Obedience - strengths and weaknesses

[Mordy]

I posted this on my own forum Monday night but wanted to draw obedience-interested people on this forum into the conversation as well. After a really great class, while driving home I thought it would be neat to start a thread comparing notes on different dog's strengths and weaknesses in their obedience training. The list below is by no means complete, but I tried to think of as many things as possible to describe his current status.

Dog Stats
* Quigley, 4 year old neutered male terrier mix
* adopted as a stray from L.A. Animal Control
* basic "household manners" training from 3 months old
* participating in competitive obedience training since 05/02/05
* earned his CGC on 04/17/05
* best motivators: food, tennis ball, tug toy

Handler Stats
* 25 years experience in training
* up to completion of the BH title in Germany
* no previous experience in U.S. competitive dog sport venues

Exercise Stats
(These are in the context of different Rally exercises, making it less boring and tedious.)

* Down from sit in heel position - often a little crooked with the dog's butt out to the left.

* Heeling on leash - Quigley is making great progress, this is one of his biggest challenges. Still some isues with intermittent sniffing and forging but eye contact has improved a lot.

* Heeling off leash - better than on leash, but offleash he's heeling a little wide at times.

* Front on recall - doing well, distance to handler is perfect, but dog still sitting a little crooked now and then.

* Front from heel position - needs work, dog often ends up sitting crooked with the rear end to the right. Distance is fine.

* Finish - finish right is perfect most of the time, occasionally Quigley ends up a little too far ahead, "pop" finish left is mostly fine but needs a little work to prevent him from bouncing off me now and then, "swing" finish needs work (this is a relatively new exercise we haven't worked on much yet).

* Side step right - new exercise, needs lots of work. Quigley isn't very aware of his rear end.

* Figure 8s, spirals, cone weaves etc. - doing well for the most part, only really needs minimal fine tuning.

* Backing up (e.g. 360 turn to the left) - currently still pretty hopeless , due to rear-end awareness being pretty much nonexistent. Needs lots of work.

* Regular sit/down - both solid on voice with hand signal or hand signal only. Voice only down needs a little bit of work.

* Moving sit/down - overall pretty good, but response times need a little sharpening up still.

* Distance sit/down - both solid on voice with hand signal or hand signal only. Voice only down needs a little bit of work.

* Stand/moving stand - needs work. Dog's understanding of the command seems very selective. Had a breakthrough today tho and I think he will progress nicely in the next few days.

* Stand for exam - still needs a lot of work. Quigley doesn't like strange people touching him and tends to back off.

* Recall - solid and excellent speed. No issues except for dog sometimes being a little over-enthusiastic and ending up slamming into my legs, but that's more of an issue with "front" rather than the recall itself.

* Jumping, Retrieving Go out/Targeting exercises: still in the beginning phase, but doing well.

* Long sits/downs - doing really well, even Monday night for the first time with the handler out of sight. I'm so proud!!!

 

[Gempress]

Sounds like fun, Mordy! Also interesting. It's neat to see how much Quigley knows. Here's mine:

Dog stats:
-Zeus, 19 month-old neutered male blackmouth cur.
-Adopted from the humane society at 8 months old, was found abandoned and emaciated near a highway.
-Basic "household manners" training from 8 months on.
-Never been to a formal training class
-Best motivator is praise, followed by favorite toys. Very weak food drive.

Handler stats:
-6 years "real" dog training experience
-Basically self-taught, through books, Internet and advice

Goals: Zeus can't compete in local obedience competitions (not AKC recognized breed), but I would like him to know all the skills. Especially since I was sneered at by a border collie owner and told I was "wasting my time" by trying to teach obedience to a hound.

Obedience stats:

-Recall: Very good in "high concentration" situations, such as formal training, or indoors. Absolutely horrible in the open. Once he scents something, he ignores all else. I can't trust him off-lead in an unfenced area.

-Heel: excellent, his strongest skill. Good both on and off leash, and in high distraction situations. He's still a bit puppy-clumsy and will sometimes trip over his own feet during abrupt turns/stops, but that should go away in time.

-Figure 8s and spirals: Excellent, great heeling skill.

-Front on recall: very good, but only if he actually *does* the recall.

-Finish: excellent. He somehow related that very easily to his heeling skill. Was the easiest thing to teach him.

-Down on recall: pretty good. He starts to obey instantly, but is not speedy about his drop. I don't know if it's because he's just slow, or if his size/legginess won't let him drop as fast.

-Regular sit down: also excellent. Obeys 99.99% of the time, even in high distraction situations.

-long stay: bad. Only 2-3 minutes max so far. Working on extending it to at least 5-10.

-distance sit/down: very good. Surprisingly easy to teach him, he figured it out on the first try. I guess he's a very literal-minded dog: stay means stay, down means down.

-stand for exam: not sure how to rate this. Zeus does not know a formal stand command. But when given a "stay" while he's standing, he will freeze in a stand and not move, even during an hands-on exam by a stranger. Once again, a very literal-minded dog.

-hurdles/fetching: haven't started yet.

-backing up: is excellent when going slowly, once again because of good heeling skill. But when you speed up, he gets clumsy and sloppy. It makes him upset and anxious when he starts fumbling, so I don't do it too often.

Training weaknesses (Basically, things I need help on!):
-Doesn't know hand signals, never trained with them.
-Not very food motivated at all. He can't be lured into position with food, he usually must be physically manuevered to the right spot.
-That darned hound nose. It's playing havoc with his recall.
-Not the fastest learner. It takes many repetitions for him to learn a command ("sit" took a week to teach).