Obedience and Rally O training

I had my first private with my new instructor last weekend and she gave me some good pointers for working through a few of Cohen's trouble spots. I was a bit overloaded with information and feel a bit overwhelmed though. And of course there's nothing like an outside perspective to point out problems that I'd not even really seen myself yet.

My favourite take-away from the lesson was how placement of reward was going to help my issue with Cohen lagging off the line. She had me have Cohen jump up to get her reward after a step or two of heeling. Almost immediately I'm seeing more enthusiasm and am quite happy with our progress. It's too soon to call anything solved, but I feel like I have a good idea of how to work through the issue. We've been doing lots of very brief sessions of fun heeling, and Cohen seems to be enjoying herself a lot.

We're going to be joining an Open Trial Prep class, despite us not quite being ready for it. The instructor seemed to really like Cohen, and I have high hopes for her going forward.

Thank you! I'm pretty excited. This week we also learned the stop-right step-stop sign, and she picked that up pretty much instantly--I think she generalized the pivot behavior, since they're sort of similar. She'll also heel backwards for as long as I want her to, which is cool.

We need to work on sending Elsie away and calling her to front, too. I don't know why we're having trouble with that one, but we are, so I've started luring it again. Baby-steps.

And I'm just smitten with Zobby lately--he's hilarious.

Reward delivery can make such a big difference!

I was playing around with reward placement yesterday with the magnetic ball. I like prancy style heel work so that's what I'm working on training and developing muscle memory for.

Welp, first Rally trial this weekend. Hopefully it won't look anything like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GRSbr0EYYU

Oh man LOL

Izzie's heeling retraining is coming along nicely. She targets my leg well and stays nice and close and at attention when we take a step. I'm taking it super slow this time though but she's super excited now that I'm being more specific and shaping it rather than luring.

Here's a short video on our heelwork training, about three weeks in and lots of work to do but very happy with how she is coming along

http://youtu.be/YDpuLPL3Wd0

I took my first group Open Trial Prep class, and we had a blast. I had been told that Cohen and I would be a bit behind the skill level of the others in the class, but it seemed like we were able to keep up pretty well. The highlight of my night was when the instructor and assistant told me that they'd take Cohen home with them in an instant.

Her focus and enthusiasm was wonderful the entire time. Even in our down time, she's staring holes into the side of my head, and people seemed to like that. For me, it's great when we're working. Not so great when we're not.

I'm hoping that the class will polish up our skills enough to give me the confidence to enroll in a Rally trial in January or February to (hopefully) finish up Cohen's RE title. We just need to proof her heeling and focus around food distractions a bit more. It's loads of fun, and I can't wait to get involved more deeply in the sport.

Finding the time for this, agility, flyball and my husband is proving to be tricky!

Here's me and Whim in the ring

http://youtu.be/v6n9iseADdo

Very nice. You two have a good relationship, it shows. Gets a little "loose" in the heeling at times, but still attentive, happy and willing.

Watching you two with that lady droning on in the background seemed funny to me. Talk about opposites

Great job.

Looks awesome!!!! Congrats on the two new titles

Ugh I wish I could have that happy of a dog while working...

Very nice! I love her attitude.

You two look great! Congrats!

Finally got video of the little monster doing some rally! From class tonight. She was a bit distracted as per usual, but it's OK! Getting better every week. Though the spots she's sniffing are drool marks from the AWESOME Newfie who went before us (no, really, that Newfie is fantastic and SO handsome!), so I suppose it's good she wasn't sniffing for no reason????? (She has a history of displacement sniffing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCz9_u7_i0c

Also - the jumps are her favorite parts LOL. Moving downs are also super fun.

Wow! That was very impressive! I love her "stand", it's so crisp and snappy.

And sometimes, a girl can't help but sniff a bit of Newfie drool, lol.

Thanks for the compliments!!! We've worked hard on those stands - probably my least favorite thing to teach, though.

Bwahahaha apparently! Good stuff, that drool

Thanks everyone for the comments on Whim's obedience Some how I lost this thread and only just saw them today.

Thanks and...I think you may get your wish Kimma looks pretty happy in this video. She is coming along really, really nicely. And I agree her positions are great!

I do think while she was sniffing something, it probably was a bit of stress sniffing because it seemed to increase with the duration of your time in the ring. To start with she didn't seem too interested, then towards the end she sniffed more. That said, it wasn't a lot of sniffing and she seemed happy enough to come right back to work. I would just work on keeping her engaged and I think the sniffing will take care of itself. Maybe try to make your rewards more interesting and less predictable. When she's heeling nicely and attentive to you, surprise her with a quick treat in motion. Teach her to jump up to get a treat from your hand on cue. If she likes to chase you, sometimes use your marker mid-heel and run away. Let her catch up to you then quickly go right back into heeling. That is one of Whim's most favorite things ever!

Have you seen Denise Fenzi's Obility? Since Kimma loves the jumps, she'd probably really enjoy practicing obedience like that

Thanks!!!! Well, she's happy because it's a place she's pretty used to (this was our 4th class). Other environments are a different story! Which is why I try to do show and gos and take her out as much as I can to practice random places.

That's what I'm hoping, about the sniffing. It has REALLY gotten a lot better in all venues in the past 5 months or so, especially in agility. But it has actually gotten a bit worse due to my being sick for a while/the foot surgery. I couldn't work her as I had been (taking her other places, etc.) and I think it screwed her up (especially when I was walking with the boot/limping a lot). Hopefully we will get back to where we were, and surpass that soon!

AWESOME advice about quick/random rewards and running away. I use the running away as a reward for agility, so why not obedience?!???! She also loves the "touch" thing so we use that a lot. I need to start rewarding more in class in general. One reason I like to record myself LOL. It's SO helpful!

OMG. I want to do obility. That would be PERFECT for us!!!!

Working on Kastle's heeling and pivots. Switched to a behind the hip reward system. Working on fading the lure, getting his butt in more quickly on the pivots/turns, and duration of heeling. Taking it slow.

[YOUTUBE]http://youtu.be/a9pCRT-aiac[/YOUTUBE]

I'm thinking of trying out Rally O with Cali, in addition to the flyball... so I'm going to have to take a look through this thread!

My only worry about it would be Cali's excitement when she's working on tricks, etc. I'm thinking in a new environment, she'd be more calm (at least, she was when we took an obedience class a year ago) but at home, she tries going through every trick she knows until I give her a command or hand signal. It'll give us something to work on, that's for sure.