Things have been going well with our current classes. I like staying busy and Sophie seems to concur (evidenced by the happy wiggle dance she does when her leash or clicker comes out).
We seem to have finally conquered the teeter. She was going over it at full height during our last training session. Yay for cheese and clickers!
But the weaves....oy the weaves. She learned using the channel method. It was working really well, we had graduated to no wires and closed. Then she started popping out sometimes. One of our trainer noticed that she would pop out when she entered on her right foot. Entering on her right foot would mess up her stride and she couldn't recover at the speed she was going and would pop out.
So we started working on clicking when she entered on the left paw. But then she would stop to see why we clicked. Even if we used a word to mark the behavior she would stop. I pushed it too much and she got frustrated. She started to avoid/ignore the weaves.
So we went back to the beginning and started to re train the weaves using the 2x2 method. We worked on that last week with some success though Sophie was always looking back at me (I am so bad at timing the treat throw properly!). I was thinking, great I made it worse since now she is looking for me instead of forward.
We set up a practice course, weaves being optional so my training partner could use them. Well Miss Sophie decided she wanted to take them. Perfect weaves....
I really never know what to expect with her on any given day. Full of surprises!
Hey Sophie,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you're keeping your Mum on her toes!! And having fun at the same time!! :)
Your pal Snoopy :)
We always find that when we have a training set back and we have to simplify, it isn't very long before the dogs perform properly like there was never a problem. I really think it is something about the way doggies learn.
ReplyDeleteGlad to read about you good training session.
Sounds like you are a bit ahead of Sage. She's a bit unsure of the teeter yet, but is getting there. We've only introduced her to the weaves. Our trainer has started her by placing the two rows close together and Sage just runs between the rows in a rather straight line.
ReplyDeleteBloody weaves. This is really the last obstacle we have left to conquer and it drives me insane! We have trained using only the 2X2 method and have had some success lately. It comes down to my timing, ultimately, which isn't always pefect. Recently we've been attending a sex-session weave/contact workshop and went back to the very beginning, just using one set of poles. So far she is doing much better than ever before. I am hoping it keeps up!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on all your success with Sophie!
Weaves are the hardest. I've tried with Delilah by using the treat in front of her and actually 'walking' her thru them. We aren't in trials or anything so thankfully this method is ok for us. I just prefer not to do weaves. LOL
ReplyDeleteYou will get there though, you are great with Sophie.
This is Jodi, but for some reason it keeps telling me the characters don't match.