Training People - I have cooked for the dog will it work.

[Lizcat]

So mobile mop is doing well at agility just the last couple of weeks he has got over excited and run off and jumped every jump in the building not just the ones on our course.
So I found the recipe for Liver Cake which I believe is the Holy Grail of treats for dog training, I have baked it (DH thinks I have gone mad), it looks like bread. Mobile mop thinks it's delicious - he only had the smallest corner. Is it going to make me more interesting than all those other jumps?

Depends on your dog. Liver cakes was a massive fail for Devil Dog. Most foods do not interest the Devil Dog more than strange dogs and the outside world. He'll work brilliantly for them in the house, but is not interested outside.

Mature chedder gets his attention and I'm going to try making some sardine cake soon (the same as liver cakes but with tinned sardines instead of liver).

I tried mature cheddar last week, it might as well have been cardboard. I don't think I will be allowed to make sardine cake, DH hates the smell of fish so cooking sardines is divorce territory.

Well, my collie pup LOVES liver cake but not as much as she loves chasing pidgeons, squirrels, leaves, litter etc., etc.

Fantastic that mobile mop is enjoying agility! Collie pup and I are on the waiting list for the Beginners course at Trent Park. She is only 7 mos. though, so can't start until the New Year.

My lab will do literally anything for liver cake. In fact I can't take it to agility because he wont leave my side, just spends his whole time doing his trick repertoire, high fives, rolling over, walking backwards - he looks crazy! Sardine/tuna cake does the same. Hotdogs seem to be a good middle ground for us, still stinky and delicious but don't incite bizarre behaviour!

Oh and if liver cake is a hit, definitely try tuna cake because it hardly smells at all during cooking, liver and sardines have me wretching for hours afterwards!

Mine also find livercake very boring after a while.

The Fish4dogs sardine kibble keeps them very interested, even though it's not a 'treat', it's very smelly. Even the normal Fish4dogs kibble works better than most training treats.

Other than that I find small pieces of salami a bit messy but the best treat for keeping interest.

Hot dogs work for my dog (or those pre-cooked cocktail sausages). I'm too fucking lazy to cook and the idea of liver cake... boak. Yes I can deal with the creature that munches rabbit poo, regards vomit as an opportunity to relive the joy of breakfast for a second time etc etc... but liver... fuck god no I have some standards!

emptyshell when I have cooked liver cake I have asked my butcher to cut it into bite sized pieces which then get tipped straight from the bag (which is carried home by dd1 ) into the blender because I cannot stand to touch it.

Poo is fine. I can clean poo up. I deal with vomit. I can clean the cats litter tray. I can't touch liver

It is interesting what Mobilemop is doing Lizcat. It may be frustration as well. He is beginning to realise what he has to do and you may by now be doing slightly harder exercises. Watch when he does his zoomies? Is it after he has been corrected (eg usually the handler does something unclear and stops to redirect the dog) is it when he gets to a particular exercise , some dogs love to do zoomies before the weaves as they can just be soo difficult!, Is it the first run of the night or is it near the end or neither.

I expect you will work through it but maybe go back a step to slightly more straightforward exercises.

Zoomies happen mainly as a result of the handler hesitating before indicating the next obstacle. So yes it is completely handler failure as normal.
However, the purpose is to get him back when the Zommies happen, because once he has left me everyone else is more interesting. Early trials with the liver cake choice between cat in garden and liver cake and liver won so hopefully.

As he gets more experienced he will "go on" more and the zoomies will become less.

Mine will do back flips and anything for liver cake or even better sardine cake but that really stinks!

Zombies?

Aahh - zoomies!

Must read posts more carefully!

Here's another poster who must read more carefully. At first I thought the OP read 'I have cooked the dog'!

Has anyone got the number of Specsavers please? :o

We have back tracked a little and things are improving. The first few runs I keep him on the lead and when call his name after each jump and tweek the lead if he does not look at me and then he does look a good boy and then on with liver cake at the end of the round. We had one Zoomie off the lead after that, but that was right at the end. So yes liver cake seems to be working.