I went out to Paws N Effect for run throughs today. Mostly I wanted to rescue my video camera, which I left there a month and a half ago at a trial. Mission accomplished. There is video uploading as I type this, material for which has been floating around in my brain for months.
And I made good on my goal to work on the skills on my checklist. I praised all of his start lines, and since I was mostly working short sequences, we got to do several. He broke one, but not in they way he has been doing at trials. I think of "breaking" as in they just start the course without the release. Then there's the little get up and sniff something behind them. I think they do these behaviors for very different reasons, I just can't put my finger on what each one really means. Both are stress and a lack of a clear understanding of the criteria, but which choice they make is very different. Kraft can do both, but it was the start the course without me that was causing problems in trials. I think it's easier to fix the get up and sniff one, since they haven't really been able to self reward, and likely was just because they got distracted for a second, which is what he did today. And it was after we had just run a sequence and I was going back to the start to repeat it so he may not have been completely clear about what we were doing since mostly in run throughs I just keep going, reward where we are and go one from there, not go back to the start. But skill 1: check!
Also worked on lateral distance from the weaves. Poor guy, he was having a hard time with it at first. The first time he popped out, I said "whoops" and jollied him up, playing with him, but not giving him the toy I had. But he totally deflated. Would not go near the weaves. So I moved on to something else for a bit, then did the weaves the other way with lateral distance and rewarded to end that run. The second session I did it the same way and he kept popping, but I didn't mark it and just swung him back around to try again. He tried it three times before he finally got it right and I rewarded, and he didn't deflate. So yeah, he's still being very sensitive about corrections. Sorry buddy. But once I did reward it and then repeated it, he dove into the weaves and never hesitated about finishing them at all. So I think it was just something he needed to work through, needed time to think about the mistake and how to fix it. But will have to be very careful about how I verbally mark any mistakes.
Did work a little bit of commitment to a jump, just off of a table with me leading out far lateral from the jump I wanted him to take.
Did a flip. It was in a pretty easy place to do one, and I was late with the side change the first time, but the second time was a bit better.
There were no places to do a backside jump off the dog walk, but he did several gentle turns off the dog walk that were all lovely, no misses at all.
No speedy approach to the weaves off my right, but the weave sequence I was working on was dog walk, jump, weaves, with a tough approach angle that I pretty much just had to trust him to do on his own, and he did.
Very pleased with his work today. Hopefully will make it to the trial on Sunday. Weather is looking a bit iffy. It's our last AKC for probably most of the year.
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