Thank you Dru - A Whole Day of Lure Fun for Everyone

A very big thank you to Dru from the US who donated a brand new lure machine when our last one broke. It was just when we’d cancelled day care to focus our resources on the shelter dogs in our care and it wasn’t something we could replace straight away. But Dru had it ordered for us within a day of seeing that it had died.

It has just been delivered and with Jason here we got it out for the whole day for training value and fun for everyone.

The lure machine is a big part of the farm. Not only does the pack love to play the game, like really really love it … it is a really big part of our training schedule. We use it for the high level distraction testing.

Luke’s been using the quad bike and manually running the lure pole across their boundary training exercises, but the lure course is that next level.

It’s how we trained Freddo and Yoyo and the rest of the original crew. They learn to listen and respond no matter how attractive something else can be.

Luke talks about a moment here at the farm that tested in real life the distraction training and prevented injury.

As expected, Nevaeh found it the most difficult, but she still progressed and achieved the exercise, it just took her a lot of go’s. But this kind of training is MOST important for a dog like Nevaeh.

Chance and Rosco learnt after their first mistake. Molly wasn’t distracted by the lure at all. She is listening and responding even when faced with Nevaeh who she couldn’t dislike more.

After the training sessions, we ran it out for the house and holiday pack before breaking for a late lunch and pool session and then getting out there again for Hope and Faith. I haven’t put this video together yet, but it’s on its way.

This new machine is special it can do a ‘continuous loop’. It’s an awesome course for just one dog or two, you don’t need to keep setting it up and running it out. But we show how a continuous course doesn’t work for a pack of dogs. Which is why we don’t use it during day care. We use a ‘drag’ course and Luke controls the speed so that everyone gets a good go in the pack. NB this machine does both.

This is quite a long video, it would have been even longer with the afternoon session. It might not be for everyone, but there is a lot of information shared in this video for those that are interested in some training tips and lure coursing.

Again a very big thank you to Dru. This is a very generous gift. We wanted to show how much we use it in thanks to you Dru, especially for the shelter dogs and their training progress.

We all had a moment today where we felt very very grateful to be able to dedicate this kind of invaluable time and training with experienced trainers to the shelter dogs. I know if these dogs could talk they’d express their thanks too to you Dru and everyone supporting us.

Also thanks to Bull X Pro Training for making these great machines and for organising this special one in particular for us.