Moving From Novice To Open

[Zug Zug]

Pele's heeling was amazing today!

[ness]

Wish I had seen it - bugger - but glad you two showed up .

[Bully]

Pele's heeling was amazing today!

Thanks Zug Zug Must have been the roast chicken and BBQ steak I was shovelling into her before we went into the ring ;) We scored 25 / 30 Her DOR was terrible. On the heel forward she had a brain fart and forgot to sit. When I called her she came in soooo sloooowly anticipating the drop, which at least she did on command, then rocketed home on the second recall, then had another brain fart and forgot to sit again on the finish and we scored 15 / 30 - phew!!!! Minor deductions on the other exercises. I may have been pinged a point on the dumbbell on the flat as when she returned and gave me the dumbbell I forgot myself and said "Good Girl!" before the finish. I thought "OOPS!!" as soon as I said it. Oh well We had 123 / 150 going into the stays Then disaster struck and no roast chicken for Pele. Hopefully next trial she'll earn one :mad

[mmoo]

Hi Zug Zug, yes those stays can be a problem my girl lost 197 and our Novice title few weeks back ,so she only did sit stays when we practised and now her sit is fairly reliable she did her first Open Trial on Sunday and she held her sit beautifully plus her down.Her only mistake was forgetting to wait for my command to come in the DOR, so I'm really with her first effort 161NQ.

[RubyStar]

Awesome, mmoo!! I know your pain, I lost a 195 in Novice due to the sit stay ;) Actually I lost a few 190+ scores due to the sit stay Her sit stay yesterday for her title was awesome, so I'm hoping she's starting to improve and it wasn't just a once off

[ZAUBISTAR]

We were on a pass, not a good score, but still a pass going into the stays. On the sit-stay apparently Pele lay down with 15 seconds to go

I was still very proud of Pele as I haven't put the work in lately and she's been woeful in her heeling. I only entered because I was going to be at the trial anyway. What a thrill today was even tho' we didn't pass

Bad Luck Bully, sounds so close. good effort ;)

Zug Zug,

Good to hear she had a good first attempt, well done!

[Zug Zug]

See link to video below - our run-through at training during the week.

It's good looking at videos isn't it? You get to see their tails wagging!

Stays left off on purpose. Still having trouble with the stays.

Sorry about the poor video quality - it looked clearer but lost something on its way into Youtube unfortunately.

Edited June 12, 2010 by Zug Zug

[Rivsky]

Very nice DOR and COP :rolleyes:

Lots of really good bits of work in there well done and hoping you get the stays sorted out, is she still nervous about them?

[Zug Zug]

Yes sometimes very nervous (sometimes whining and occasionally breaking). Solid and very comfortable at other times. Like today - in a sit stay I was miles away and another quite large dog bounded right up to her and she was rock solid didn't even look like moving. I went straight back to her to reward but she was perfectly calm. Then, other times, nothing seems wrong to me but she is very unhappy for some reason.

I can't really see a clear pattern - hoping practice and consistency from me will just iron it out I guess. We need to work more on distance, I think. And different settings. So we'll be concentrating on those two things this week.

I find the active exercises are a lot easier to train because you're teaching them to 'do' something. In the stay I feel like I'm training her not to do something (i.e not to break). But what I'm really trying to train is to wait calmly. So trying to focus on rewarding calmness etc. But I don't know it's a bit of a schmozzle at the moment.

I'll just keep plugging on. It has been frustrating but if we stick with it I'm sure we'll get somewhere in the end.

[RubyStar]

Wow awesome work!! Looking really good!

[ZAUBISTAR]

Great video

I think stays must be really boring for them. I've still got issues with Acteon and his stays. he'd been 100% solid on them till I started training for open and now he just seems really unsure Just going back to basics but not sure how to make him more confident

[Zug Zug]

Thanks everyone - nice to know I'm not the only one.

And yes I think they find stays boring - probably because stays ARE boring! Part of me thinks 'fair enough', but I really want to do this so we will stick with it.

[Zug Zug]

Sigh - another problem with our stays this weekend.

To be fair, it has been very cold here in Adelaide the past few weeks and we haven't trained at all (well, very little). But she was turning into a brat at home and I thought 'this dog really needs a good outing' and we were already entered in yesterday's trial so I thought 'why not?'.

We went along and although we failed the individual exercises I was pretty happy overall. She missed the drop on recall (sat instead) and then went around the jump with the dumbbell after a shocking throw from me. But other than that she was happy and working nicely, so I was pretty happy with that effort.

Then the stays (drum roll please)....

She did the sit stay ok - yay! Progress (well, something anyway). But her heart was beating pretty fiercely so I possibly should have called it a day there but didn't.

The drop stay not so good. Apparently she sat up early, then I could hear her whining, then crying, then she broke. When we returned she was sitting at the judge's feet looking very distressed.

Today at club she wouldn't even stay in a drop stay for 30 seconds - so we're right back to kindergarten for the next few weeks to get back up to speed.

I honestly don't know if she'll ever be able to do the stays with me out of sight at a trial. She can do it at home, she can do it in the local park. But in a trial situation she just freaks.

I'll keep training her and you never know, but if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. If it does, it does.

[ZAUBISTAR]

She did the sit stay ok - yay! Progress (well, something anyway). But her heart was beating pretty fiercely so I possibly should have called it a day there but didn't.

The drop stay not so good. Apparently she sat up early, then I could hear her whining, then crying, then she broke. When we returned she was sitting at the judge's feet looking very distressed.

Today at club she wouldn't even stay in a drop stay for 30 seconds - so we're right back to kindergarten for the next few weeks to get back up to speed.

Congrats on the sit stay!! :D

I find the insights into the drop stay very interesting. The anxiety she's showing, then not wanting to do the drop stay at all.......sounds familiar.

What now?

I'd keep at it, we went right back to basics for about 6 weeks and practiced stays probably 4-5 times a week. He'll do a good short distance long time stay (5min) or a very long distance(50+m), short time (1min).

Not sure how to progress from here as I don't want to ingrain stay=anxiety

Have you sorted out some sort of training regime where you work at something till it's full proof say 10 times before progressing? I'm thinking working to some sort of charted regime might give a better indication of where things are becoming un-stitched. Or I'm I just risking getting too rigid now?

[Zug Zug]

It's been a long time so I thought I should just drop a post in to say hello.

No progress really. We've gone back to basics to try and build the sit and drop stay 'in sight' up again, because we completely lost our ability to do stays AT ALL for a while. She is now back to being relatively comfortable in a long-ish distance sit and drop stay, but only with me in sight. Won't be trying out of sight stays again for a while. Probably not until next year.

In the meantime, we'll compete in vintage class and have a bit of fun. CDX may be out of reach for us in the end, but I didn't want to keep putting her under that kind of pressure. If she starts to find it more comfortable, we might come back to it or we might not. We'll just see how it goes.

ETA: Oops sorry Zaubistar I've just read your post more closely. No we are not using a program at the moment. I tried putting one together but got a fair bit of feedback that it wasn't a good program, and I wasn't sure what I needed to change and then kind of dropped it. Perhaps I'll come back to something over the next few months. I've never really kept training notes much but perhaps the 10x proofing idea is a good thing to do. At the moment, just happy to get a stay out of her without her getting upset.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Zug Zug

[Dova]

I'm actually going to try an open obedience class , never thought I would, yesterday I had a lesson & Pebbles did a retrieve over a jump & on the flat :D then did the broad jump, was ok, & I've been working on the out of sight stays, we'll get there I hope. Need to get it all happening before the end of October, again, what am I thinking .

[Zug Zug]

Great effort today Dova! You came very close today - Pebbles is just a really lovely dog. If I wasn't allergic to dog hair I would be plotting to steal her from you!

Zamba and I had a bit of fun in vintage class, and then a lot of fun running around with the scent hurdles at lunchtime. She loved that one - and so did I. If she were a bit younger she would have loved to train for agility.

She had a great time and we came home exhausted with a nice little medal saying what a great old girl she is.

It was nice to be back in the ring after such a long break.

[Zug Zug]

It's been a long time since my last post here, so I thought I'd just pop in.

Zamba and I have been working almost exclusively on her stays, and have kept things very slow and steady. She is a lot more comfortable with them than she was, but I am not pushing her hard. She does seem a lot more relaxed, but the true test will come when she has to do stays with dogs she doesn't know. At the moment we're really only practising around dogs she does know.

Not perfect yet, and we have a long way to go. We won't be trialling again until March next year at the earliest, probably later than that given I'm going OS for a while between now and then.

Most of the other Open exercises have gone backwards a bit through lack of practice, but we do them all once a week and there is nothing that couldn't be polished up again really quickly when she's ready.

[Dova]

Went to Victoria for the Most Versitile Aussie comp. last month, yeah 100mls of rain in 24hrs, started a couple of hours before the obedience trial . We had to do the trial inside, the rain on the roof was like a jet engine poor Pebbles was so scared but she tried very hard. In the sit stay we had to hide in the toilet, niiice, Pebbles was doing well & about 30 seconds from the end the rain hit even harder, she closed her eyes & sunk to the ground I was still pleased with her she tried her best in really awfull conditions. We also did herding, jumping & a conformation class, came home with a blue rosette & lovely dog bowl for the fastest time in jumping, even with the weather had a great time & everyone was terrific over there . Zug Zug I'm glad your allergic to dogs don't want to have to hunt you down to get Pebbles back :p, I was hoping you'd be coming to the NYE trial it was good fun last year & I promise not to snap at anyone this time ;) honest, have fun OS.

[Zug Zug]

Great to hear from you Dova! No my hubby and dogs will be holding the fort over xmas and nye, while my daughter and I are away on our grand adventure. We will be back in Feb - I'll tell you all about it then.

So we'll miss the NYE trial but if at any time you feel the need to put a rude person back in their place, then do it and be proud I reckon.

Yep I would definitely steal Pebbles if I could. She's just so lovely - a really beautiful dog inside and out. Sounds like she did really well for you in the rain, too. What a good girl!