I spent 5 days with Mario Verslype up at Posidog in Columbus, OH. I took pretty good notes, but the way things have been at work lately it's not likely that I'll get a chance to post details from it. But, in the meantime, I'm going to start putting it into practice :-)
So tonight, the first day after returning from the clinic, I started with his scent pad work with both dogs. Of course, Gata who knows a thing or two about tracking already was far more interested in the scent pad than Tor was. But, no worry, it will get better as he becomes more familiar with what is going on. I'm confident that soon he will start to understand what is going on.
I'll do step #1, an approximately 1-meter square box with SMALL pieces of food on top of the grass for 1 week and then start burying the food. I think he'll be more interested in the scent pad by then and can start burying the food and slowly decreasing the number of buried treats.
Then I brought them inside and did 10 'coucher' for a treat with each of them individually, while the other was outside. I'll almost certainly do the 'coucher' for longer with Gata and move on to other positions with Tor. Gata needs to have her 'coucher' rehabilitated and Tor doesn't. But he does need work on his sit/'assi' and stand.
Definitely feeling inspired after the 5 days with Mario. Really exceptional and inspirational :-)
