Cooper and Tooey love jerky — especially those chicken breast and duck breast jerkys made by Cadet. They’ll even race into their crates when they know I have a piece of jerky in my hand. When no other treat will motivate them (particularly Cooper who is often not motivated by food), these poultry strips will [...]
Archive for January, 2012
Friday Pheasants
Posted in hunting / hunt training, life with dog, Stanegate Second Thoughts, tagged hunting with Boykins, hunting with Irish Water Spaniels, Irish Water Spaniels, IWS, pheasant hunting, upland game bird hunting on January 28, 2012 | 4 Comments »
Several circumstances converged yesterday that allowed Tooey and myself to head to Central Oregon for a day of pheasant hunting. Cooper had to stay in Portland for an Obedience match, the weather gods brought a rare winter day of sun (i.e. no rain), and I had Friday off from work. Hence only Tooey and I [...]
Rose City Classical Conditioning
Posted in dog shows / conformation, dog training, Obedience/Rally, Realta Rosario Cooper, tagged classical conditioning, dog shows, dog training, Irish Water Spaniels, IWS, mental preparation on January 21, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Almost one year ago today, at the Rose City Classic dog show, Cooper got his show championship. And that’s the last time I spent any time near a regular conformation ring. (I did show Cooper at the IWSCOPS specialty show in August.) Today, even though the sun was out, our field training group was flooded [...]
When the weather breaks on a weekend, train
Posted in dog training, hunting / hunt training, life with dog, Realta Rosario Cooper, Stanegate Second Thoughts, tagged dog training, hunt training, Irish Water Spaniels, IWS, obedience training, teaching attention on January 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Most of this morning we watched frozen precipitation. It ranged from tiny particles, to fat flakes, to hail pounding on the roof. But then we noticed sunshine. Odd… Hmmm… better go training now. We worked on a repeat of yesterday’s long V-blind, but in a new location for Cooper, a couple of 100-yard blinds for [...]
Right before the pouring down rain
Posted in hunting / hunt training, Realta Rosario Cooper, Stanegate Second Thoughts, tagged hunt training, Irish Water Spaniel, IWS, standard poodles hunting on January 14, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Hank and his Standard Poodle, Taura, met Russ and I (along with Cooper and Tooey, of course!) out at one of Hank’s favorite training grounds. A very large, mown (and rare) field with trees, out in suburbia. It was a short session. We knew the rain was coming, and wanted to get our work done [...]
Mats on the ears, knots in the toes
Posted in dog grooming, life with dog, Realta Rosario Cooper, Stanegate Second Thoughts, tagged brushing a dog, combing a dog, Irish Water Spaniel, Irish Water Spaniel grooming, IWS, mats on a dog on January 13, 2012 | 4 Comments »
That’s what you get when you don’t comb out your Irish Water Spaniel for two weeks: mats and knots. Especially if that Irish Water Spaniel is Tooey. Cooper, now, he’s easy. For whatever reason, his coat is not thick. That has its down sides, like not being thick enough to protect the skin between the [...]
How to know what’s best
Posted in dog training, hunting / hunt training, life with dog, Obedience/Rally, tagged beginner dog trainer, dog training, foot position at the line, how to hold a leash, teaching a dog to heel on January 5, 2012 | 13 Comments »
How to know the best thing to do is WAY different from actually knowing. And I’m starting to realize that the biggest task in being a beginner is learning how to judge what is best. I am not one who learns well from books or DVDs. That may sound odd coming from a person with [...]
2011 in review
Posted in life with dog, tagged blog statistics, Irish Water Spaniels, IWS, The Cooper Project on January 1, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Happy New Year! Once again, I want to thank you all for reading my blog. I enjoy writing it, and knowing that people are actually reading it makes that pleasure even greater. To celebrate the New Year (and no doubt, to keep me using their service) the WordPress.com statistics people prepared a 2011 annual report [...]
