Hi, I'm Laura, a dog sports enthusiast and online coach! I train and compete in obedience, rally, and agility. I am passionate about building motivation and focus in dogs that struggle in training or trials. Follow me on social media for daily training videos of my dogs and cat! And please hit the subscribe button to my newsletter to keep in touch!
Ditch the platform and teach fancy front pivots
Hey Reader!, This last week I did a daily training challenge of working fronts with my crew- 3 dogs and the cat. Arlo and Freya were new. Ginny has fronts that (usually) make me feel like I know what I'm doing. And since this fall, Loot at least no longer melts and thinks fronts are a horribly tricky exercise anymore. But he still needs a lot of work! As I was helping those who posted along with me, I decided that a blog post was necessary! So many people work on front platforms but struggle to get rid of it. And admittedly I don't have the skills to help them fade the platform either! That's because I do very little work with sit platforms in my training. Platforms can be a great tool, but I do best when doing more active training to show the dog what I want. And that means front pivots. A pivot perch helps the dog be close and tells them it's a rear-end exercise. But it doesn't 100% structure them to be right. I know that as trainers we love structure!! So I break down the skill of pivoting in front. I want a high rate of success, but I also want that thinking dog in a way that using a platform doesn't get me. Ditch the Platform & Teach Fancy Front Pivots
February ClassMy Novice prep class starts February 1st, I'd love if you would join us! Gold spots are full, but still room to join us at silver or bronze! Upcoming Workshop!I'm bringing back out my marking workshop! The skill of looking straight ahead before sending is needed in 2 obedience exercises: go outs and directed retrieves (gloves). But it's often used in agility at the startline too! Save the date for registration 2/22, with the workshop released March 10th! Tandem Dog Sports |
Laura Waudby
Hi, I'm Laura, a dog sports enthusiast and online coach! I train and compete in obedience, rally, and agility. I am passionate about building motivation and focus in dogs that struggle in training or trials. Follow me on social media for daily training videos of my dogs and cat! And please hit the subscribe button to my newsletter to keep in touch!
June is always a big change with the kids being out of school, and now this summer I have a new puppy! Ravioli is shaping up to a be a relatively easy puppy, although we are still working on crate and xpen quietness! Making huge progress when he knows we're home. Not so much when he thinks he's alone. So far cuddling and toys rank very high on his favorite list. Food not so much. But as of right now he is doing a better job of going from a short amount of food training to toy play and then...
How Does the Dog Know if They're Wrong? I wrote a blog! This one is on how does the dog know they're wrong?I reward error a ton in my training. I often refer to them as Pity Cookies! My priority is that the dog stays in the game and wants to keep trying. Sometimes after an error I need to interrupt if it's part of a chain. But I try to make it playful and don't really care if the dog knows if they're wrong or not! I am not aiming for errorless and I don't panic when they happen. I keep...
Yes a new puppy!! Ravioli, or Ravi for short, is a sighthound called a Windsprite. Why a windsprite? I had been crushing on Koolies, and some herding dog mixes but realized that it wasn't the right time in my family's life to add more oomph to our house. My household is "a lot" right now with the kids, and Loot already struggles with it at the intense times. And even a playful lab or golden is a bit too much. Vaughn was a great foster and wasn't bothered at all by the kids, but he was also...