Cooper

We were very excited to go down and see Cooper this past Saturday, it has been a long 3 months without him. The trainer had loaded up his trailer with 19 dogs that morning, although we didnt see Cooper go in, we were pretty sure he was in there as the trainer, Butch, knew we were his owners and there to watch him work and talk about his training to date.

We watched black lab after black lab after black lab (and so on) work for most of the morning. The dogs sit in their kennel on the trailer until it is time to work, come out and do their job, then go back in the kennel so Butch can work the next dog. Of 19 dogs, 17 were labs and 15 of those labs were black! The 2 non-lab dogs were Cooper and Molly..

Here is Molly, she is 1/2 sister to Cooper and owned by Elroy (who owns Earl, who is Coopers daddy). She is 2 and a very pretty little girl, very dainty like.
Finally after hours and hours of watching the other dogs work, Cooper was brought out. He hardly looked the same to me, his coat has changed A LOT! As you can see from this picture, it is a lot curlier than when we dropped him off (but I love it!).
It was 85 degrees that afternoon.. and we were excited to watch our dog work. After watching the other dogs retrieve their 2 or 3 birds and the dummy, we had high expectations for Cooper. Butch set him up for 3 retrieves I think it was, as he approached the first duck (in a really slow, lazy fashion) he hunkered over the duck, a little reluctant to pick it up. We realized he was pawing at the duck to roll it over so he could grab the softer belly side of the bird!
He looked very proud as he carried his first duck back to Butch!
I could look at pics of our Cooper all day long, he's just so beautiful holding that bird!!!
Cooper slowly trotted out to retrieve his second bird and managed to carry it back to Butch, no problem. He seemed to be a little lazy and uninspired to work that day.
Cooper's desire to work was going downhill, quickly! After he retrieved his first 2 ducks and was supposed to be on his way to retrieve the 3rd, Cooper decided he was done for the day and bolted back to the kennels which were a hundred or so yards away.. Butch snagged the 4 wheeler and chased after him, bringing him back to work. He set Cooper up to retrieve a dummy, inwhich Cooper reluctantly did so. After that retrieve, Butch was attemping to set him up for another dummy retrieve, Cooper here is getting a little lecture on behaving at this point. :)
After Coopers 2nd bolt back to the kennels, Butch took the 4 wheeler again to go get him and brought him back, placed him behind the blind where Cooper is supposed to "stay" and wait for instruction. Cooper thought it was funner to ignore Butch and sneak out behind his back! lol

Look at him hunched down, practically crawling out with both eyes up on Butch..
After attemping to once again get Cooper to go out and retrieve the dummy, Cooper bolted a 3rd time back to the kennels. Now imagine you are his owner.. imagine our horror as our dog is the ONLY dog to bolt like this, of 19 dogs! To realize you have no say in what is going on, to know your dog is pushing through his shock collar and just out-right not listening.

I was sad at this point, dissappointed that Cooper did not look happy. I started to question why we were putting him through this if he wasnt enjoying himself. After the 3rd escape attempt, Butch realized Cooper was HOT and when he was up at the kennels, he hosed him off, brought him back down and put him back in the trailer to sit for a while and cool down.
45 minutes later, he brought Cooper back out to work, as you have to end on a good note. Cooper retrieved 2 more dummies without any more problems or bolting episodes and he did look happy doing so!
We left that day unable to pet our dog or give him praise, just had to watch it all unfold. Cooper is very smart, we could see he knew where all his "marks" were at, which means he knew exactly where the ducks or dummies were at, he just didnt feel like working on Saturday. Blame it on the heat, not sure. Butch indicated that it was NOT a good representation of Cooper's abilities and that just a few days earlier he was doing triple retrieves with one being 100 yards away no problem.

We really want to get Cooper home at this point. We feel he has learned what he needs to learn from Butch and Butch has done a GREAT job with him. Our dog is healthy and as happy as a dog in training can be. But Cooper now needs the one on one time with Derek. He needs to remember his passion for retrieving simply because he loves Derek enough to do it. Cooper is probably a little bored and tired of retrieving for what Cooper would see as just this trainer guy who doesnt love him! When he retrieves for Derek, he will get TONS and TONS of praise and petting, something the trainer doesnt do. Cooper loves to retrieve for Derek and he just needs the time to remember that! Butch did tell us that this happens, the dogs will almost always work better for their owner because there is that special bond and love between man/dog that he just cant duplicate.

One other area we have work to do, is on the water! Cooper has not had a positive water experience is how the trainer phrases it. Cooper loved water at our house, but has yet to love water with Butch. But to be fair, Butch's expectations is for Cooper to run off a ledge and JUMP into the water. We need to take Cooper back to baby steps and get him to love just running and playing in shallow water, and work him up to swimming and then we can work on teaching him to jump in the water. We have a lot of work to do, but are looking forward to it.

I think I am most excited to just grab Cooper and hug him. I miss that little guy and I know he will be more than happy to get back to his old ways of doing whatever it takes to please us type attitude! 3 more days and he'll be home :)