| Subject: intermidiate level control exercises |
Author:
dominicr
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 19:46:09 06/24/07 Sun
Some Intermediate Level Control Exercises
Here are some other, more advanced scenarios for practicing your control down work, and generalizing your training. Remember that there is no substitute for traveling to club trials (many clubs will allow you to use the field after the day's competition is over), or visiting new fields and taking opportunities to train in these realistic trial-like situations:
1. Suppose you are next up to work protection with your dog. Wait until the person ahead of you is just about done with their routine, bring your dog out of the truck, and platz him. Enforce your command no matter how much he wants to go to the decoy. (This requires the foresight of putting the training collar on the dog before you drive to the training field, so when he comes out you don't have to fiddle with putting on the collar, and defeat the purpose of enforcing control).
2. When he is good at this, and while the person is still finishing up their routine, sit him from the down, heel him closer, and down him again. Make him be calm and quiet in the down (this will feed into your escape bite, and your disarms also being under better control). The idea is to teach the dog that he gets to work protection at your behest, not his. That he must demonstrate control to work protection.
3. Also, remember to practice reporting in to the judge as you enter the practice field. Look over tattoos, and have a 2- second chat, so this also becomes an expected routine for the dog. Make your dog be obedient during this time. I practice checking tattoos before my protection routine, too! (I can hear them now, "My dog would take off the judges hand if he was in bite mode..."). Either he is obedient to you or he is not. Period. If he will tolerate his tattoo being looked over before protection, he will do it before tracking without problems.
4. When your session is over, do you always let your dog leave with a sleeve in his mouth? Try leaving without it one time before you trial, what you see may surprise you! (He may not allow you to leave the field without it, and break heel position to keep coming to the decoy). Try practicing going to the critique position and holding a down after he has had a few bites. You may notice that you have some work to do before the trial!
5. Another useful exercise is to do some obedience while the helper is in full dress standing on the field. My protection routine always starts with some obedience first. Typically, I take my dog out of the truck while the person ahead of me is finishing. I work a down under this distraction. I heel to the gate, and sit my dog in basic position demanding he look up at me, and not the helper. Then I heel onto the field, and do some group heeling, with the helper in the group. I heel out of the group, going up the field, demanding attentive heeling all the way. (A future article will deal with attention heeling). Only after a little preliminary obedience do I set up for my protection session, heeling to the pole, or to the field position I want.
My first schutzhund dog was a very high drive, dominant, Malinois, and I was a very green handler. He would want to come out of the truck and bolt onto the field to work. Many a training session, I spent 15-20 minutes heeling just up to the gate to the field. Also, I practiced heeling over sleeves laying on the ground, and around dressed helpers. If he did not heel onto the field under control, I did not allow him to work protection. Over time, he learned that his obedience was the key to him getting to play in protection. Many a session, he went back into the crate without a bite. He learned that obedience started at the tailgate to my truck, and that the heeling onto the field, and the downs in the parking lot were part of the overall routine.
Many handlers I see, take their dog out of the crate, and get pulled onto the protection field. This is fine at the very beginning, but as soon as your dog knows how to heel, and especially if he is a high drive dog, you must start making him obedient before the dog works protection. Of course, if you are working through problems with motivation for the protection work, you can back off on the control work. Use common sense at all times. But this obedience will also build anticipation for the work ahead and increase the dog's drive to work, and often bring a little more focus into the dog.
Many clubs get into the habit of doing obedience en mass before protection, but not during the protection session. This is too rigid. It does take extra time, but there is no substitute for the practice of obedience under the distraction of bitework. Your dog should expect to be obedient as soon as he comes out to work, before each phase. Start enforcing control and attention as soon as your dog comes out of the crate, before each phase. You will see a marked difference in your dog's work ethic over time, as the attention and control become habit (generalized) to the dog.
Try some of these exercises for control, and see if they don't polish up your work, making you and your dog look like the serious competitors you want to be. Critique your own training program by thinking about where your dog is in the 4 learning stages, so that you don't attempt to show before he has had a chance to generalize the behaviors you have taught him. And, when your dog surprises you on the field, look to your own incomplete training rather than being upset with your dog. Until next time, work 'em hard, and work 'em smart.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 