Hello!

I am JD and my wife is Carolyn. We are the proud parents of a 3.5 month old female CBR named Carolyn’s Coon Creek Kyla, call name Kyla. In mid April, we picked her up from the breeder in MO when she was 9 weeks old. We just wanted to say “hi” and share with everyone our training philosophy for Kyla.

Basic OB with choke collar

-"Sit" and "Kennel" (10 minutes x 2 times a day)

- "Here" (10 minutes x 2 times a day, with help from assistant (double lead), OR, by self with a single lead)

Heeling

We are working on left sided heeling during a daily walk as well as utilizing the “square” technique once a day. She is responding well with the “square” technique, as well as heeling during the walk. We are holding off on using the heeling stick until she is a few months older and we move into e-collar work.

Bolting/De-Bolting
- When Kyla gets in trouble for whatever she shouldn't be doing, she pouts and wants to go outside and/or in her kennel. To avoid her continuing to bolt to her "safe zones" (which is away from pressure, be it a smack on the butt or verbally correcting her), we make her stay with the pressure (in the same area as we are) for a short "time out" period. So that being said, when she gets into trouble, we bring her to our side and put her into a "sit" position. For example, we catch her chewing on the sofa leg. We correct her, then bring her to our front or side (if we are sitting in the chair for example), put her in "sit", and have her hold that for a brief period so she is not allowed to "bolt" to her “safe zone”. We look at her and talk to her normally, but we don't pet her. After this short "time-out", she has essentially forgotten about bolting. Our philosophy with this is we aren't providing her a way out and setting her up for failure by essentially allowing her to "bolt" to a safe zone (outside or her kennel), then several months from now attempting to undo that behavioral pattern we created for her. If we make her face us when she is in trouble, and show her she is still "secure", then we will have a happy and unconfused puppy when she gets older.

Fun Bumpers

- We play "fetch" with her in the back yard, but we started saying "fetch" when she is going after the object. This will help set her up for forced-fetch later on. When we start to really train her on the retrieving aspect, we will release her on "Kyla", but we also need to use the command "fetch". So it would be toss the bumper, release her on "Kyla", and as she is going after the object, it is "Fetch Kyla", "Fetch"!! When we do a couple "formal" retrieves, a bumper boy makes short tosses, and on a couple of them, we hold her the entire time and have the bumper boy pick up the bumper after it is tossed and walk the bumper boy walks back to the throwing position. We keep her in the "sit", and continue to tell her "sit" when the bumper boy is picking up the bumper. This will help with "honors" later on in the training.

Submission and Biting

We put her in the submission position several times a day. If she gets crazy and starts snapping/biting, we smack her on the bottom of the jaw and command "Leave It". She will want to pout after wards, and then you do the "de-bolting" as discussed above.

We have been using this “formal” training philosophy for a week now, and she appears to be responding very nicely (prior to this we trained on sit, kennel, here, but not “formally”). Some days are better than others, but our expectation is such that we know she is going to have good and bad days! We actually have applied very little pressure due to her being extremely intelligent (and young of course).

We are going to be introducing StickMan Drills in the next few weeks, which will be very exciting!!!

This training philosophy is mostly SmartWorks, but there are other training philosophies embedded in it. It is mostly basic OB, with a little added to it. All the dogs I have previously trained were German Shepherds, and I find the Chesapeake mentality to be very similar. We will post updates and pics in the future!

Cheers!
JD & Carolyn

HI JD,

Welcome. Nice looking pup. Post up some pics.

Are you the JD that the group ofhunters from Michigan met in Clay Center, Nebraska this spring after the Snow Geese?

Elbert

Nope, not the same JD! My wife Carolyn posted some pics in the Chat Forum under Carolyn's Coon Creek Kyla.

Cheers!
jd