Jumping - team training

      I fully share the opinion that dog team training can be very effective and much more enjoyable for dogs as well as for men. Particularly it can be useful in exercises where  a dog needs to be brave and sure in his forces. As - for example - in jump training.  

      A lot of young dogs fail to jump over a fence because it is something new for them, however they quite able to jump over the fence physically. In these cases “team jumping” can be a successful method for developing this skill, which is necessary in mondioring, agility and other types of cynological sports. 

Retrieve training of a young malinois. Using positive stimuls

Teaching a dog to take an object.

        

        

        Retrieve or Rapport d’objet lance – this is how the exercise is called in the FCI Rules of Mondioring. However, this skill is considered as necessary in many dogs competitions, tests and exams.  Usually  dog masters, trying to teach a dog this exercise, meet with three main difficulties:  the dog rushes  to catch object the same moment the object is thrown; the dog runs to the object but doesn’t take it; and the dog takes the object and happily runs with him far from the master.

        There are many methodics  how to teach a dog to fulfill the command “apport” and to bring back the thrown object. The most wildly spread mistake is to try to teach a dog to carry out the whole exercise from the very beginning.  It rarely gives fruitful results.

       It seems more effective to divide the exercise into several parts and to help your dog learn it step by step.

      How to teach a dog to take the object? Why he or she will do it?  The dog doesn’t see any  obvious reason for taking it and doesn’t understand why he/she should do it. Many dog owners begin with pushing the object into dog’s mouth and holding the mouth for some time. But usually the dog lets the object fall down the moment his/her owner takes hands away from the mouth as well as the object. Some instructors even fix the dog for not letting him/her run away or turn the head. To my mind the only obvious result is that the dog gets a stress and loses any wish to carry out the exercise.

       It seems much more effective to use positive motivation and increase dog’s interest in the exercise through something that he/she enjoys – tips, playing with a ball, biting a toy, etc. For each dog different stimuls should be chosen.

The key figure of the video is young malinois of working line who likes to bite the toy. So it helped easily to  teach him to take the object. Even showing the toy was a stimul for him to take the object as he knew that he would be awarded and enjoyed the exercise. Do not forget to give command “apport” the moment you suggest your dog to take the object J

A highly smart malinois

What is it - the healthy life of your dog?

     Most of the dog owners answering this question will put on the first place good quality food. Of course, good food with necessary vitamins, and minerals is an important precondition for maintaining health of a dog. A lot of responsible dog owners will be surprised to know that regular quality meals, being of course very important, are not the main thing that keep your dog in good physical form.

     Let’s not forget that dogs, our pets, are predators. And predators  are not always lucky at a hunt. No, I do not think that our pets should starve, for God’s sake! But feeling hunger from time to time will cause them no harm. By the way, a lot  diseases of our pets are provoqued by overeating.

     As experienced dog owners consider that the best formula of dog’s health is the following: good walk and biting once a week.

     

     A good walk doesn’t mean that your dog walk quietly on a leach. A dog should run at least four times more than his owner walk.  The dog should run and  jump   and fight playfully. If there is no space for running  it is possible to play with your dog, for example with disks or balls.

     

      Biting. A lot of people are afraid of dogs’ aggression. However, aggression is a normal instinct of dogs as predators.  Practically every dog irrespective of the breed  becomes aggressive when protect heir food or toy.  It is possible to suppress the aggression but it seems more effective to give the dog possibilities to drop down the aggression. For large breed – shepherd dogs (German shepherd dogs, malinois, herders and a lot of others), dogs, Dobermans etc. - it can be training with a decoy on a training ground, for medium and small breeds – active games when they can bite rubber toys, for example.

     

       These three components – good physical exercises, training or games that increase adrenalin and  help to drop down aggression, quality food – will provide health and energy of your dog.  

     The finish of a healthy day: it seems I'll sleep this night on a mat :))

Malinois: protection of the object – advanced stage

      The goal of the next step of the protection-of-the-object-training is to protect the thing from the decoy who tries to take the object (a bag, chair, etc.).

      The decoy is moving  around the dog at the distance of two meters. The dog bites the decoy  only when he steps inside the circle (remember - the radius of 2 meters?). Once the decoy tries to go away from that distance, the dog should return to the object.

      The most difficult thing in this training  is to teach the dog to come to the object when the decoy is going away with the dog  biting his costume.

Our malinois. Defense training in Belgrade

          When we came to Serbia one of the priority issue we faced was to find a new instructor and decoy for our dogs. It’s not no easy task as mondioring is not very popular in Serbia. However we were lucky to meet a professional instructor and decoy, an owner of a sport dog center “Balkanika”  Dushko Jovanovich. We resumed our training and our mali made the next step in defense education – attack on the arm.

           Mondioring is a very dynamic and exciting kind of cynological sport, which develops many useful skills. Hope  it'll gain popularity in Serbia.

A radio collar: to use it or not to use?

My experience tells me that a rare dog-lover will support using of a radio-collar. The most popular argument: oh, no! It hurts the dog! Few years ago I was also strongly against this instrument of education. However, with my new dog – a strong Alpha Canaan male – I faced the big problem: he was too intolerant towards male dogs and – unfortunately – he picked from the ground. I met with a dilemma: either I had difficulties with other dog masters, or I found some method to make him more civilized. It also necessary to bear in mind that picking from the ground can be rather dangerous for dogs’ health. I bought a simple radio collar, got instructions from my trainer and took my dog for a walk. That collar had seven levels, I never used high ones, only up to the third level. I pushed the button twice to stop picking and three times to stop fights. It was enough!

The next step of my experience with the radio collar was during defense training. I would not say that it was always successful and produced the best results.

Indeed, the effect of training with radio collars can very good, however it depends upon too many factors. It was very effective for some training of my elder dog. As for my younger one – a malinois – it gives rather poor results, and I prefer to use usual collars.

Today I always put on my dogs radio collar while walking in the forest or in the mountains to have an additional instrument to keep them under control. Low levels do not hurt at all but it prevent a lot of troubles if you walk with your dogs in places where there many wild animals, foxes in particular. 

I'll appreciate your view on using radio collars. Please, share your experience.