Obedience Run Throughs

[JulesP]

How often do you do run throughs/practices in a trial ring? Weekly? Every couple of weeks? Never?

I have been doing them weekly but I have a sneaky suspicion that it is making every thing worse! I suffer badly with ring nerves and Poppy is very sensitive. Yes I get nervous even doing a practice run though!

At this rate I don't reckon I am ever going to get to a trial!

Maybe I need to adjust how I am training.

[ness]

Ness gets a UD run through each week - mostly I try and do a full run through or at least do the majority of a run through. Sometimes I'll skip an exercise here or there.

Kenz has been getting novice run throughs semi-regularly. But sometimes I'll add an extra Open exercise or two or not do a full round with her.

Edited March 15, 2010 by ness

[Tay.]

Every Tuesday

[ness]

I thought I might also add that our run throughs are like you would have in the ring. You can reward whenever you feel like it not just at the end of an exercise. Do some heeling reward then start again. Its basically like a normal training session with the added bonus of somebody to call you through or put out articles and pretend to judge.

[Seita]

pretty much never in my case. My club doesn't do them on a regular basis, I could ask if I wanted to but most of the time I can't be bothered. I practice what I want to work on at training and ask for help where needed (ie articles) but I don't think it's good training for a dog to do loads of run outs all the time. I preffer to practice randomly, only do half a heel pattern in slow pace, only send the dog to the box without sending her over the jumps, rewarding the dog on the way back on a recall rather than asking her to sit in front of me etc. I work this way to keep her guessing and keen to work. I think my dog would get bored if I did the same thing every time I went to training.

I do usually do a run out or two if I've had a bit of a break from trialling before entering again to guage how she's doing if I put it all together like a proper trial. I use another club for this and they are run like proper trials, although you can ask to do specific things if there is something you are working on. For example, I haven't been in an obedience ring since Oct last year while I've been training Ella up for UD, sometime in the next 2 months I'll probably go and do a run out or two with her to see where she's at if I do a whole trial with her, based on how she goes in that will determine when I enter her into real trials.

In short, no I do not think it's beneficial for a dog to do run outs on a regular basis, dogs often get ringwise because of this or bored and things go downhill very quickly.

But! That said, if you are mixing things up while doing run outs or doing crazy things in the ring in the way of distractions/proofing then yes this is a good idea. This way you can avoid a bored dog, or a ringwise dog and keep things interesting and different and still keep your dog guessing. But doing a "proper practice trial" I feel is a pointless exercise.

[TerraNik]

I do formal run throughs about once a month, sometimes more often and I get a friend to call some heelwork patterns every second week.