Bit Of A Brag!

[Sayreovi]

Just had to have a brag for both my dogs in obedience training.

Nova i just couldnt get to drop on recall or do the dumbell retrieve today he did both perfectly!!

I was watching some U Tube videos where the dog was heeling, handler said drop, dog dropped while handler kept walking. Thought that it might get him to understand drop means drop where i say not crouch and drop at feet

So he caught on really quick and i was eventually jogging and he would drop straight away. So i tried it will a recall and he did it perfectly, stopped as soon as i said.

His retrieve was a bit harder as i accidently clicked ONCE when he pawed it and now he wouldnt do anything but run up and put a paw on it. Today it just seemed to click in his head, first go he went out picked it up came back, didnt sit on the first go but held until i took it off him. Second go he sat (i said too) so i am very proud of him!!

Plus i had set up my weavers and he was weaving really well on my right hand side (never taught him right hand side, always left because i was too unco)

Darcy i had problem with his retrieves, wouldnt sit on return, he would hold it for ages even heel with it, but i just couldnt get him too sit at all. Today like Nova it seemed to click, did it all perfectly without any hints from me. Finished on that but i am about to head back out and see if it was a fluke or not.

Argh so excited!!

Now if i can only get over my nerves i will be trialling soon enough

[Mushaka]

nice work..!!!

[laffi]

How did you teach them to drop when you are still moving?

[Sayreovi]

Really...no idea, alot of my training with Nova was alot of luck and him just seem to get what i want .

Pretty much i was telling him to wait after i dropped him which included a brief pause, after a few goes i was dropping him and not having to change the pace or adding a wait. I probably done it wrong, but he was having heaps of fun and was treating it as a different exercise and it didnt seem to confuse him with normal training as i was stopping and starting again with the heel command.

[helen]

Congratulations, nice when you get over some problems.

Bella wouldn't sit with the dumbell in her mouth to begin with either, she would drop it before sitting. I did some fun dumbell work with her while watching TV. I got her to sit a few times then threw the dumbell, pushed her into a sit position without saying sit to begin with, she got the idea pretty quickly

[Sayreovi]

Thanks

Turns out Darcys go was a fluke so i will try what you did Helen, he is very soft and will roll over if i try to get him to sit by touching him or if i get even a tiny little bit frustrated he tunes me out completely.....

Though had great fun teaching them the 'box' exercise today, something a bit different is what we need rather then the usual heeling stuff

Edited August 28, 2007 by tollersowned

[dogdude]

I used D. Bauman method on my last trialling dog for DOR.

Teach a basic recall over a series of low barriers, then when the dog is used to that, start dropping the dog randomly just before a barrier. It not only discourages slowing down before the drop zone, but they have to launch quickly to have the momentum to get over the barrier, encouraging a nice speedy secondry recall.

It is the only exercise in open that I have not taught Oscar yet because I havn't trialled him thus far.

I have not really seen the DOR taught like that, so I will be interested if there is any change when you change to distance signals.

[JulesP]

Well Brock is actually holding the dumbell now! I ended up letting him drop it and saying no as he dropped it. That seemed to give him the idea that he is supposed to have it in his mouth! My poor toes though! He is still rather peeved about the whole thing.

Drop on recall I taught with the dog running around the garden, basically would call out drop, sit etc. In the beginning you might have to call out wait or something so they realise it is wait and drop right there, not at my feet!

[Ptolomy]

DOR - try throwing some food or a toy - the dog will race out and get it as they turn around to come back to you - give a drop signal and a verbal and see what happens. Reward if they drop - this becomes a game and the dogs love it.

Does the dog know a drop signal from a distance. Have somebody hold the lead and you walk away about turn and give a drop signal and see what the dog does. If it goes down, run in and reward!!!

[Guest Clover]

Well done Natasha, keep up the great work . I am about to attmept training Clover to retrieve the dumbell again, i wonder if after 8 years of serious training she will 'get it' .

[Sayreovi]

I have not really seen the DOR taught like that, so I will be interested if there is any change when you change to distance signals.

Is there any changes you would expect to see?

He is fine with his distance signals, at the moment i am about 3 metres away and can get him to do all 3 positions from any position with either voice or signal, i am slowly moving back but i would like to know what possible snags i may run into before i do that.

Thanks for all the advice, these two guys are my first attempts at trialling/serious training so any advice is greatly appreciated. Really its going to be the 'simple' parts of an exercise like sitting with the dumbell that we will have problems with, they seem to really enjoy the harder work.

Ptolomy, thanks that might work for Darcy actually will give it a go tomorrow.

Good luck Clover, never too late

[Ptolomy]

What snags are you going to run into in teaching signals and moving back more than 3m.

The biggest snags you are going to encounter doing this with a toller is.......hmm where do I begin.....

Repetition - tollers - well all of mine don't do well with repetition they tend to think they have got it wrong and will start to throw different behaviours at me when all I wanted was a drop.

Then comes anticipation - before you know it they will start anticipating the drop or the sit or the come, so you go back to square 1 and reward each position inidivdually and start to put a longer interval in between each signal and to mix it up.

Then you get the blonde moments where they act like they have never seen the signal before in their entire life - this usually happens when you are trying to impress somebody!

Next is the moving sidways when they drop, or forwards when they sit up - ARGH - by this time you have taken up drinking red wine on a nightly basis to cope with the training sessions

I would be adding distractions at each stage - and I also wouldn't be getting stuck at a certain distance, but in fact mixing it up as much as possible.

I think I just about have a PhD on this subject (LOL)

[ness]

Hmm Ptolemy can tell you where my black and white toller fits on that schedule just over a week out from the royal in open and what was suppose to be her pretend debut at the mock trial the day after.

I think we are somewhere between 3 and 4. Since the last trial we scooted on our sit and we have been creeping on our drop BUT we are also having blonde moments where its mum I don't do no signals.

Hey tollersowned just wait till you start teaching scent - I hear Tollers (and B+W tollers aka Ness) have a number of variations on how NOT to do that exercise. .

Edited August 29, 2007 by ness

[dogdude]

Hi T.O

I really hope that you dont get any confusion at all, fingers crossed!

The reality though, with most dogs, is that they have a lot of trouble understanding that a second command cancels out the first. Up to date, this has not been an issue that the dog has had to deal with, so just be patient and take it slowly.

With what you are doing at this stage, it is like two sepperate exercises to the dog, but when you move to distance and you are assuming an exercise position already known to the dog (basic recall), then thats when confusion will probably set in.

The key again with this exercise is patience. As Ptolomy mentioned, your dog will slow down to anticipate the drop. If your dog has a good speedy basic recall, the speed will return when the dog has the confidence in your signals and consistency.

The D. Bauman method makes it a little easier on the dog to have the confidence as to when to drop.

If you use that method, only use one board to start with, breaking the exercise up into two sepperate exercises at first by walking up to the dog after the drop signal is given, and reward like hell, then add multiple boards using varying distances for the drop to build confidence and speed.

To get my dog to sit after retreive, I used a recall command as soon as the dog had the d/b in his mouth. He knew recall well, so automatically sat in front .

Also made sure his mind was on the job for the return. Later faded that out.

[Rom]

I taught the DOR in the triangle of temptation.

Note, Steve didn't suggest this so he'll probably be able to poke it full of holes

Imagine a triangle with dog on one point, me on the other and the food bowl on the 3rd. If I called her to me past the food, there was a point of slight resistance as she ran past the bowl...she wouldn't wash off any speed, just turn her head to look at it. Its at this point that I gave her the drop command.

Initially, I guess because of the speed that she was travelling at she'd almost make it all the way to me before she dropped. So, I knew she'd heard the command. She just had to figure that she was only going to earn the release if she dropped the instant she heard the command. I just run her back to the starting point and do it all over again. She had already learned that she never gets the release when she's looking at the bowl....so you could see her trying to figure out what I wanted.

I didn't practice this every day because I didn't want to wash off any speed in her recall...maybe once a week. It was going to be a while before we needed it in a trial anyways and I was kind of feeling my way through.

At each weekly session, it probably took 3 or 4 reps before she dropped at the right time. And when she did, I'd immediately mark and release her.

When she was solid at dropping right on time I started to mix it up a bit...Sometimes straight recall, sometimes drop and release, sometimes DOR and release after the front, and sometimes release after the finish. I didn't have a problem with her washing off speed in the recall...but initially a slight hesitation when I re-issued the recall after the drop. But it only took her a few moments to realise that she wasn't going to earn the release after the drop all the time and she'd still rocket in.

My only problem now is that she's coming in so fast on the recall that even though she's in the process of dropping as soon as I give her the command, it takes her 3 or 4 strides to actually be down all the way. But I don't think they mark you down for that....do they?

Interesting side note. During the initial stages of training this...she was just getting the hang of dropping on the run and wasn't really 100% at it yet, I was mowing one day and noticed a big paper wasp nest on the fence on the first run with the mower. I just slowed the mower down and poked past it slowly thinking that I'd deal with it after I got off the mower. Finished the first run and was heading back for the second run when Siekah woke up and come looking for me. When she spotted me down the bottom of the paddock she come barrelling down the fence line in the nice short grass right next to the fence. I thought...oh shyte, she's gonna get hit by those wasps. I screamed out for her to drop...she hesitated, washed off some speed but kept coming so I screamed out again and she dropped....phew! I'd never screamed the command at her before. DOR is a bl@@dy handy thing for a dog to know!

[Sayreovi]

Thanks for all the info, definately food for thought, will give a few things suggested a go tomorrow (love not having to work days!!)

Dogdude, thats one thing i have...patience...just one of the many things Nova taught me when i was (trying) to train him when he was younger.

For the distance exercise how far are you actually away when doing it?

[dogdude]

I train it at full distance, you need to give them the time and space to think through it.

I know some that disagree though. It can depend on the dog I suppose.

[Sayreovi]

I meant the full distance in trialling

How far in comps do you have to do it from?

[Ptolomy]

So a week down the track - how is Nova and Darcy's training going?

Any more progress or stumbling blocks with the DOR or the retrieve?????

[Sayreovi]

The DOR is working fine, i tried what you suggested with Darcy and he learnt quickly to drop when i said it wherever he was and slowly progressed to DOR, it confused him initially because he couldnt understand what i was asking

Retrieves are still alot of trouble (who would have thought with 2 nutty retrievers?!)

Darcy just doesnt seem to get the sit when he returns with the dumbell, he will fly out pick it up, and hold it for ages even heels with it (and went through the weavers with it when he was supposed to come straight back to me ) but as soon as i say sit or raise my hand he will drop the dumbell.....i am confused and dont know what to do now!

He knows he is supposed to front as he will come and stand in front of me where he is supposed to be but no sitting, or even a drop with it in his mouth.