Here are two videos that I took today; both are unedited.
Good stuff happens! Questionable stuff happens! And it’s all just fine; I’ve got a happy baby dog who is learning and trying hard to work in public. But he’s still a baby – just about eight months old. He can barely hold himself still and that is normal and to be expected. That’s the least of my worries.
There are two videos here.
In the first video, I think the most important thing in his heeling is to notice how much work I do “to the right”. This is because Brito is prone to lagging. Which doesn’t mean I don’t work at all to the left, but most of my time is spent encouraging him to drive forwards. Signals are coming along but we have a ways to go before he settles in. We do a few dumbbell retrieves and then he does something that makes me very happy; he gets the dumbbell on his own and brings it to me. Finally we do some toy play, some fronts, and an attempt or two at jumping. The session ends when he runs off to see a new dog. Running off is a fact of life with a young dog with many interests; I left that in too. That will work itself out with time; it’s already much better than it used to be!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXAPElxmJHY
The second video is working on a stand for exam, hand signals under distraction, directed jumping and some fronts. Here is that video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vkz_D7tiIs
Brito’s current stage is my favorite – learning a ton of stuff and having a wonderful time.
In my next blog, I’ll try to post the videos for Lyra on the same day, so you can see what she’s up to as well.
Denise,he is doing so very very well – what a joy it is to see how much you two have done together in a relatively short time – just a thought. Brito is so much tinier than any of your other dogs. i wonder if the lagging issue can be addressed easily by a smaller step and quicker cadence. He looks like he is trying his best to stay with you, but your long stride makes it hard for him to hang in there.
He can keep up just fine when he tries hard and is highly engaged. I find that changing the trainer’s behavior to make the dog successful when the error is one of effort is a slippery slope….instead I’d like to teach him all of the ways he can use his body – at a dead run, very very slowly, and from very slow to quick acceleration – and he’s getting there! But he can only learn these things if he experiences the consequences of succeeding or failing. Of course when it’s time to trial then it’s a whole different story, and then the goal is to make the dog succeed.