Well this week has been an tale of broken waits, highs, lows and piles of horse poo.
Wednesday night started badly with no wait at all, it was as if he could hear what I was saying but either didn't understand what 'w..a..i..t' meant or he couldn't be bothered to even try and it got very frustrating I have to say. I tried just putting him back where I wanted and carrying on, 'Ah,Ah,Ah' didn't seem to work either and a downright 'NO' just made him look around for sympathy. Things went from bad to worse with me eventually just putting him back on the lead and letting someone else have a go. In between runs I did lots of wait practising putting his toy behind and sometimes realising him backwards to his toy and sometimes forwards always in the lead so I could prevent him breaking the wait.
Then we got the sniffing which wasn't helped by him finding loads of bits of pony nuts in one corner, at the moment this is much more annoying as it takes a while to get him back so he is self rewarding all the time I can't get him to me. The coming back is something I'm having problems with when walking him too, he comes back but stays just out of reach so I can't put his lead on, I remember Dudley going through this faze at the same age so I'm trying to be patient and am rewarding him every time he comes back.
Today we went to Cside where he had 4 runs, two G1-3 runs and two G1-7s. On the whole I was very pleased with him but he found a some horse poo in the agilty ring, I think he saw it as he was on the seesaw and after a handling error on my part coming out of the tunnel and onto the weaves his shot off and tucked in, Bernadette was the judge and got me to put him back in the tunnel and try again, off he went again but as him came back he went over the jumps before the tunnel, in the tunnel and straight in the weaves then finished the course really well. Jumping was jump, jump, weaves and although he went in the weaves he got a sniff of something and came out again. As he was messing about I ran past and carried on with course which he did really well, I even managed to send him in the tunnel and recall him over the next jump which I wouldn't have tried if we hadn't got E'd.
The best bits of all four rounds was that on each on he did a fantastic wait!!!
I'm hoping that when we get outside his complete obsession with horse poo may deminish as hopefully there wont be so much about.
3 comments:
He is having "moments of brilliance" so just remember those moments! Easier said than done.. but try not to get fustrated with him!
Bernadette is right. He does some fabulous stuff. The sniffing will pass in time and better you take deep breaths and deal with it positively rather than get frustrated in the environment you want him to be motivated in.
It is so easy to say and hard to do but it's worth it. Niamh was a bit like this to start with and even now on odd occasions she'll get the scent of something in a ring and I'm aware she's not concentrating but it happens very rarely now. If it does happen I just race off and get her working with me regardless of her taking the correct course. I found that a better cure than trying to get her back on the line of the judge's course. Maybe a thought for Thomas if he goes off on a sniff?
Thanks both of you, I know I shouldn't get frustrated and I have to remember he's still a baby really. I'm sure it will all come together and once he's more confident he'll hopefully ignore some of my handling mistakes:)
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