hand on his belly. I rub it a little to keep him standing.

Somehow my stand demonstration morphs into a discussion about "silky leash" training. The guys want to see what I'm talking about. Henry rocks this demo - every time I give slight lateral pressure on his leash, he gives into the pressure and moves toward it. He is learning to overcome his natural reaction to pull against pressure (oppositional reflex).

Ideas for applications for this technique fly around the room. Loose leash walking, positioning (into heel or under tables, for example), ignoring distractions, direction changes, "around."

See what I mean about accomplished puppy raisers? Thinking all the time, just like we want our puppies to do.

Two small yellow lab/golden retriever puppies are sitting on at tile floor like bookends. They are brothers and look like it. The puppy on the right is slightly ahead of the other and is looking right at the camera. He is wearing the blue Future Leader Dog bandana and his leash is going off to the right. The puppy on the left, slightly behind the other puppy, is looking up toward where his leash is going off to the left. There are stools behind the two puppies.

FLDs Henry (left) and Harley (right) sure look like brothers, don't they?