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TRAINING

In few words
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Offspring

I was asked to tell you about my training. Now that's a difficult thing. Not so easy to remember how it all happened, day by day. Wait a second... I know. The actual training started at the dogs' kindergarten. Before we come to that, though, I will say what had happened before.

As soon as my quarantine was over I became a full-time employee at my master's company. Every day they would drive me to an office block where I would meet quite a few nice people sitting at their desks. The worst problem was peeing. I had to make clear soon enough that I wanted to go out to the grass but sometimes I would pee right in front of the building, on the pavement; in such cases my owners always showed perfect understanding. I always wanted to play around with everybody and while doing that I liked to gently bite them - maser and mistress said playing was OK but without biting. I then grew especially fond of my owners' car, the boot was all mine (that is, until they started putting this huge pram into MY boot). The worst thing at work was that large red car in the square nearby and a man in a blue uniform who would always come with a bag full of papers - all the smells he gave off kept making me dizzy. The best thing was everybody loving me, stroking, scratching my back and giving me affectionate hugs. It all ended when my mistress got a big belly and stopped going to work - so did I.


Dog kindergarten

I was barely six months old when my master and mistress took me to that big me ... There were many dogs out there, most of them a little older than me, but I met my brother, too, and I felt safer at once. Luckily they all thought about playing mostly, some of them eagerly landed themselves up in a ditch at the edge of the meadow. It was great fun when their owners couldn't take them out of there! Personally I never liked that ditch - it was dirty, wet and stinking. In this kindergarten we were taught how to get on with our owners and understand what they wanted from us. Most of all, however, we learned to have good fun in our own company, without any rows. We had a great time there.. I liked it, too, that it was always the whole family who went to these trainings and we took our exercises together, too. I was going to the kindergarten for two months. Then we went away for holidays and when we returned master and mistress said: 'The party's over. Time to go to school!'

At first I thought it was just blah. The same meadow, the same lady in front of us, usually the old friends from kindergarten.But soon it turned out that there were other things that had
changed. No more lingering over the heel command. 'Down' meant now I had to lie straight and right at the leg, not on the back for instance; and when
the lady said 'stay' there could be no more sniffing at the flowers nor checking out whether Hoover's mistress had the same delicious snacks as ever. Then a strange short stick appeared, thinner in the middle,
quite thick at the ends. They called it 'apport'and said it was not a new toy so we had to bring it to the owners as quickly as we could and give it back right
away. Now what fun is that? Everybody knows tugging is the best fun in the world. To make things worse, we started getting homework. From now on
learning obedience became a major part of our everyday walks.

PT Exam

When autumn came my owners wished for me to confirm my skills
with a PT exam (Companion Dog). We went to another meadow, near the airport, and there were many more dogs there than in a usual training. Almost as
many as on my first exhibition. There was this man, too, who looked very grim; he was supposed to assess my skills. As the exam had started I first had an
opportunity to look at other dogs' efforts. It wasn't until then that I had realised how stressful such a test could be. My master and mistress looked strangely
serious, they didn't smile as often as usual. When our turn had come it turned out I would be passing the exam along with a very good-looking Weimaraner.
I was the first to go so he had to stay on the side, all on his own, and patiently wait. In the meantime my owner and I started going along the track, first on the
leash, then without it.. I don't think I did really well as my master's leg would sometimes go
too far on the turns. Then my master called me to him - for some reason he showed it instead of calling out loud as he would usually do. I was surprised so
only when he repeated the command I quickly ran to him. Fetching went great as my master wore a broad smile all the time. I had earlier overheard that they
worried quite a lot about how I would do in this part. I couldn't let them down! I followed the down, sit and stand commands perfectly. I have no idea why
the judge was picky about that one little step after 'stand'. I don't understand what the condition of my teeth had to do with the obedience exam, either,
but he looked in there as well. At last I finished my part and changed places with the Weimaraner. Now I had to sit on my own, far away from my master, while the other dog showed off his qualities. There were so many flowers around me and they smelled so good but I had to be tough and stay still. After some time my master told me to change my position to down. All of a sudden the handsome Weimaraner ran up to me instead of retrieving as he was expected to and he tried to talk me into playing. I saw how terrified my master was and I knew I could not do it to him. I remained down and waited until they took the cutie away from me. At the end I got a beautiful diplomma and they told me I was the best! I had these five points taken off but I passed the exam with a perfect score nevertheless.

I am happy to say that once the exam was over there was no
more homework and we started doing really cool things. My owners would take me to a variety of new places where I learned to track lost objects and
hidden people. Unfortunately it did not last longer than a few weeks. A new occupant turned up; they called him Blazej and he turned our world upside down.
My master and mistress devoted most of the time to him and we were unable to go tracking so often anymore.

IPO course
One day we all went to that old familiar meadow again.
There were neither so many dogs nor the nice lady there, however, I met my brother and my grandpa as well as a man, unknown to me, with a
handful of cool things to gnaw. I liked the gnawing a lot and when the summer started my owners enrolled me to a new school. This was really serious business. Twice a week, three hours of labour. To begin with, tracking the objects dropped by my master in the grass, then an obedience training, finally my favourite gnawing. In the course of training I learned I would now be preparing for the working dog's IPO I trial. The homeworks were back as if those three hours were not enough. Hopefully it is about to finish soon now but I have already heard that after I pass that test a new training is about to come.
Actually, I am glad; I love any work with my dear master and mistress. 

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