Fiona's Big Day

Mel Blacke

Well-Known Member
So we went to the kennel club this morning to work on stuff for the next trial which is coming up in October. I like to go on Sunday because it is a medium distraction environment with fewer people. Mostly it is agility people working on their stuff so we use the open ring. Fi did pretty well at her marching behavior that we have been working on--she wasn't always in perfect position but we can refine that later. I actually did get the behavior from her without any toys or treats for about 20 feet where she gets rewarded outside the ring after she demonstrates the behaviors so I was quite pleased. So while it is not enough yet, it is definitely something to build on. Our efforts at training in the park---preferably while there are baseball games going on or lots of people and other dogs and cars around has paid off big time. Then we went to the lake where she had a good long run off lead, we then played and played and when she was really hot we did water retrieves and then got out and strolled around the park and went back for another set of retrieves. We did this 3 or 4 times. Rinse and repeat. The spaniel was quite tired from her big day. I think I finally found the bottom of this little lady's seeming boundless energy reserves.20170716_235238.jpg She was asleep in the car on the way home. She was also uncharacteristically quiet all evening long.
 
Aww. She is tired. Good strategies using busy environments for training.
 
That is what most of the really successful trainers at the kennel club told me to do. They know lots more about training than I do--these women have resumes in dog training---and many have titled multiple dog breeds in multiple disciplines and have trained dogs since they were children. I have no idea how this trial is going to go in October. If we go in there and bomb then I will just figure out what went wrong and problem solve like mad and try again. There is the embarrassment factor but I just remind myself that it isn't the first time I have made a fool of myself and it certainly won't be the last. The criteria for the behavior is quite specific and very narrow: There are things you must do and things you must not do. About 50% of the dogs that fail in the beginning classes do so because of handler error.
On the bright side, while we were at the club yesterday, the woman who was teaching the agility class that was in session, asked me if I ever considered trying Fi in agility. Actually, when we started this dog training odyssey, agility was my original intent but the people were so cagey about when the starter class was being held that I just decided to go into obedience. We think it is a lot of fun. She said that maybe the instructor that is usually there on Sundays would be willing to let us try the various obstacles to just see how she does. That would be fun and might lead to something later on.
 
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Sounds like a wonderful rewarding day. I bet Fiona was happy to work for you.
 
I hope gets to try the obstacles next time. Either way, I know this is fun for both of you and rewarding like Polly says.
 
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