Loot was supposed to have another novice obedience attempt today. We had been working really hard on his stay around dogs, with lots of practice on sitting with his back to the agility ring, sitting by people, and as much as I could with sitting by another dog. But not as much as I'd like with other dogs. On Friday I had opportunity to have him do a stay by a new dog and he was quite stressed. Doing his best to sit but obviously not the happy emotions Iove been trying to build.
I decided not to show him in novice this weekend due to that. It crushed me as I just want to be done with novice! But even if he held the stay I don't want to risk making the issue bigger.
Unfortunately we are still battling "the gate incident" from last January. Made huge progress until September when we were sent back to almost square one.
It feels like it's a mountain of work to build him back up, only for one "small" thing crumble it back down.
So anyway, I emailed the trial secretary to "move up" to graduate novice as that has zero prerequisites! "Baby Open!" Which the retrieves are weirdly harder than open...
And we crammed in sessions all week with the take-hold- as I walk away retrieve exercises!
But it paid off! Loot was very happy on Saturday, doing his best heeling in a trial to date, with one weird startle at a noise but instant recovery. And he did the 2 weird retrieves! Granted the hold- then recall over the jump was the backup plan I had also worked on this week of having him pick it up from his feet if he dropped it.
Should You Toss Cookies If You Have a Distractable Dog?
In case you've missed it, I have a Ring Confidence training group on Facebook! Here is one of the posts this last month.
Do cookie tosses lead to more sniffing?! Spoiler alert- no! But there are a few rules I follow! One "rule" is teaching the dog a pattern of running out for he cookie and running right back to me. I can use that expectation to judge how distracted the dog is based on whether they can do that pattern in all different directions! Click to see the post
Getting the Most Out of Runthroughs
Quick link here to a blog I wrote on how to get the most out of run throughs and matches!
I don't think it is surprising that I don't handle matches like a trial and go through the course or all the exercises!
I want to set my dog up to practice all the "trial prep" pieces I've trained for at home and different environments, and reward heavily in this setting!! Show them that they can do it here too, and get a party!
We talk a lot more about this in Ring Confidence class too!
November Training Videos
Here are 9 videos from the past month's daily uploads of training. Just click on the picture to be taken to tiktok. (And if you prefer the unedited versions, head to facebook or instagram!) I hope these videos give you some helpful tips to try or inspire you to train something new!
Before the weather got awful, I was working on marking skills on the agility startline. More international type courses are benefitting from that skill!
I am currently retraining Ginny's go out to have her nose touch the right side of the stanchion, not the left. Mainly as an experiment to see if it lessens the arch she wants to take on her run out to the go out spot. She acts more like a border collie than Loot does!
Battling forging? I'm teaching both Loot and Ginny 2 new reward marker cues. A food one, "tush", for backing up and delivering behind me. My biggest concern with this one is that it might cause him to crab out so I'm really focused on having him straight as he backs and as I feed. (And the 2nd one I'm teaching is "flip"- which is the spin left to get it at my right side like he does with food on "behind", but flip means toy)
Grace is working on pre-cues for pivoting left and right! Trying to make it a game as well as prepare her for which way she is going next!
Here Ginny is working on her agiltity trial routine!
Freya cat is starting a backward circle trick! I'm using a rear foot target and her pivoting skills to get her started!
Grace is working on her drop on recall and learning to backup on "lie" to, in theory, have a fast lie down. I'm elongating my "lie" cue right now!
Loot is learning a "bump" in heel, or a mini sit pretty. Goal is to have this as an option for a short delay in heel position if I think he needs a quick movement release, but not get him out of the sit.
Grace had a big distraction moment in this session. I at first think she's worked through it, but then take a longer break when I realize she needed more time! Watch how I work through it:
Current December Classes
Class is starting!! Still a few working spots in open, and auditing available in Ring Confidence!
My favorite class! Teach your dog exactly what to expect at each point in a trial- from the moment you arrive to the moment you exit the ring and reward them.
Knowing what to expect greatly lowers anxiety for both people and dogs!
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Obedience can be fun!! Even if you are just starting your journey and think that getting past novice sounds like a pipedream, you want to start this class! Get unstuck from the boring stuff in novice and start teaching your dog (and you!) just how joyful obedience can actually 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!
