Cos the flat is where it's at

119 days to go...

It struck me yesterday afternoon that the one thing in common with all the training techniques I like is they all come back to flat work. If your flatwork isn't top notch 'Don't even go there girlfriend'! The seminars I did with Greg and Laura Derrett, much of the Susan Garrett stuff, the Susan Salo grids, the Rachel Sanders running A-frame training and quick release contact training - ALL of it is perfected on the flat before the dogs ever get on the equipment. And if you ARE having problems with the equipment? The advice is the same again - go back to your flatwork, and oftentimes the problem will be there as well. The other plus with flatwork - you can really work on all those handling techniques, on the dog getting his footwork, position, responses down to the letter rather than risking mucking up their equipment performance. So this weekend my aim is to pop down to Bunnings and get myself some speed bumps to practice grids, and some piping to start the Rachel Sanders box work.

It actually made me feel better about not having done any jump work with the dogs for several weeks. It reassured me I was doing the right thing.

Tonight we did lots of little things, lots of dog swapping, lots of rewards. Since this was all flatwork, Billie could do it too, and I imagine her training will progress a lot more quickly than the boys because by the time she reaches Josh's age she will have done all the foundation stuff I'm only just doing with him now.

We started with some cone work - shaping the dogs to go round a small orange cone (I haven't been able to swipe any of those nice, big traffic cones... yet... *rubs hands together evilly*). This was pretty easy - just a few goes and all three dogs were going around the cone, albeit not hugely quickly and not from a great distance but it was a very good start. Fyre is hilarious, he just offers behaviours so quickly you barely have time to pick one - once he worked out it was to do with the cone for example, he nose-touched the cone, kicked the cone, shoved the cone and so on!

Tonight we were using the Tug-It as a reward, since I've had it for AGES and never used it. I am using it to reinforce their game of tug too - they like to grab it because it has food inside, but interestingly they don't tug on it as enthusiastically as they do on 'proper' tug toys. However, I can mark them for a good tug and immediately reward them by opening it and taking a piece of food out. I also discovered that Josh is exceptionally good at catching even small pieces of food mid-air, and with no encouragement whatsoever he also offered a leap into the air to catch it at the height of its flight. This is great for me because now I know I can deliver treats to him in a more exciting way than just handing them over - will come in handy if I want to reward stays and such from a distance.

We also did 2x2 of course, and with Fyre worked on lots of very close and quick entries, mostly from the left. As part of this I also rewarded equally his coming straight back to me when called rather than continuing to head to the poles before I was ready or going back through the poles after a successful entry. We are still at about 75% entry rewards currently, and certainly I do see a difference already - whilst he is still very quick to go on and do the second set of poles if he doesn't get his reward after the entry, the entries have really improved - I can see him looking for that first set of poles now. We will do a few more sessions like this - very quick, lots of rewards - then start to add distance and motion, then start to move the two sets together again.

Josh is continuing to do well with his 2x2s, the thing I am starting to add with him now is more handler movement, me moving towards the poles, me moving away from the poles once he's entered and so on. Once I can start to run him at them from various angles we will rotate them close to straight.

I also did some little games with Fyre to help him concentratem, since sometimes I think he gets too wildly excited and has blonde moments I love his enthusiasm, the way he busts out of the crate or dog yard to have his turn, but I really don't want him to get into a habit of thinking he can run rampant for the first few minutes before settling. So we did motivating little games like puppy push-ups (alternating sits and downs) and rewarding him with the tug when got in position at my side. He doesn't give me the focus that Josh does, but I have decided not to work on a lot of eye contact on me because whilst I want him in position at my side, I also want him looking for the next obstacle AHEAD rather than watching me all the time. So we just did little things like U turns, finishing him to either side and so on. I did a little of this with Josh also, and Billie.

It was also a good chance to reinforce their good behaviour in the crate/ex-pen. Since Billie has been doing so well in the crate I moved her to the ex-pen tonight and continued to reward her good behaviour there. I love that I can now work on dog in front of the other two without having whinging and hyperactive carry-on. Billie still whines occasionally but she is SO much better. I can play wild tug games in front of her now and she maintains really good self control. Eventually I will rotate her into the dog yard again too and practice the same there, which will be more difficult as she can actually bounce off the walls there with a lot more room to move, so we will leave that for a while yet.

All in all, it was a great session and I came away feeling very positive - it was nice being able to do lots of little things in one session too. Any day now I will finally find time to do some little videos again too!