Open Obedience

[J...]

Can anyone please give me a brief rundown on these two requirements?

Been working a lot on obedience while its been to hot to do agility (plus nice to take a break for both no matter what level the addiction! ) and her heel work is finally starting to come together, a long legacy of being taught a crappy version of it at puppy level

She already knows all the novice requirements so I figure I might as well start on Open stuff to keep her mind at work and mix it up for her. Retreive will just need some tidying up as she loves to jump and retreive so that will be easy enough, but I'm not familiar with whats required for COP/Broad.

Is there one that tends to be chosen over another? Any pitfalls I should know about :p

Thanks in advance!

[ness]

Ptolomy would shoot you if you mentioned the possibility of doing a Broad Jump in Obedience - much better to do a COP as it leads onto UD. COP for open is the end bit of silent signals - stand your dog, drop, sit, come, finish but you can use both verbal and signal .

So if you do COP in open you get plenty of practice for UD as it is also the last exercise in open before you leave the ring plenty of opportunities for high level of reinforcement so the dog is super keen by the time it gets to the COP signals part in UD due to a high level of reinforcement for this particular exercise.

Edited January 6, 2008 by ness

[Ptolomy]

Think you should go to your Canine website and look up the rules for both exercises - thats probably the best place to start.

In WA - 90% of people now do the change of positions because it is a lead in to the UD signals exercise.

Pitfalls - there are many! When I train the exercise with a new dog - the 2 things I am after are:

the dog dropping on the spot - not taking a step forward or sideways

in the sit up the dog must push up with its front legs and not move the bum forwards (this in important in UDX when there are 6 changes of positions and the dog can't move more than a body length forward)

Make sure you mix the exercise up and don't keep leaving the dog and doing the drop sit and then the recall - otherwise the dog will anticipate and then you have a whole new problem LOL

Good luck and since I no longer do broad jump and think its a stupid exercise I will leave it to somebody else to fill in the pitfalls

[Ptolomy]

hehehehe I was very restrained NESS!

Gees my lectures to you had more of an impact than I would ever have believed LOL

[dogdude]

Yes, I would have to agree that broad jump is a bit of a nothing exercise, and I think that there is more chances to lose points in it, compared to C.O.P.

[ness]

Yep I noticed you restrained yourself - hmm as for your lectures yep they certainly did and the threat of no help ever again sealed the deal .

[J...]

Ptolomy would shoot you if you mentioned the possibility of doing a Broad Jump in Obedience - much better to do a COP as it leads onto UD. COP for open is the end bit of silent signals - stand your dog, drop, sit, come, finish but you can use both verbal and signal .

UD!!!! You're kidding!

Seriously though, is that the actual sequence required? I'm presuming thats stand your dog, leave to whatever distance required, then drop, sit, come and finish?

Wow thats easier than I thought, I was expecting a sit to stand in there somewhere. We've already done some "push-up" stuff from the drop to a sit. Her drop at a distance is instant and dead straight so its only the drop to sit part that needs work.

We did have a kick-back stand somewhere but its apparently been lost along the way! :p

Edited to add: What do you mean COP for open is the end bit of silent signals? Does that mean that its all signal work in UD or all voice commands?

Edited again cos I forgot a word.

Edited January 6, 2008 by feralpup

[ness]

You know at the end of a UD heel pattern the judge will have you stand, drop, sit, come and finish. That bit that is all I was meaning. The exercise for open commences with your dog in a stand and you will be asked are you ready. Then you leave ala a SFE and about turn and halt when told. Then you will be asked or signalled to drop, sit, call, finish. You can use both a verbal and a signal for each position (given simultaneously).

[dogdude]

I get the dog to learn C.O.P behind a low barrier. This will cause a folded drop if you stand her up close to it. The barrier will also encourage push up sit, and will check the dog for creeping.

Add the recall later when there is no creeping and no barrier.

Very easy to train!!

Make sure the drop signal will be the same one as D.O.R.

[ness]

Ptolomy showed me a different way that doesn't use a barrier. The problem you have with a barrier is that the dog can start creeping when the barrier is removed.

[ness]

Here are a few change of positions trial clips so you can see what you are suppose to do:

[dogdude]

That will depend if you are a balanced trainer or not, who proofs your exercises.

I would be interested in your method though. I have had no problems when removing the barrier.

[Arya]

Dogdude, I taught both. That way I have a choice on the day (when I eventually get there LOL). Pros to broad jump are if you have a dog that finds jumping very appetitive, it can be a great incentive to keep up the fun right to the end of the run through in the ring. For instance, with my girl who loves jumping, at our club fun day she was acting up when doing Open (we did open and ud instead of boring novice since only fun day and could do this) and the broad jump was her best exercise outside of dumbell over the jump, as she loves jumping. However, if your dog is not keen yep, there are so many potential errors. To train the dog to leap straight I used throwing food. I also used a pole with the end closest to me higher. This worked great, tess loves a jumping challenge and relished the chance to jump high and far. So in short, take a look at what your dog likes. if he loves jumping I would teach it too.

COP, as others have said it's a great lead in to UD anyway and I taught it anyway. I didn't use a barrier, though do you know Ian Woolard with Keira, the lovely UDX vic dog who comes to FOO? He is very big on using barrier to teach this and described it to me, he also uses a step to teach this, set the dog up behind the step. My choice was to stand right in front of my dog and work my way backward, when she crept forward no reward. When she did it right not only reward marker but good pat on the hips and bum and 'good drop'. With sit, same. Dog got very quickly what was right and what wasn't but the pat and 'good drop'etc. was integral part of explaining to her what was correct.

[J...]

Thanks ness, those youtubes are great I imagined that it would be nearly recall distance but it appears to be only about 10m?

At the moment I'm doing the push-up sit with her in front of me, so she can't really move forward much. Every now and then I take a step back just to see how she goes and only rewarding the ones where she does the push-up sit.

Most of the time she's getting it right but probably even a jump bar in front would stop her moving forward, but I prefer to keep things simple

Thanks for the info guys - very helpful

[Billand]

I have always been of the theory that you should teach your dogs all the available optional exercises, then on the day of the trial, you do the one that they are best at. I have found this approach best for the breed of dogs that I have as they tend to get bored if they keep doing the same thing all the time. I am currently training one of my dogs for CDX and she is learning both the COP and the broad jump but it is most likely that in competition she will be doing the COP.

I have been training the broad jump with a target to get the straight jump - all my dogs think that this is a fantastic game and helps to break up some of the excersises that are boring for them.

Cheers, TA

Remember to keep it fun!