Having a 1 1/2 hour commute (each way) gives me a lot of time to think...and a lot of that thinking is about dog training...my 3 dogs-Daisy Mae, Pirouette and Gunther- as well as student dogs. I think about the things I have worked on and what is and is not working.
Last night I trained my "baby dogs", Pirouette and Gunny. Tonight we went out again to train agility. Last night I did my usual warm-up with Gunny, the did jump-dogwalk-tunnel. He had no contact on the dog walk, and took off for the tunnel...only to go around behind it. I yelled "Gunny, COME", got him back and started again. That was not a good start. I was not happy with myself, and tried to figure out why I had no attention. I came to the realization that although we had warmed up, he was not engaged with me. How could I change that?
The first thing I did was load up on food and his favorite toy...the WUBBA! The second thing was to ditch the prong collar and put his leash on the buckle collar. Once we got onto the training field, I took the leash off completely. One big problem with Gunny is he wants to sniff...and then pee. Every time he sniffed, I yelled let's go and took off away from him at a run. I gave him a treat for coming back to me. After a couple of times he came immediately...and we played with Wubba. We did jumps in a half circle, then threw the toy...then went the other way. At first gunny only wanted to look at the toy...not the jumps. He had to start from a sit, with the toy away from him, and understand that the toy would "appear" after he did his job. We worked 3 sessions and he was awesome!
Sharing the hour with him was my Corgi baby Pirouette. She is very sensitive. If she thinks she made a mistake she tends to wander away and sniff. We did a lot of tugging with her tennis ball and throwing it for play. she worked stress-free and was fast and happy. Tomorrow she is doing 2 classes at a UKI Trial. I am hoping this session helped her stay engaged!
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