Monday 30 March 2009

Having fun on a walk

Writing to a blog is harder than I thought. Trying to come up with something interesting to say is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Thus my lack of blog entries for the past few weeks...

But... this morning I got inspired, whilst walking my pack of 6 dogs. Yesterday we went out for a 2 hour walk, after my lessons had finished for the day, and the dogs were shattered afterwards (we also did almost 2 hours in the morning before my lessons). Toby ran after a hare at a pace that his old body just couldn't cope with, so he screamed as he got off the sofa last night and when he got out of bed this morning, so his muscles must have been very sore. Even though he limbered up a lot after a massage, he still wasn't up for much walking today, so I decided to take short walks and concentrate on search exercises for them to do instead. We had a great time!

I tied the dogs up that haven't got reliable stays (Pippa, Leo and Frida) and left Toby, Jasper and Jax in a stay, then walked out over a large field with tall grass and chucked out bits of dried sausages, dried venison tongue and heart, burns duck and fish flavoured pebbles (you can get all these treats at http://www.activateyourdog.com), over half the field (it is a big field!). I then returned to the dogs, rewarded the ones that had stayed without leads and then sent them all out to search together.

It is so great to see them all running around, excitedly wagging their tails, noses to the ground. It is by far my most favourite thing to do with dogs and they love it too. Haven't met a dog yet that doesn't love to search.

What kind of fun do you have with your dog when you are out walking? What kind of games do you play and how do you keep yourself interesting to them, when there are distractions like rabbits, hares, deer, dead things, etc out there?