Fun and Crate Games

45 days to go...

Another 5 days past... After due consideration, I decided to spend the whole of this week just on building drive. No jumps, no weavers etc. Being so close now to the Nats, I at first wondered if I could afford to give up a whole week of training to work on drive, and really I have Porter to thank for helping me make the decision (prepare now for another chapter on why Porter was and always will be truly AWESOME).

Thinking back through those dim, dark memories of when I first started training Porter, I recalled that he always had tonnes of drive for food and toys, without me so much as doing anything specific to build it. He loved squeakies, loved retireving, in fact was self-taught in many things. Looking back now, I think for the millionith time how blessed I was to have a dog that was so keen to work with me no matter what. Every time I left him on a start line stay he would start to bark as I led out. He wouldn't move - just bark. He was that excited. He would growl at me as he went into the weave poles or through a tunnel and whine with excitement. I then compared that picture to my current dogs. Hmmmm. Something was different. My two were basically doing things, they were tugging, they were going over bars, but they weren't EXCITED about it. They weren't like 'LET ME AT IT!!!' they were more like 'Oh, well if you want me to.' Though I had been attempting to get them excited about toys, I realised they simply weren't, and their equipment performance was therefore suffering. They weren't aroused enough to drive to their weave entry or zoom over even a low bar. They weren't tensed on the start line ready to go, they were sitting relaxed and not paying 100% attention to me or the gear in front of them. Yes, perhaps I could have taught them the mechanics of doing agility and even got them around a course eventually, but they wouldn't have been excited. They wouldn't have been doing it with the joy that Porter did. Would I be happy with that peformance? No. And I'd have known it was totally my own fault for skipping over the foundation stuff. So to Porter I once again say 'thank you'.

Now, since coming back from Lynda's workshops I had been doing quite a bit of work on crate games. The dogs were getting quite enthusiastic about it now. So I decided to use the high value of the crate to build value for the tug toys. To make sure it generalised, I made sure to rotate toys and locations. AM session before work, pack soft crate, toys, dogs and high value treats all into my Corolla hatch and drive to a random park. Unpack everything, do two or three repetitions of the dogs bursting out of the crate to tug then sending them back in and throwing food in the crate. Then pack everything back up and rush home to get off to work. PM session, get home from work, grab a drink so I don't faint before tea, then repack everything and do it all over again at a different park. Then we might also go down the beach and go for a run (building fitness for dogs AND handler) during which we would work on recalls. Incidentally, Josh did some excellent recalls the other night - he stayed with me and even with other dogs going past in reasonably close proximity did not run after them. The 'Look At That' game outlined in Control Unleashed (which I have renamed 'Who's That' as I find it easier to say) has worked wonders - I can now cue 'Who's That' and Josh will look around to find a dog and then look back at me for his treat or offer a behaviour, usually one or two paws up on me are his favourites.

Anyway, getting off the track slightly there, but nevertheless...! I made myself some basic rules during this time also - no feeding the dogs in the backyard. The dogs dinners, which is one of their highest value rewards, must be pre-packed and taken 'on location' to be used during the training session. No training in the backyard in general - I know they can do it there so it is a waste of both our time. *I* must be highly excited during the whole play process, there must be no slacking off at all on my part. How excited is that? Well, if you aren't breathless and the other people in the park aren't looking at you, you probably need to be more excited :)

Affter a week of this, Fyre had his first night out at agility training with Para Districts. I was running late from work so he didn't actually get to do any training as such, but I set up his crate in a couple of different locations and we did some tug sessions same as we have been doing during the week, and he maintained excellent focus on me, very excited about the toy and some great tugging. I even got him to go over a low single bar a couple of times before driving back to his crate. This was quite thrilling for me because the last time I took him out (probably a year ago now) he was more interested in sniffing the ground than paying attention to me. Lynda's workshops made all the difference - if only she'd been here six months earlier!!!

So in just a week, I have been able to get both dogs much more excited about tugging, even MORE excited about crate games (they will try to drag themselves out of my hold to get in the crate now) and maintaining that level of excitement in multiple locations. Now we are ready to go back to 'training' but this will remain an important part of each session. So I've said it before, and I'll say it again, if you haven't got the Crate Games DVD yet you simply MUST. It can be applied to so many areas of your training. LOVE THEM!