The temperatures and the wind have taken a turn for the worse after a lovely stretch of mild weather (as winters go here on the high steppe). I rented training time today at a building.
I’ve been working on improving both dogs’ jumping skills by following Chris Zink’s program of jumping drills. In Alder’s case, I want to improve the chance he’ll take the jump both ways on the Retrieve Over High. Same for Maple, but I am also trying to stick to my resolution to make progress on agility training with her. I set up a line of 6 jumps, from 4” to 12” in height, at varying distances from one another. (The idea is to give the dog practice at adjusting his stride to accommodate different distances between jumps and different jump heights.)
The building I rented is used primarily for agility training. The agility equipment was moved against the wall for my obedience training. I happened to put the line of jumps parallel to the A-frame parked along the wall. With Alder, I started by sitting him at one end of the line of jumps, going to the opposite end, and calling him to me down the line of jumps. That went great. Alder knows this game and loves it. Then, I led out a couple of jumps and released him so I was running along the line of jumps. Alder took the first jump than veered away to take the A-frame. He bounded over and did a perfect 2on-2off at the end. After that, there was no getting him over the line of jumps without doing the A-frame.
I worked with Alder on agility, with no obedience, until he was about 2.5 years old. My plan was to get his agility titles while he was young. By the time he was 2 years, I was resigning myself to the idea that he would only be able to do Preferred jump heights (20” in his case). By the time he was 2.5 years old, I realized that Preferred wasn’t in the cards, either. He could, and would, do a practice course at 20”, but the day after he would often be limping. Even if he wasn’t limping, he would be unenthused about agility training for days afterward. So, we switched to obedience without Alder ever being shown in an agility trial. At the outset of obedience training, I was only aiming for a CD. I had my doubts that he could jump well enough to get an Open title. He has exceeded my expectations in obedience, even if he only takes the high jump both ways about half the time in trials.
The point of all this background is that, during those first years of his training, I worked a lot on contacts with him. He loved the A-frame. (The dog walk, not so much. He’s not the most coordinated dog and it was scary for both of us.) He hasn’t been on an A-frame in close to 3 years, and yet, he remembers exactly how to do it. I was pretty darned impressed at fuzz-brained poodle boy.
After the jump work, we moved on to a little heeling practice, a couple of dumbbell retrieves, and some beginning Go-Out work. With all the Utility work lately, it’s been a few weeks since we did a Drop on Recall. I put him in a sit and called him to come.
He remained in a sit.
I was taken off guard. I called him again, knowing immediately that was not what I should have done. He took a hesitant step or two and did an uncertain drop.
So, how does a dog remember a perfect contact he hasn’t done in 3 years, but forgets a recall after 3 weeks?
We spent the rest of the session working on recalls with no drops. I resorted to a flexi.
I had already had a long training session with Maple, but after I was done with Alder and had loaded everything in the van, I looked at the always eager Maple, who has a beautiful drop, and decided to see if she would do the drop, which I haven’t practiced with her in a while either. I put her in a sit, walked away about 50 ft, turned, gave her a Come command and…
She didn’t move. And when she would come, she would be hesitant and either sit or drop after a few steps.
OK, one dog has a problem, it MIGHT be the dog’s fault. Two dogs have a problem, and it’s the trainer’s fault.
For weeks, I’ve been caught up in teaching Utility. I’ve been doing a lot of signal and directed jumping training. I’m also working on all the new Rally exercises where the handler leaves the dog, walks a few feet away, and asks for a change of position or a call to heel. All execises where the handler leaves the dog and does some sort of hand motion at a distance. Clearly, I’ve been doing so many of these exercises, with no refresher recalls, that both dogs were confused waiting for some hand gesture.
Time to put some balance back into training and mix Open exercises in with Utility training. So many things for a poor dog to learn!
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