Chakoonya German Shepherds in Beechmont, Queensland, Australia | Pet service

Chakoonya German Shepherds

Locality: Beechmont, Queensland, Australia

Phone: +61 432 701 158

Address: Doncaster drive 4211 Beechmont, QLD, Australia

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23.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: Wassel play; After our track, I put on Amaura's protection collar and leash. I started out playing the friendly game with the protection stick on the back of my ute. Just rubbing her vigorously and giving her a couple of stick hits. I also waved the stick over her face. Amaura is responding well to our friendly game and isn't showing any bad reactions to the stick or the stick hits. I then left the stick on the back of the ute and e...ngaged her in a bit of tug of war with the wassel. I am promoting her calm grip, so once so she wins her prize I press her then put her in the sitz and platz positions. In our tug of war games I also bring the stick out so it is waving around Amaura's head. She also got a couple of stick hits in our tug of war games too. She is responding well to all our games with the stick. I felt so sorry for her last Wednesday night. All I can manage at the moment is the wassel play plus she can run two blinds. All the dogs had a session with the helper but my hips aren't strong enough to hold Amaura back. When I was taking her out to do the blind searches, the helper was in plain sight with his scratch pants on. Sleeves were also on the ground. Amaura kept lunging for the sleeves and I was having a real hard time holding her back. In the end it was let her go or my hips will let go. Amaura won. No one got hurt and she successfully ran both blinds and we had a wassel play. It has made me think though that I somehow need to engage her in more protection training where she can have a proper go and get the sleeve. Next Friday I will see if we can come up with a strategy where I can safely work Amaura without compromising my hips. I'm thinking fence, where I can feed the leash through and use the fence to hold Amaura back. When I let her have the sleeve, all I need to do is let go of the leash. For the hold and bark, we may just need to move a blind closer to the fence. Hmmmm, conversation to have with our helpers. Amaura needs to have a play otherwise she is going to get harder and harder to control.

23.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: Well it is official; Vespa has come out of retirement!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!! She did a brilliant track today. This i...s considering that she hasn't had any training since before she was bred back in October last year. I have my starting point with her and won't alter the track to much. I am training towards either a TR1, a OB2 or a IPOVO. We will see as our training progresses. We also had a little protection session; We ran around two blinds, had a wassel play and also had a play on the sleeve. She still has good drive and again we have a starting point where we can progress with our training. I am not looking to breed from her until the year after next, so we have plenty of time for training and to figure out what our next title will be. Great to have her back in training. I have missed my RBI, she is a lot easier to manage than Amaura and will be good for rehabilitation with my hips and legs. I can hold her while Pete agitates her with the sleeve. It felt really good today.

22.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: PROTECTION; Amaura: I have decided to do my stick work with Amaura when we are running the blinds and are having our wassel play. She is now running two blinds successfully and at the correct distance. I have the stick out in plain view as we do both the blinds. Once she has run the second blind and has engaged me with the wassel and we are playing tug of war. I then bring out the stick and rub her with it. I press her with the wa...Continue reading

22.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: Amaura Protection; She was a little bit naughty last night and didn't take her protection session very seriously at all.... I started out with the blind run, she is running both blinds with commitment and we have our wassel play once she has run both blinds. She launches herself at the wassel and we have a tug of war game before I press her. Then I set her up in front of the blind for her play with the helper. Ever since my operation, I have been working her on the fence and we have been moving the blind so I can use the fence to support my hips from Amaura pulling to get to the sleeve. This strategy has been working quite nicely but last night the girl with the curl decided to come out. She got engaged with the sleeve and did her hold and bark but she kept getting very distracted with me being close to her in the blind. She stopped barking and kept turning to look at me. Gaz suggested to change sides and work her from her right side. This seemed to help fer a little bit but then she decided to not engage with the sleeve when she was offered the bite. When she did get the sleeve, she did run with it and I was able to press her once or twice. Otherwise she kept spitting it out. I'd platz her and at one point Gaz went to retrieve the sleeve. She made an attempt to bite his hand so I let her know in no uncertain terms that that behaviour was unacceptable. From that time on, there was a bit of conflict between her and I. As my hips have been healing, I have been very careful to not do anything to hurt my hips. I wonder if that has diminished her drive somewhat????????? I did read her body language as confident. Would an unconfident dog sniff the helper??????? We gave her one last bite and I then went to take her to the car. She didn't bite the sleeve in the right place and therefore wasn't able to carry it for long. I'd had enough of her antics by then. "Ok Amaura, if you aren't going to take the sleeve seriously, you just don't get it!" She went to the car sleeveless and then raised a din when the next dog came out to play. The sleeve is a privilege and if you aren't going to take it seriously then either will I!!!!!!!!!!! Lets see what happens in our next session with the sleeve.........

16.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: We are grossly overdue for some updates; We have been training in earnest, putting the training down in writing has been the mission time wise. Amaura has been doing extremely well in her obedience and protection phases...... I have not had a chance to track the dogs for a couple of weeks now.... Today she did some really nice heeling exercises. My focus has been on getting her to fuss straight with my body without throwing her rear end out so she crabs in front and trips me up........ This is where our box training has been invaluable. She has also been heeling to far in front of me too. Our missions have been to keep her straight and back. Today I had both. She didn't give me focus to start with but once we got moving she also engaged me with lovely focus too. Hmmm, see how she goes with our next club training session tomorrow night. She is a work in progress and hopefully we will be able to get our BH title by March next year. Her protection is also coming in leaps and bounds. She is running both blinds, is doing a hold and bark in the blinds and we are now working on our escapes. After our BH, we should be ready to do a IPO 1 at the next trial. We are in full training for Vespa's OB2 title. Metro is holding a club trial in September. All going to plan, I will put a OB2 on her then. We are working on her stand in motion, the send away, her dumbbells and the jump. I need to get her onto the A Frame and stop her anticipating the send away while we are heeling. She still isn't having great focus but I do get nice moments where she is looking at me and we are working on building this up as she gets more familiar with her old training. Her focus is a confidence issue where it is too confrontational for her to look at me. With Vespa, it is all about following my left leg. It goes forwards, backwards, to the right, does crazy turns and about turns so she needs to really focus on where it is going. It can also run and then slow down very rapidly too. Once she gives me a good session of staying with my left leg, the ball materializes out of nowhere and she gets to have a good play with it. Her protection has also improved remarkably. She is doing blind searches with both blinds and is also doing nice hold and barks. She has done a couple of escapes and her confidence is growing very nicely. I would love to be able to put an IPOVO title on her. This is our ultimate goal. An OB2 and a TR1 title is what is on our agenda first. I am very proud of both my girl's progress. Commonsense training ;D. I am looking forward to breeding Amaura in March once we have her BH title. I have got a few nice stud dogs in mind. Watch this space............ :D

15.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: I had a training session with both dogs at Peter and Julie's place today. Amaura's Obedience; I got good distraction today with Julie's cat not really helping. Amaura is cat mad but not in a good way. A couple of times she made a lunge for the cat and I was able to really ping her for it. ...Continue reading

10.01.2022 Naughty Amaura....... I will update Vespa's training sessions shortly. We have done a lot. I have just forgotten what we did. Tuesday's tracking session with both dogs seems like a lifetime ago with horse play and hospital visits in between.... Next tracking and protection sessions will be on Tuesday. I will update progress then. A TR1 title is looking very realistic with Vespa, I am hoping to put a title on her this year. She is also responding well to obedience, I just don't know if she has it in her for the 1 metre jump and 6' A Frame. We are currently warming up with heeling and focus training. She has only just came out of puppy retirement and Tammy's operation retirement.

04.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERD TRAINING UPDATE: Wow busy day of training today!!!!!!!!!! We started out tracking. I deviated away from our first track a little bit. I don't want Amaura getting bored with a familiar track or anticipating corners, s bends, ect.... The first leg was 20 paces with sporadically placed food. I started out with 3 pieces of food in the scent pad then three paces no food, 2 paces food, 1 pace no food ect for the first 20 paces. The last straight step, I left bare then did the start of my s bend with food to mark the beginning of a new direction. I did 20 paces as a gradual bend with food in the first 4 steps, I left the 5th step clear. This was how I marked the entire S bend. I put a marker in every 10 paces so I could keep track of where my track went. After the s bend, I then straightened the track and had 5 paces no food, 1 pace food. This set up a tracking rhythm for the next 90 paces. The last 10 paces I had no food but I placed an article to signal the end of the track. Amaura did a fantastic track. It is her second track after a 4 month break. On the first leg, I came accross dog poo and with my tracking rhythm, I had to place food right next to the shit. She deviated away from the track so I blocked her until she came back on the track about 5 paces past the dog shit. She then tracked the rest of that leg correctly and didn't deviate away from it again. She correctly indicated the last foot step with no food and found the food to signal the start of my s bends. Whole we were negotiating the s bends, I noticed a stick sticking up. It wasn't one of mine that I use as a track marker but I collect those sticks. I decided to leave Amaura to track the s bends independently and tiptoed to get the stick. I think I distracted her coming back, her lifted her head and stopped tracking. Maybe she lost a bit of confidence with me out of my usual position. I do track her on a loose line so she does track independently but she knows that I am about 5 to 10 paces behind her. She sat down and looked at me as I returned to my correct position behind her. All I did was look at the track with my energy where I wanted Amaura to look, pointed my hand at it and said "sook" (German for search). Amaura reengaged with the track and correctly tracked the rest of the s bends. Her last leg of 5 paces no food one pace food stretched her a little bit but she did get used to the new tracking rhythm. By the time we came to the 10 paces no food Amaura was deeply engrossed so much that she steamrolled over the article. I finished off the track by engaging her with the articles. She "shows" me the article by platzing straight and touching the article with her paw, she gets a food reward. Amaura isn't taking the articles seriously at this time but we are in no rush and I will continue to show her the value in it for her....... Food and then ball play. More is coming later tonight. I now have to pick Tye up from School.

03.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: Obedience; First training session where we are doing more freestyle heeling rather then in the box. Amaura is becoming better at finding the correct fuss position. I am also finding success with lining myself up to a tree and standing square to it.... Julie only pinged me once for having my elbow out and I was also more aware of when Amaura pushed my hand out of the correct feeding position. We did a little bit of freestyle heeling with a couple of sharp turns. I pinged Amaura with a correction when she fails to come into the correct fuss position. I think that we are getting good enough to do some freestyle heeling on our own. We did some box training with the sitz, platz and stand. Amaura will sit in the box straight but ends up in the platz crooked. I have slowed her right down so I verbally mark her when she starts to go down crooked. I then make her sit again and I will persevere until she will platz straight. My hand is closed so she can get her tongue on the food but she doesn't get the reward until she goes down straight. I am also thinking of bringing Vespa out of retirement and start engaging her with some training too. She hasn't had anything done with her since before we had puppies back in December. Mondays will become a Vespa and Amaura obedience and ball play day. I might even mix Vespa up and start some tracking with her too. Time to dust off the cobwebs with my little RBI (Right Brain Introvert) Watch this space....... We will start up her training for either a tracking title TR1, obedience title OB2 or the IPOVO title. See how we go. It has been awhile for her and for me.

03.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: Amaura - Tracking. I have upt the anti on Amaura's track. I am placing the food a bit more sporadically and creating longer food gaps both on the straight legs and the S bends. Amaura's minimum food spaces are now 5 gaps and one piece of food. The S bends I mark the corner, then have two food gaps, one piece of food for the first 7 paces, then three food gaps and one piece of food. I have set this up as a tracking rhythm for the ent...iire S bends and will work at decreasing the food as Amaura gets more engaged in her work. She is a very confident tracker. I just need to continually make her tracks interesting, stimulating and engaging for her. She is starting to take her articles seriously too. Chemo brain here forgot the food for her articles. Amaura indicted the article successfully then looked up at me with expectant eyes. I ended up putting three articles down, 5 paces apart and asked her to indicate all three articles. We then finished off with an exciting ball play. :D

03.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: Amaura Obedience; We are well and truly overdue for an update. ... We had our club training night in Brisbane last night and I was able to put Amaura through her paces in the obedience and protection phases. She has come a long way in her obedience. We are still doing box training but are now doing more freestyle heeling. We are taking one step forward with me looking straight ahead and being conscious to keep my body square to ensure Amaura maintains her correct position. If I get greedy and ask for to much forward movement, this is when Amaura starts crowding me and walks crooked. I take one step forward, make sure my body is square, then I glance down to see where she has positioned herself. If she is too far forward I take a step backwards, if she is crooked, I take a step sideways. If she is in the correct position, she gets fed one piece of food and we take another step forward. This way she doesn't gain any ground and she soon learns that to be in the correct position means forward movement and food. As she gets more reliable, we go for more forward steps, with food and ball play. I also pay close attention to her focus as well. Last night we also had a play with the dumbbell both on the flat and over the jump. Amaura is very good at this, her grip is calm and quiet she runs out fast, picks it up and brings it back to me with speed too. She clears the jump but didn't take the jump too seriously either. She jumped it going out but dropped the dumbbell and jumped the jump without it. I redid the exercise and this time she kept the dumbbell in her mouth but didn't clear the jump on the way back. The final time I threw the dumbbell over, I sent her over then stood at the jump. Once she cleared it correctly with the dumbbell still in her mouth I walked backwards and she put herself in the correct position. This exercise wasn't pretty but I wanted to reward her effort rather then keep trying to perfect it. That can come later. With these type dogs, to keep persevering can have a damaging effect on their willingness to work with us. To focus on effort rather then results keeps them willing to work with us.

01.01.2022 CHAKOONYA GERMAN SHEPHERDS TRAINING UPDATE: I've got a bit to update with both dogs. I took Amaura up to Metro Sportdog club for a training session last Sunday. Thank you to Karen and Reg Worth for your valuable input and taking the time to help train us.... Obedience wise; I need to hold Amaura more accountable for her focus and ping her everytime she gets distracted and looks away. Karen suggested to hold a ball under my armpit, use less food and hold my left hand over Amaura's body so it is on her left hand side. This is my feeding hand so Amaura tended to turn her head towards my hand in order to get to the food that wasn't there. I gave her a correction with the leash, then verbally praised her as soon as she looked into my eyes. After she held my gaze for a few seconds I released the ball. It didn't take Amaura long to work out this game and held my gaze for longer periods. I will increase the longevity and start to add in distraction once she is more reliable with maintaining it in the fuss position. Then we will start on motions.... (Forwards, backwards and sideways.) Protection; Amaura is getting stronger with her hold and bark in the blind. This time I was able to hold her in the open without the aid on the fence. I sent her in and she held her position. She did get distracted and stopped barking to look at me once I was within her vision. I mad no attempt to approach her in the blind so she started to bark again at the helper in the blind. I told Reg about her bad exposure to stick hits and as Amaura went to bite the sleeve, Reg held the stick up but away from Amaura so she was able to solve the puzzle with no conflict. Her grips are getting stronger and she is carrying the sleeve for longer periods too. I was also able to press her so she had a nice win which was awesome for her confidence. She is becoming a different dog!!!!!!! Thanks must also go out to Peter Ulbrich who has been working tirelessly to make this game make sense to Amaura. She is turning the corner and getting stronger with each session. IPO1 is looking more realistic as time goes on.