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Oh, ok. Sorry to hear that, but I totally understand. Hope everyone is feeling better soon. I will video and email you what I can daily along with my many questions. 🙂 Thanks again.
Ok, at the trial next weekend, I will:
Arrive early, walk around and acclimate Hank to the environment.
Get him out more to spend time with me or give him a bully stick when crated for long periods/while I am working.
Be more energetic while warming him up, during the run and while cooling down.
Do active tricks using high value treats to engage him while waiting to go into the ring.
Relax, connect and smile when I lead out at the startline. Rev him up, “ready..” run with him or slingshot start.
Use more aggressive handling, keep moving. Lots of verbal praise, driving him with my voice.
End happy. Reward, play and engage with him after each run.
On the first day, I’m entered in T2B, JWW and Standard. For JWW and Standard, I plan to run a short course of 6-8 obstacles, no weaves or contacts. For T2B, I plan to run FEO so I can use a toy to rev him up and reward him. I’ll use lots of verbal praise and look for places to use the toy reward. The first day, I’ll run a short course with no weaves or contacts in T2B, but would like to try the weaves and be able to use the toy reward as well as the extra training time in the ring by Sunday. As I was thinking this through I came up with several more questions:
Should I run short courses all 3 days? Add a couple of obstacles by Sunday?
During the short course, does the judge just keep calling wrong courses or will I get whistled off at some point?
Do I start to include contacts and weaves at this trial?
How far in advance should I be getting him out to warm up and enter the ring? I had been waiting until the last minute to go into the ring, but think that in FEO I’d like to use the toy to rev him up in the corner but not distract the dog before me that is running.
I’ve also go an email into Cindy to see if I can run him at a lower jump height in FEO – probably 16 inches if allowed.
Thank you again. I know I have a lot of questions, but I am really excited about this new approach!Yes, that makes more sense. I was associating the LBG with distance meaning lack of handler motion. I see now that it’s about building value for the obstacle.
Your suggestion about teaching opposition reflex using his dinner brought up another question. Last week I only fed him 1/2 his dinner before going to class. He’s been having more drive at class, so it’s hard to tell how much this impacted his motivation, but he was pretty fast for the food rewards. Previously, when I didn’t feed him at all until after class, he lost his mind and just went around offering behaviors without focusing on me or the course. I’d like your thoughts on this as well as how much breakfast to feed him on the day of a trial.
I’m working on a plan for the SWAT trial, and would like to run that by you here if that’s okay.Good feedback. Thank for going into such detail. I will keep working on the forward focus. He will let me restrain him and throw the toy to rev him up, but he doesn’t understand the opposition reflex. It seems to shut him down further like he thinks he’s in trouble. He has sped up quite a bit in class. The cold weather helps a lot. I will approach the next couple of trials as training only. This should help with my own anxiety as well. I’m a little confused about LGB vs. aggressive handling/running towards each obstacle. Should I be doing both in practice? I’m going to eventually need distance for ASCA, but think that will come as he gets faster and more confident.
