Obedience Triallers

[africandreams]

We are currently trialling in ccd, 3 trials for one stellar pass, and 2fails. The last fail was in the recall exercise: my dog lay down as I was walking away, and then failed to come on command-something we've never experienced in a training situation.

Normally our training is pretty spot on- Im putting it down to handler error/nerves .

My question to obedience triallers is,

how often do you train per week? what is involved in your training session?

i would like to find the balance between not training enough, and over training!

Also on trial day, how much do you 'warm up'?

[mmoo]

Hi africandreams, I usually do a litttle bit of training every day, no complete run throughs just components of what ever level I'm trialling in. With warm ups, it depends on your dog, I like my dogs to be ready and tuned into work as soon as we enter the ring, so with CCD I would be warming up when the dog before has completed the SFE or sooner if the handler is a fast worker, also be mindful of people not completing the trial and leaving the ring early. Hope this helpful.

[Tapua]

I am about 100km from my nearest obedience club so going to a weekly session is not a regular opition. However I make sure the dogs are really keen and enthusiastic heelers during the first 12 months - all positive motivation stuff done in short sessions. Then quite separately I teach off lead, sit, stand drop come. Then marry it with the on lead healing. Generally its the last month before the trail I have entered that I pull the routine together, training for about 15 minutes each day focusing on what the dog doesnt know or isnt recognising. Its more about me recognising what I havent taught. I found the dogs love the routine and think its a challenge because its only happens for a couple of weeks - so they are not bored. On the day of the trial I will warm up in a spare ring if there is one using alot of food reward for good work. But no verbal praise till the end. The last two dogs I trained this way both went 3 trails with 3 passes. I was happy!

[Mason_Gibbs]

I try do a couple of minutes a day but its not always the same stuff, sometimes its rear end awareness, sometimes i dont train obedience and we will train a bit of retrieving with a friend. The day of the trial i dont train at all and only do a few auto sits and maybe a sfe before we go in the ring. I have my second trial today.

[OSoSwift]

Goodluck Mason hope you get another pass.

I train every second day with one of my dogs and taper it off a little towards the trial. The other we have short daily training sessions. On the day of the trial I ask for some very focused heeling (talking seconds of) some positions, a couple of rear end awarness positions and maybe a trick or two. I like them bouncy bouncy as they will quite often flatten out in the ring with handler ring nerves etc.

I like to give the last treat as I am going into the ring, but my male gets uber excited when we are razing up and quite often inhales his last treat and then has a gacking attack in the ring. So with him we giove heaps of praise just ebfore going in the ring. I give my bitch her last treat just before we got hrough the gate.

I have their little treat container ( the same one all the time) outside the ring at a reasonable distance but I make sure they see where I put it so when we have finished we come racing out of the ring to a jackpot.

If I could control my nerves we would be great, the dogs are fine it's me that's the problem!

[wuffles]

I am only trialling in CCD as well so far from an experience trialler. But I generally train 4 or 5 days a week, probably about 15 minutes each time. Our main issue is focus and duration so I do a lot of work on that. We are still chasing our final pass after two first places in our first two trials, then two not so brilliant (but not terrible) NQs in our next two. So I am still working out what is best for us. In our first trial we hadn't trained for a week as Ava had been sick - and she blitzed it. So I am trying to do no training for at least two days prior to the trial!

I generally do a fair bit of heeling, either duration or turns and positions. I throw in one or two recalls and stand for exams (fairly reliable on these) and generally only do one sit and one down stay per session. I also do heaps of little bits and pieces - focusing on me at the start peg, straight fronts, really short heeling games, some dumbbell work.

Unfortunately in two of our trials we have been first up which I have found hard to get into a warmup groove. My dog is still very young so I do not expect her to focus until just before we go into the ring. I set up very close to the ring. I do a few quick heeling steps with lots of quick rewards, then make sure she knows where her reward container is and do a few quick heels and run her back to the container a few times.