I just had a great call with Bertha, she has a fabulous Aspen and Karu daughter named Meisha. Bertha is an experienced dog handler, but she has her hands full right now with Meisha. She is a high energy very intelligent and active pup. She is around that 5 month mark and is learning fast, but some things that Bertha and I discussed and it was a great conversation, I’ll cover some of those things.

Bertha mentioned she has to be firm, but not firm so as to quell the spirit in Meisha. She trains with positive methods so this takes repetition.

Repetition is required in all aspects, but with a high energy pup, pure hunt lineage dog like Meisha, some energy needs to be spent before training really begins. So a trip to a fenced large run area about a mile long is what is utilized. Meisha can burn off a ton of energy and in this time frame Bertha is able to utilize and train hand signs. She is beyond the range of sound really, so hand signs are perfect. Each time they go, Meisha becomes better and better at hand signs, one of which is to come “By Me” in a sign.

We discussed things like using the same sign till it’s solid. Also, not to overdue the use. 2 to 3 times in a session.

Also discussed was the fact that after the session to “Go Adventure Walking”, trails, different areas, etc. Not just straight home. This then does not leave a bad taste for coming to Bertha with the sign, as there is more adventure planned, Meisha then looks forward to coming, rather than staying away.

Door greeting when guests come, meeting people on the trail, all of the mat training aspects, geographical awareness aspects of the neighborhood and area. All of these we discussed. There were some frustrations of course that we discussed that Bertha and Meisha are facing, we discussed ways to over come them.

One aspect of training with a pup is the repetition. Without a fairly steady repetition it takes a long time to learn a measured behavior and skill. I mentioned to Bertha to “enlist” her friends to help with the door greeting. Literally get them coming over knowing full well that Meisha will be “In Training” when they arrive and quite honestly that the goal of them coming besides friendship is to help train. Without a steady stream of folks coming to the door so that Bertha can gauge, temper, and train Meisha, it would be forever getting her in a suitable state. But by enlisting friends to drop by for a coffee, tea, biscuit etc. Meisha would experience much faster exposure and ideally learn the desired behavior that Bertha looks for in her much faster.

Greeting people on the trail the same aspects can be utilized. To learn good meet and greet skills on the trail you literally have to “meet and greet” good people with good dogs. So simply asking them to help train is a great feature. It’s not like they have to help forever, in a few weeks of a few meets each week, a very suitable outcome can be achieved.

But if you only meet random people, at random times long intervals between, it’s difficult, so simply encourage friends with good dogs to let you know when they are going on a trail and make your plans to be on that trail and work with them to meet and greet. It’s a super way to get better skills fast.

Bertha is going to stay in closer contact as she is in her “Intensive training timeframe” now with Meisha. I can encourage and share ideas, she can bounce things off me as well, share with me what she is learning and note the progress and milestones she is reaching.

She is very pleased with the abilities and intelligence of Meisha, her mat training is excellent, there are many aspects of the training coming along fabulous. The sign signal work at distance is going awesome. Trail work is very good already. So the progress is fabulous so far and I am very proud of Meisha and truly appreciate all the effort Bertha is putting forth.

A highly skilled, very mannered and balanced mature dog does not just happen. It takes that initial time as a pup to build the skills and utilize the instincts and behavior of the pup. Bertha is of course training one of the highest hunt instinct pups in the world. So she understands that she has to incorporate the instinct behaviors when on the trails and distance areas. So hats off to Bertha for doing such a great job. Haha, we laughed, Bertha is now walking at minimum 2 hours a day and more, she is active has to stay sharp, she is going to be living way longer now with Meisha there to accompany her and to keep her active training and mentoring her great Elkhound.

As I have said many times, the Swedes did a study, they found that folks that had a dog lived 30% longer, and folks that had a hunting dog lived 40% longer. Well, believe me when you have a ultra sharp, superior hunting dog, you will live 50% longer, haha. That 50% was not part of the study, that is simply my observation. So if you want to live a very healthy long life, get a Kamia Kennels Elkhound!

Beautiful pups just like Meisha are coming soon from Willow, who is the sister to Aspen mother of Meisha. Willow also was bred to Karu, so they are very close genetically to Meisha. Contact us if you wish to have one of these stunning, incredible gifted working Norwegian Elkhounds.