My evil, little laugh escaped this morning. I couldn’t help it. Every time someone tells me “I can’t make him do it in practice”, it just comes out. Maybe it shouldn’t...maybe it’s not politically correct...but since when have I worried about being politically correct?
It is not that I want the dog to screw up in practice, but for me to be able to tell my dog he’s doing something incorrectly, first he has to DO it incorrectly. And, my definition of “incorrect” may not be the same as your definition of “incorrect”. Clear as mud? Let me explain. My definition of heel position means straight, in line with my left leg, head up, eyes on me, and focused attention. One word (“Close” to my dog) means all of those things. If my dog meets four of those requirements, but not the fifth, he is incorrect. How I respond may vary, depending on what thing is incorrect, but I WILL respond.
The dog in question is doing a couple of different things - laying down on the Novice sit stay and not coming into front position straight enough on the recall. It was actually the sit stay issue that brought out the evil laugh, when the owner said the dog NEVER fails in practice. The evil laugh escaped and I said “I bet I can make him fail.”
But, the topic of this post is more in relation to the second one...the fronting on the recall. She said the dog comes in too fast and couldn’t get his front. She had been trying to slow the dog down on the recall, to make it easier for him to find front position. Well, maybe, but the “problem” is that the dog can’t find front position, not that he is going too fast. So, instead of trying to slow the dog down, work on helping the dog find front position when he is coming in fast. Make sure the dog understands what and where front position is, instead of just assuming he understands. Now, in doing some of this work, the speed may taper off slightly on the recall, but it is because the dog is thinking about his next job of finding his front position, not because we are trying to slow him down.
When I was showing my German Shepherd years ago, she had the opposite problem. She was low drive and sometimes didn’t put forth enough effort to get back to me. I listened to everyone’s advice, which included never doing any fronts, running away from her when she was coming in, and throwing a treat or a toy. I did all of those things, and you know what? My problem got worse. She knew I wasn’t going to move in the ring. She knew I wasn’t going to throw a toy or a cookie. I was AVOIDING the problem. After one trial where she walked the entire way back to me on a dumbbell retrieve, I decided to address it head on. If she couldn’t trot 30’, she was going to have to trot 5’. So, I went back and worked on short fronts. In the beginning, she worked exclusively on a training collar and a flexi lead. Later, we dropped the flexi, but left a pull tab attached. I would leave her on a sit, walk 5-10’ away and call her to front. If she walked, she got a little bounce forward (basically a failure to come correction) and I’d release her to try again. It only took a few corrections and she never walked in on another exercise in the ring again...although it is a drill that was practiced often.
As an instructor, I often hear people using avoidance as a training tool. If your dog auto finishes, never do finishes in practice. If your dog lags during off lead heeling, never heel off lead. If your dog likes to go and visit people in the ring, don’t ever give them the opportunity to leave your side. Well, I look at it a little bit differently. You can’t fix what doesn’t happen. Let your dog anticipate things. Let your dog try to auto finish. Let your dog start to lag on heeling. Let your dog think that the steward probably needs to be checked for cookies. But, as soon as they do it, FIX IT!! Help your dog understand what they are supposed to be doing. If they make the decision to do the exercise perfectly, then reward them profusely!! Have a party! Show them they made the correct choice and that they are the smartest dog in the world.
Just don’t think that the problem is going to magically disappear if you micromanage your dog so the problem never happens. I hate to burst your bubble, but you can’t micromanage everything.
Train hard. Play harder.
Shannon
P.S. If you are wondering about the dog who NEVER broke his sit stay in practice...I nicely asked the dog to lie down during the sit stay. He didn’t even think twice. Down he went. :)
