Ginny went to the Midwest Cup this June. This is a hard trial for her, as it's loud in multiple rings, but she truly did quite well and even managed to sneak on the podium in the biathlon!
Ravioli's still going through diet changes to try and help him feel ok. It makes training pretty darn limited as he often doesn't feel up to it, even using toys. I made this post on Facebook for a general update
And Loot will be doing a local agility trial this weekend. His first time back trialing at this facility in a good year and a half. It's a little bit harder to give him space away from barking dogs here, but fingers crossed he's ready for it based upon how well he did at the bigger classic event at the other facility!
Should You Keep Trialing?
In case you've missed it, I have a Ring Confidence training group on Facebook! Here are a few posts from the last month.
This post looked at using magnet hand to help your "loopy training" goals in practice. It prevents the dog from practicing junk behaviors during the time in between reps! click to read
This post looked at Loot box feeding and a clip of him using it at his May agility trial. Click to read.
This post looked back at training marker cue discrimination to help your dog understand your verbal cues, and it's seriously the number one skill that I wish everybody would teach their dog! Click to read
And this post looked at the assumption that trialing where we train is automatically going to be easier. Click to read.
June Training Videos
Here are 9 videos from the past month's daily uploads of training. Just click on the picture to be taken to youtube. (And if you prefer the non-music versions, head to facebook or instagram!) I hope these videos give you some helpful tips to try or inspire you to train something new!
Ginny's soft side weave pole entry at greater than 90 degrees broke this winter, and so we spent most of our training sessions working on splitting out the entry. Still a work in progress. But this video seemed to have made some people upset because I was clicking the entry and then letting Ginny pop out to get a toy thrown behind her!
Apollo has been here for a month and has come a long way! This is one of his very early sessions, training in my yard, where I'm focusing on giving him cues to go sniff and cues for when he can keep working. Goal is to keep him engaged between multiple treats and then give him a cue to check out before he does on his own.
Apollo also needed his retrieve retrained, so we've worked hard on getting him to have a tight grip of the dumbbell. It's been quite a bit of problem solving, but this tug away method seems to be what is helping him.
And of course, the number one thing I teach any sport dog is marker cue discrimination. I think this is incredibly helpful in teaching them that our words have meaning and that they can't just stare at the rewards!
Ravi is working on his 4-on position for the teeter. I'm looking for him to drive to the end of the board and weight shift back courtesy Liz Randall's fun teeter training program.
Ginny is working on her ROH, and I found that when the dumbbell landed pretty close to the jump, she would not take it if it was at a bigger angle. I started replicating this by setting the dumbbell up in front of her having her face away from the jump.
Are you new to teaching pivoting skills? Reward placement is huge! This was one of Apollo's first lessons.
Loot is still doing some jump mat training to help him on his slices. It's huge that he's looking so confident with a 4-foot bar!
Pop stand in heel! Ginny was starting to get a bit crooked, so I added in a rear foot target to help her stay back.
Upcoming August Classes
Registration opens July 22nd, mark your calendar now so you don't miss out!
My favorite class! If your dog enters the ring and their nose can't come off the ground, or they need to run zoomies and visit each person in the ring then you need this class!
Teach routines that lower anxiety- from the moment you arrive to the moment you exit the ring and reward them! Find the joy in your training and in trials too!
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Fancy pivots, pretty position changes, backing up, scent articles, go outs and more! No prerequisites. Learn how much fun obedience foundations can be!
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Follow me on the social media platform of your choice to try and catch all my daily training videos. I hope they inspire you to try something fun with your dog! And join my free facebook group on building ring confidence for dog sports!
