Nikon C Phase

That was fun to watch. I had to keep the sound off or Sassy would've jumped in my lap, but I could tell when Nikon was barking. He seemed so happy when he had the sleeve and was prancing around. I can tell that you really need to be alert to what you're supposed to be doing with Nikon too though. You both looked great!!

 I love how he drops the sleeve as soon as he sees the "bad guy". So intense!

Jason L

Nikon looks great! When do you plan to get his BH?

Not sure, I was just looking at trial dates laughing to myself that I should be doing that soon.  He has all of the exercises, but his heeling isn't sustained in the drive I would like without a bit of luring and rewarding yet.  I want it to look like how I would expect his SchH1 to look even if it's "just" a BH.  I will hopefully do the FO first if I can find a trial.  The SDA club around here usually does one in May.  At our club, the philosophy is basically that we are always training for the SchH3.  Our helper did the SchH1-3 all within two months.  I

Jason L

That's how our club looks at it too. After 18 months he can do BH and 1 on the same weekend, right?

I believe so, as long as its not the same day.  I'm trial-shy (despite how often I trialed with Kenya) so I'm in no rush!  He also needs more maturity in the head.  He's ready to trial in rally right now but there's no way...I can just tell he's still sooooo much a puppy!   Also I would like to trial at a serious "working dog" club like South Michigan or OG Indianpolis so I want everything perfect.  I've always felt that home field/helper advantage is borderline cheating.

Jason L

He'll wow them when he trials I'm sure! Is he in the blinds yet?

He will bark and hold but is not running them, we come in straight or we go around but I have control of him as he goes around.  I forgot to tape the first round of protection, that was all bark and hold in the blind and then a few escape bites from a platz.  I've seen his mother and father both get really dirty pecking at the sleeve so if anything, I stop him quite hard a bit short.  I'd rather have him inch up as he learns what is going on and gains more confidence than have too much slack and dirty right away.  Luckily I'm now able to work him on a prong.  Soooooo much easier than a harness, two collars, and three lines on the dog!  Now that he's starting to understand the bark and hold, he's no longer ripping my shoulders out of their sockets trying to get at the helper's face!  He can be handler sensitive to me, but luckily we've had really good luck working him on the prong collar.  Another dog in our club who is a bit older was doing really well and when they tried the prong collar he got quite anxious.  With Nikon, if he's running into the blind and I feel I need to stop him short, I can stop him quite hard without any affect on his drive.  Friday night I had a line on a Fursaver and a line on the prong and ended up taking the Fursaver live off right away.  I was going to buy and agitation collar so we could stop using the harness but now I don't think I need to.

His first time "in" the blind was in October, and I say in with quotes because we didn't have a blind where we were so the helper backed himself into some shrubs.  Then we did two weeks with him on a backtie.  When I convinced the helper I can handle the line and not let him get dirty or over correct him, we switched to all prong (before that he was on the harness on a backtie and then a line on the prong) and have done that two sessions.  He is also getting more drives and stick pressure now that he is more mature.  Before, he didn't really have enough prey drive to carry him through that type of pressure.  For several months his protection work was really stagnant, we had to wait for him to mature enough to use more defense.  To be honest I actually don't mind this type of temperament, I think it will work well when we move to the SDA protection.