How I'm Training Star

This is always how our training sessions end, with a lot of playtime. For Star, this is very motivational, she knows good things happen when we are finished with training. She has lost almost all of her baby teeth now, so we keep the pulling and tugging down now compared to when she was 3-4 months old. Found a canine tooth embedded in the bite rag when we finished this session, so I'm going to back off a bit on this type of playing for the next couple of months.

I've got to talk a bit about Star's developing personality, because it's just so amazing. She has such an enthusiasm and happy attitude towards everything she does, it is is a joy to be around her, although at six in the morning it can be a bit overwhelming. She has the boundless energy I expected from her pedigree but I did not expect such a dynamic personality to match. She is an exceedingly happy dog, loves to train, loves to play, just loves life and she still thinks she's a lap dog! Star has perfected the "Doberman Lean", she likes physical contact with me and my wife whenever she can get it. Whenever we sit in our chairs to read, we know she'll be leaning on one of us.

Star has been with us for 3 months now and has been everything we were hoping for. She didn't replace Karma, she created her own place in our heart.

Star's training has been developing pretty much as I expected, she's soaking up knowledge like a sponge. Much of her training has taken place in the house or in the basement, to avoid outside distractions. Lots of butterflies, cicadas, birds, etc. around this time of year, so it can be very difficult for her to stay focused on a "wait" or "come" command when we are outside. When we first start, a heavy truck from the power company gets stuck trying to turn around in the road, causing a bunch of sounds and activity that are exceedingly rare up where we live. This made things a whole lot worse for her concentration but with a bit of patience, we worked through it.

We've recently began training using only hand signals, so this was a great opportunity to utilize them in an environment full of distractions, where they would be most useful and needed. Around the 3:50 mark, you can actually watch her thought process as she tries to determine what I want her to do and then tries several things to read my body language in order to figure it out.

At the end of the video you'll notice that no matter how well trained a Doberman may be, when nature calls, that takes priority over everything else! We always end on a positive note and I let her bury her face and eat everything remaining in the treat pouch. Then its play time with her toys.

With as much energy and enthusiasm as Star has, it's been a bit of a challenge to train her to heel. She does pretty well inside but once we get outside, there are just too many new things to experience and explore! Why heel beside me when she can chase birds and butterflies? I've found she does best after we practice our basic obediance routine, then play with the flirt pole and bite rag, and then chase the ball for a while.

Not only is a tired Doberman a happy Doberman, it makes them a bit more receptive to heeling as well.

A couple of days after our encounter with the bear cub, one of the outside security cameras caught this Mama and her cubs coming up our driveway. I can almost guarantee these were the bears Star and I encountered back on the logging road. Even though they look cute and cuddly, Mama would get exceptionally fierce if she felt one of her cubs were threatened. Living up here deep in the mountains requires us to be situationally aware of our environment, even when we're just going out for a walk in the woods.

This video came from a GoPro that I mistakenly set at a 4k recording rate and my 10 year old computer and 5 year old version of Adobe Premier just can't handle processing that many frames, so that's why this video looks like it's fast motion. I will remember to set it at the standard 1080 HD frame rate next time.

Star and I were pretty far up on the logging road and she was pulling on the leash like a Clydesdale when I could tell she started getting a bit tentative. Notice her look at the 4 second mark? I'd never seen this look on her face before, so I started scouting for copperheads or rattlesnakes. At the 14 second mark you can see her fur standing up and she started to really lag behind me, which she never does on leash. Though it's a bit difficult to see, at the 19 second mark you can see a small bear cub between the two trees. Now we get bears back up in here all the time but seeing this little bitty cub put the fear of God in me and it traveled right down the leash to Star.

With cubs this small, Mama is always very close by, even though I never saw her. I'm very aware of what can happen in this situation, so as you can see, we do an about face and get the Hell out of there. Even though I had bear repellant with me, I did not have my shotgun or rifle because this area is now a state park, so I felt particularly vulnerable, especially with Star being so young and on a leash. She responded exactly how I wanted her to! Had she charged at the cub or started barking, there would have been an ugly confrontation. We lost Auggie, our first Doberman back in the mid 80's, to a bear confrontation so I know how this could have ended. Star handled herself in the most intelligent way she could have. She has learned the most valuable lesson she can to survive up here in the mountains.

Star is now 4 months old.

Tearing down the hallway at 6:00 AM, Star doesn't yet realize we are not morning people up here on the mountain. She has this much enthusiasm with everything she does. She is such a happy and energetic puppy, it is such a joy to train her!

I want to work with Star a bit on scent detection, since her Dad Wapi works in a correctional facility detecting narcotics and cell phones. I decided to use her favorite treats, Bil-Jac chicken, to see if she could track where I put them. This is our basement where I do her training and to separate the scent training from the obedience training we do there, I keep the leash on during scent and off during obedience. This video is only her third scent training session and as you can see, she absolutely loves to work at finding her treats! I apologize for the "Blair Witch Project" type video, I've got a GoPro on order that should make things a bit better for moving videos as her training progresses.

We've completed a week of formal training and I could not be more impressed with how fast Star is learning. After almost 6 months of watching Michael Ellis, Robert Cabral and Stonnie Dennis training videos and reading more dog training books and articles than I can remember, it feels good to actually put training concepts into practice. You can see the results of these methods even in this early stage of Star's training. Ed Frawley of leerburg.com introduced me to Marker training in 2006 when I got Karma and it is the most effective method of dog training I've ever used.

Star is now 10 weeks old.

Playing hide and seek with her big sister Chaos

Star the Doberman just joined our family and for the first week or two there will be no formal training, just bonding and having fun with her older sister Chaos. This is the "home movie" I sent breeders to demonstrate my experience with Dobermans and other high drive dogs in a family environment.