any general advice for dog agility or rally-O?

[patandchickens]

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I feel like I lack the dog mileage to really benefit very well from it, but even if I am only "getting" ten percent of it, it is being a very helpful ten percent <g>. "Look at That!" is killer-useful, and I did not understand the larger-picture usefulness of Leave It or Go To Your Mat til I read her book.

]We've done a lot of getting onto smallish things, and into progressively smaller boxes...

That sounds great, too! I haven't tried that but then I already have a collie who manages to cram herself into a tiny Sheltie-sized dog bed. Watch out or your lab may try to take over a cat bed (if you have cats)!

Mostly he just tries to wedge himself into barn buckets

I tried the "front end on a box and rotating hind end around it" thing while making dinner today btw, it took about five minutes for him to get it (about four of which were me not having yet figured out appropriate body language to explain to him to move sideways, as he was for some reason not *offering* anything other than standing there stock-still or trying to get all 4 feet up on the box -- once I figured out what to do, he was like 'oh sure, I can do that for cookies, here look, more sideways pivot, more cookies now please'

). So that will be a good one to work with. I like indoor things, this time of year!

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Oh, that makes a certain amount of sense. Hm. Now I even MORE don't know what to do LOL Russie does not seem particularly afraid of heights, from what I can judge by yet, but he is by personality definitely a worrier. And sometimes a spaz/klutz. Maybe I *will* try using Get Off from the middle of the board sometimes. Hm. It'd sure be nice if I knew what I was doing

In any case, you want to do a lot of "bottom work" i.e. set up your plank as the bottom of the ramp and have the dog learn to drive forward to a target at the bottom, keeping his head low and looking forward, not at you. You can do a 2 on 2 off or a running contact, but either way, they drive down the board all the way to the end and the target (I use a coffee can lid with a treat on it). This skill will serve him well on all three contacts.

So, I want to make sure I'm understanding the point correctly here, is the main purpose of this to keep the dog concentrating on traversing the end of the plank til he's fully off, as opposed to looking off at the handler? Or is the main purpose to get the dog to think of the plank (whatever contact equipment) as a continuous-flow thing that once he's on it he should concentrate on continuing resolutely onward? Or, 'c' none of the above, something else?

Thanks,

Pat​

 

[pbjmaker]

1) do not ask the dog to come to you unless you are pretty darn certain it WILL come, because every time it doesn't it weakens the training. Like what they say about courtrooms, a good prosecuting attorney never asks a question unless he KNOWS what the answer will be? Don't ask the dog to come unless you KNOW it will work (if it isn't working at least 90% of the time you're trying from too far or with too many distractions, you have to work up to those things gradually);

2) because it is such a vital skill, always ALWAYS have a worthy treat to reward the dog with when you do call him [except, obviously, in emergency situations where you might need to call him regardless]; and

3) if you guess wrong about #1 and the dog does not respond, get his attention [NOT by saying 'come'!] and run playfully (fast!) in the opposite direction. If you have done reasonable groundwork so that the dog regards you as the source of Good Things and Fun, he will not be able to resist following to see where you're skippin' off to. It feels very odd at first [to me at least] but darned if it doesn't WORK

Yep - I have told them this also. That is the first thing they taught us in basic "puppy kindergarten" that did with my puppy in Oct/Nov.
My dog Tucker is a pill right now and sometimes I have to run from him - but he is on to it and he will come skidding toward the door and then turn at the last minute. He is a thinker and a stinker.

I also watched my dad today tell the dog to sit like 15 times. We were taught tell them once then make them do it or they get the idea that they can wait for you to say a command many times before they decide to do it.

He said today that he thinks he might do basic obedience classes with her (

) She is strong and athletic and SUPER smart.

I might get that book for myself though. Tucker missed the 6 month cut off for the next level of obedience where we go by 6 days so I am waiting until the end of January now for the next session to start. He does watch my every move and like your dog, is always thinking about stuff. You can see a picture of him being naughty on Gritsar's latest thread about "teen dogs"

 

[pbjmaker]

Oh - and how did you get him to go around the box? You said you had to change your body language.

 

[patandchickens]

Sorry, it's like free-longeing/roundpenning a horse, there is no real good way to describe it in words so's to be useful to another person. I just fooled around (since my initial efforts were not doing much) til I hit on something that worked. The only purpose was really to get him to take the initial steps so I could have something to click and work from... I *could* have just waited until he offered something usefully-shapeable, I suppose, but dinner was going to be ready soon, so sue me

The best I can say is that whereas horses on the whole seem to operate best off of relatively little motion and mainly the subtleties of exact posture and 'feel', Russell (and from observation it seems like it may be dogs in general?) operates best off a lot looser/bigger body english, that would lose or disconcert a lot of horses but that for Russie gets him wanting to play along. If that makes any sense whatsoever.

Pat

 

[Windrider]

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You know, Pat, that most of the agility training in classes is about training the handler, not the dog. The dogs learn the obstacles fairly quickly and once it clicks with them what this "game" is about, it is all about the handler getting the cues and timing down. It occurs to me, with your extensive horse background, that you are going to be way ahead of things in a beginner agility class. You already have a good grasp of how to use body language to communicate with an animal, and getting a dog to go where you want it to on an agility course is mostly a push and pull thing with your shoulders and body.

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Training a dog for agility is no different than training horses for a performance event - everyone is going to have their opinion and there is no real census on what is best. Different trainers have different methods. What works for some "drivey" breeds won't work for "worriers." At this point, you should be training Russie to enjoy learning - i.e. pups should learn to love learning before any formal training happens. At this point, he should be finding out that interacting with stuff like planks is fun and gets rewarded. Dogs don't generalize well, so what you are doing having him jump on and off a plank is just teaching him the coordination necessary to do that. Once you start on a real Dog Walk, your trainer will have methods to teach him to do the whole contact.

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Your beginner class will likely start training all three contacts by back-chaining. You start with the bottom - "oh, there is always a cookie down there at the bottom!" If you are doing the two on two off method, you will start by rewarding the dog for being in the proper position with the two back feet on the contact and two front on the ground. Next step for little dogs is to put them half way up the down ramp and have them run into the position where they get rewarded (for big dogs we usually attached the down ramp to a table and have the dog jump on the table, then run down). This is to try to instill in the dog that, when they finally do the whole contact, this is where they are supposed to end up - NOT flying off the side and continue running. Only after the dogs really stick their two on two off do we start them on a whole contact set really low.

The reason you want the dog to drive forward towards the end of the board, looking forward with their head low, is that most of the time when a dog misses that end yellow zone or comes off the side of the obstacle, it is because it is looking at the handler for a treat or the next cue. The handler is unintentionally pulling the dog off the obstacle. So in the end, what you are trying to train is for the dog to do the whole obstacle independently ("Once I get on, I go all the way to the end before looking for the next cue"). For the A-frame, you really want the dog's head low for physical reasons - at full height, it is very hard on the dog physically to come running down that thing with his head up looking at the handler. So you don't treat the dog from your hand, you put the treat on a "mark" at the bottom of the plank - so they are looking forward for it.

Which reminds me, if you haven't taught Russie "mark" that is a fun thing. For my collie, "Mark!" means touch the coffee can lid with your nose. This game started off as something we learned in agility and obedience, but now that we don't need it for that it has become its own game. I put the lid anywhere in the yard and she tries to find it and touch it.

 

[patandchickens]

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Yup, in fact that's a significant part of what interests me about it

I just a few days ago discovered Bud Houston's blog, which is an incredibly huge resource of commentary on (his version of) how to build and troubleshoot handling skills. Since I do not even have handling skills nor an obstacle-trained dog at present, I spent a bunch of little 1-2 min bits of time yesterday afternoon in the back yard sending Russie around young spruce trees and stumps and so forth, in loops and figure eights and serpentines maybe 5-10' from my side. It mostly went well, and when it didn't it was very very educational! Had a lot of fun. Good game for wintertime, at least the little spruces stick out above the snow LOL

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That makes sense!

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Aha, <lightbulb>, thank you very much!

Which reminds me, if you haven't taught Russie "mark" that is a fun thing. For my collie, "Mark!" means touch the coffee can lid with your nose. This game started off as something we learned in agility and obedience, but now that we don't need it for that it has become its own game. I put the lid anywhere in the yard and she tries to find it and touch it.

OK! That should be easy (he learned to target my peace-sign hand in literally about 30 seconds) and I can think of a bunch of games to play with it once he's got it solidly. He really is a SCARY-easy dog, I can't imagine WHAT kind of idiot would surrender him to a shelter. In fact I am sort of afraid to get a second dog because no way can my luck hold out LOL

Thanks so much; if you ever move to the Toronto area and start teaching agility classes here I want to know about it!!

Pat​