#seek back

[abirddogmoment]

On seek backs and impulse control

One of my favourite obedience exercises (that conveniently fosters impulse control and ties into send outs!) is the seek back, where you (the handler) drop an item while heeling and then send your dog back to retrieve it after a certain distance.

(The video is just to illustrate, I don't usually play this game indoors because I need more space.)

In competition obedience, the item you drop will be a leather or cotton glove. In gundog training, you would usually use a dead bird, a bumper, or sometimes a tennis ball depending on the dog. I'm using a holee-roller stuffed with rabbit hide strips because I was working outside earlier and that's my current outdoor toy.

(As always, if you're working on this and its a new game for your dog, be willing to accept sloppy heeling or retrieves at first. You can tighten those things up after your dog understands the idea of the game. You can see Rory doesn't actually retrieve the ball in this clip - this is fine!! I'll fix that later!!)

To start, your dog needs an understanding of heel position and heel movement. You need an item or snack that's valuable enough to be interesting but not so valuable that your dog won't be successful.

Get your dog in heel position and calmly drop a kibble or toy behind you. If your dog is in heel on your left, use your right hand. Do this as boring as possible but make sure your dog knows it's happening. Immediately reward your dog for staying in heel, reward position should be wherever you usually reward for heel (so I reward near my knee). Use a tab leash if you need more clarity or control. Take one step in the direction you're facing. Send your dog to get the snack or toy.

If your dog doesn't know how to bring items back, just use snacks! If your dog usually retrieves really well but stops bringing the item back, they're probably done with this game for now! It's a tricky one so take a break and come back to it later.

Once you can drop your item from a stationary heel and your dog is steady, you can start taking two or three steps in the direction you're already facing. Make sure your dog is in heel position before you send them back to the item. At this stage, send them back to the item while they're moving forward with you - don't ask for a sit or stand yet!

Once that's pretty easy and you incrementally make your way to 10 or 15 steps, you can start adding pauses (sit or stand) or direction changes. Make sure to increase your difficulty slowly so it isn't too frustrating. This is a hard game for your dog!

Once you've got all those pieces, you can start doing this in bigger spaces and sending your dog from incrementally further away! Start on flat ground with items that stand out so your dog can visually find them easily, and then add in difficulty by using terrain or smaller items.

(This is where you could tie in to gundog send-outs - use a bumper or bird, drop it surreptitiously while heeling in a straight line, and then send your dog in a straight line. Slowly reduce the visibility of your item but keep the straight line so your dog trusts your directions.)

I used to play this game with Mav and I would sneaky-drop my keys and send him back to find them while we were walking in the park. I'm using it to work on Rory's heeling, but I love how it fosters such good skills for real life (like say the ones you would need to walk away from a porcupine). As a bonus, it's legit exhausting once you get to bigger distances because you combine the brain work with running very very fast to get the item!

[just-null]

Do you ever do requests? If so, do you ever plan on drawing some Yandere with the Hantengu clones? :D hope you have a good day/night!!!

Mentioning an unfamiliar name

yes!! I love yanderes.. and these guys.. these guys are such good material...... nods nods..

I'm not sure about requests..I assume you mean drawing requests? I suppose if it REALLY catches my interest enough, I'd do it, but it'd probably just be line art/sketches.

[mobius-m-mobius]

Sometimes our emotions get the better of us. You can say that again.

[partlyironic]

hey guys. remember this.

[sincerely-sofie]

Lamb: Hurry and get dressed, I scheduled a talk therapy session for you and the other Bishops and it’s starting in ten minutes.

Narinder: IT IS THREE IN THE MORNING—

[nocreativityfornames]

YES??? WHERE TF ARE YOU??????

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Sorry for not having a Year of the Dragon MDZS artwork; Unfortunately, I can only picture Dragon LWJ in this particular flavour.

[benevolenterrancy]

"Heavens, he doesn't understand again." "Every time he says 'I don't understand', Lui-shixiong grabs someone to demonstrate until he understands..." Ji Jue quietly complained to Shang Qinghua. No wonder the injuries at Bai Zhan Peak had only increased!

so this is obviously Liu Qingge's entire love language, right?

[mbohjeezart]

[ WIP ]

Bring a goat to a courthouse...

[mxmarsbars]

an explosive finish 💥

[katabay]

it's the musketeers babyyyyy

just shaking off some cobwebs, figuring some visuals out, trying out some brushes. someone get d'artagnan off of that before he falls.

[thankfulfortomorrow]

We are so back 😇😈

[shesmore-shoebill]

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT SMOSH HIDE AND SEEK 2024 WAS GOING TO TURN INTO ONE OF THE BEST AMANGELA VIDS OF ALL TIME . WITH A COURTRASHA KISS AT THE END

[trappedinafantasy37]

"Minthara is so abusive to the player" *INCORRECT BUZZER NOISE*

Minthara would literally go to fucking hell for the opportunity to personally beat the absolute shit out of the person who actually did abuse you. She will throw hands with gods and devils just to avenge you.

And you will not be able to convince her not to.

[stagefoureddiediaz]

The Helena diaz of it all has me fascinated. I’ve said for a long while that Eddie’s real issues are his mommy issues and this episode just cemented for me that we’re gonna explore that and deal with it.

Because it’s Helena who forced Eddie to grow up to fast - because her husband wasn’t around much - so she pushed Eddie into de facto parent and husband role ls - selfishly filling her needs and ignoring the damage it was doing to her son (it is a form of abuse in my book).

Eddie then had the audacity to fall in love with and marry Shannon and get her pregnant. It’s why Helena was always so off with Shannon - she was punishing her. She is also punishing Eddie for all of this and his refusal to return to El Paso only cemented further her bitterness and resentment.

Now she does have Ramon back she doesn’t need Eddie any longer to fill that role so she is still punishing him and part of that is tied into her glee over now getting to parent Christopher - something she has always been intent on doing the doppelgänger just gave her the opportunity- as well as allowing her to further punish her son and his love of Shannon.

Her barbed comments about building a pool were all about showing what she can provide Christopher - how she is parenting him better than Eddie - it’s part of her mind games - making Eddie feel like more of a failure as a parent to his son.

The reality of course is that the reverse is true - Helena’s parenting is all superficial, flash and showy - it isn’t the hard day to day parenting when things get tough and you have to be the bad guy. While Eddie has made mistakes, there is nothing superficial, flash, or showy about his parenting. It’s why bucks comments about Eddie being a great dad are so important.

Eddie feel like a failure right now and that he is entirely to blame for everything. But in reality, while he does bear a bit of the responsibility, the truth of the matter is that he needs to learn and deal with the fact that all of it actually stems from Helena and her abuse of her young son - Shannon never stood a chance just like Eddie never has.

[pokimoko]

haunting the narrative -> haunted by the narrative -> haunting the narrative -> haunted by