Raising Ragnar – 9th Instalment

Ragnar was most put out when he had to wear his fleece drying suit when he got wet and cold after the weather turned!  Seriously not impressed!!!

16-21/7

This week has been busy preparing to go away in the caravan. So other than maintaining general house manners and carrying on with all the work that we have been doing I didn’t do any new training with Ragnar as I was too busy.

22/7

Holiday starts here! 🙂  We travelled up to Evesham in the morning and Ragnar travelled very well in the crate in the back.  This was his first long journey since coming back from his breeder’s house.  In the afternoon we went for a walk around the camp venue which is lovely with woods and lakes to swim in.  I setup the caravan, awning and ‘garden’ using orange netting and electric fence posts.  I wondered if this would be enough to keep Ragnar in our area and he was good as gold not going out and just pottering around getting to know the place.  We were camped next door to friends and he didn’t go out even when they walked past with their dogs.

Ragnar also had to sleep in a fabric crate instead of a metal crate and I wondered how that would go but he was fine. Accepted this boundary too which is great.

23/7

There was a group of us who were camping and training the dogs during the day so Ragnar got to mix with a large group of dogs and did a little bit of training each day. He also got to swim in the lake which he enjoyed very much.

When he got tired towards the end of the day he got a bit overwhelmed whilst walking with all the other dogs who were running around and so he just came and walked by me.

24/7

We had Geoff Shore come along to do a day’s training and Ragnar had his first official training session. He did a bit of puppy play retrieves and then we started him on his hunting.  We were encouraging him to be persistent by throwing the toy in the long grass and letting him find it on his own.  We were also encouraging him to use his nose to look for the toy by pretending to hide it in the grass and then when he had looked for a short while putting the toy out close to us for him to find whilst he wasn’t watching.  He thought that this was a very good game.

When Ragnar had finished his turn then he stayed out and watched a couple of the other dogs have their turns. He was quite happy to watch, interested but able to sit still and observe without getting frustrated. 🙂

25/7

I did some more hunting practice, some swimming and started teaching Ragnar the turn whistle. He was also out whilst others were using shot during training and he was very happy just to carry on with what we were doing.

26/7

All week Ragnar has been learning about holiday stuff which included lead walking to the toilet area and staying in our garden area whilst I went off to do things like getting more water and popping next door to chat with friends. He was also very good being left in his crate when I went to have a shower in the mornings, no noise and just settled whilst I was gone.  He learnt to wait for the garden gate to be opened and only come out when released.

We also did some more hunting training, some turn whistle and he came in a rowing boat with me for a couple of rides which he was happy to do.

27/7

We went to The Game Fair today and Ragnar came along. I had him in his harness as I didn’t know if he would be able to walk nicely on the lead.  He completely amazed me by walking on a loose lead for about 90% of the time.  A few little lunges here and there but the majority of the time he walked really nicely between Erik and me.  He was happy to be left with a friend whilst I took Erik in to compete.

He pottered and stopped and watched the world go by for a couple of hours and then we went back to the car to let him rest. It was a really hot day so I stayed in the car with them with all the windows and tailgate open and reflective covers on the car.  It was really cool in there as there was a lovely breeze.  Later in the afternoon we all went back down for about another hour whilst Erik and I collected his first prize for the Scramble, Ragnar came into the ring with us so he is already getting used to collecting prizes!!!!

28/7

Today was a rest day, just mooching about the campsite and chilling out in the caravan. I took the awning down and got ready for going home the next day.

29/7

We travelled home, it was a bit windy so the journey was about 3.5 hours with a stop. Ragnar was again really good on the lead as we went for a pee break at the services; he even went to the toilet on the lead which we haven’t had to do before.

Whilst I was unpacking the car I worked on teaching Ragnar that the front door was a boundary even when the door was open. He got the hang of it really quickly and so each time I came back into the house he was rewarded for staying inside.

30/7

I spent the day tidying the caravan and getting the house back into some sort of order so the boys had another day just pottering about with me.

31/7

Back to work today and so I did some training with Ragnar at the park this morning. Revisited all the things we have done previously and started to clicker train a lie down.  We got to the point where Ragnar was following a lure and lying down.  We also did a bit more hunting.