It's a dog's tale!!! Dog training food, Boar skin - Part 3

After it five days of training Scarlet (the new pig dog) is coming along quite finally, she is now coming to her name, sitting on request and staying, along with climbing up and down stairs only on request.

Although she is now walking on the lead, she does not like it so I'm now walking her every morning and every afternoon so she will not only get used to the collar and the lead but also the surrounding smells and noises that we find in suburbia.  One of her first walks on the lead down the street seem to take an eternity as I spent most of the time dragging her along as she didn't want to move, then when she did get going she would stop within a couple of steps to smell the sent of the other dogs which live in the area.  I also found that I had to stop when cars came driving by as she was a bit unsure exactly what the noise was.

The best dog training food ever invented, and it costs almost nothing!! 

Every day I cut up to chicken necks into small pieces, put on my tool belt and fill the pouches with the chicken treats.  This way I have quick access to any treats and shoes rewarded as soon as she does something correctly.  I did initially try some dog treats but they were just pathetic and I think Scarlet would prefer to eat grass, then once I switched to chicken necks it was like a ravenous dog and she almost chewed my arm off.  It's amazing what you can get a dog to do when you give it the desire to either please all be fed.

Yesterday I tried something different, I had some offcuts of deer in the fridge and I cut them up into small pieces which she seemed to enjoy as much as the chicken.  The best thing about using cutup meet as opposed to chicken necks is that Scarlet doesn't have to stop and chewed the bones as the meet is quite soft and tender.  There is also very little fat content within deer meat and is packed full of protein, while chicken necks have heaps of calcium which assist in the growing bones and joints.

I am also in the process of teaching Scarlet to chase down certain objects and hold them until I tell her that it is okay to release, while this seems to be going okay my daughter sometimes gets a hand in the way and a little puppy teeth end out puncturing her skin. Then it's up to poorer old bad to come to the rescue.

Boar skin tracking.

I was reading the other day how one professional pig hunter uses Boar skin when training his young dogs, he drags the boar skin around the backyard until finally coming to rest at the dog bowl.  He only uses boar skin as this way it teaches the dog to only track down boar's and not sows or piglets, so in the coming weeks many and a few other guys are going to go out and see if we can nail a boar so I can use its meat and skin the training.

While the other two dogs are still shunning Scarlet they are slowly getting used to her.  I personally think that they are getting scared as she is almost their size now. 

I think over the next week of training I will be putting more work into walking on the lead and tracking techniques, along with reinforcing that sits and stay, and coming when called.

Until my next post...