How Could They?

Just look at this poor dog's expression.

Poor baby. Usually, they look scared or confused, but this one looks like she knows exactly what happened.

A Small Saturday Practice

Well, it snowed and nearly everyone bailed out of practice. It is the holidays, though, so it's only the truly sick who come out to shiver in the cold with their dogs. I was there, of course. I thought it would be a time to let the dogs romp in the fenced practice field all by their lonesomes (kinda hard to do boxwork without a boxloader) but, shockingly, someone else showed!

We did boxwork. Both Weasel and Spoiled One did well at going for the tug, and Spoiled One aka Smash and Grab was actually hitting the box with all his tootsies. Of course, he was only doing it when the prop was there, but instead of having to use the elaborate V in front, it was just a jump! However, he was going way to wide. In retrospect, I believe it's because we were using the V prop, but opened at a right angle, with one side parallel to the box in front of it, like a jump, and the other half folded back alongside the box. I believe he thought he still needed to jump both sides, which explains why he was hitting the box with his back feet and why he was going wide. I still think I can figure out a way to use this, though.

Weasel's box turn was beautiful, of course. We experimented with me boxloading and the other person running her and she did fine, no hesitation. The only problem was she occassionally spaced actually getting the ball. That was easy to remedy by having the handler remind her about it before releasing her. I was bad, however, and gave them the honking pheasent, rather than the tug, because I had no faith that she would continue to respond to the tug. The handler, though, was getting her to tug a bit on the honking pheasent. Again, possibilities are there.

Sky, the other dog has issues with not paying any attention whatsoever to the ball, and being highly distractable and inclined to play keepaway rather than flyball. He was, with a lot of encouragement, actually watching the ball and picking it up. Granted, it involved tapping on the box, chanting "ball ball ball ball ball" and such, but it was an improvement. The small practice with few distractions was very good for him. He also did some nice recalls, back and forth over the jumps, between me and his handler.

So, all in all, a good practice. I will be glad when it gets lighter sooner and we will be able to have more of these small, highly focused, practices.

New Training Webpages

Aren't they cute? Look at those toothies! That's what raw meaty bones will do for you! Anyway, just wanted to let you know about some dog training web pages that might be useful to you.

If you have just adopted a new dog, How to Housetrain Your New Dog might be timely. This method avoids papers, wee wee pads, and the like.

If you're one of those people that are wanting to improve your training techniques or if you are attempting to teach your dog something new, here is some information on operant theory and how it is used in dog training.

Building Tug Drive

It's down time, no tournaments for awhile. Time for bruises and oopsies to heal and work on stuff for next season.

One of my big frustrations with my two dogs is neither of them have really boffo tug drive. They're both ball crazy. While that means I don't deal with dropped balls, they loose speed on the run back because nothing really draws them.

Don't get me wrong, I run and scream and wave things. But, Spoiled One comes back and still has to be told "drop it" to drop the ball and then "get it" to get the tug. Once he grabs the tug, he enjoys it. The blasted dog wears me out. Flyball is a wonderful work out program. Crouch down. Hold quivering, bouncing dog, scream "go" and run from a crouch to the start line, scream the dog's name, run back like zombies are chasing you and then swing a 60lb weight around while play growling 20 or 30 times and, well, I get a smidgy winded.

But, I want him to drive back for the tug. I've experimented with a lot of things. Running, tugging, switching back and forth between tug and ball, treating for tugging, letting him win, giving up and using a ball. I still want him to want the tug more. So, each evening we're doing the tugging game. It makes me wish I had a Papillion, or at least a 30lb border collie instead of a 60lb shepherd mix.

Weasel is even more of a problem. The little muffin loves the tug at home. I swing her around, and she growls and snarls and has a ball. Last night, she was trying to switch. She started dropping the tug and looking up at the feathers on a stick cat toy on top of the tv stand. So, being the loving, patient owner I am, I put her out and played with Spoiled One. She stayed focused on the tug tonight, even did a little bit of picking it back up after I let her win and inviting more play. You could just see her carefully ignoring the cat toy.

So, that's this week's regimen. Tug, tug, tug. All games are tug. Tug is the source of all fun. We'll see.