Three second behaviors, easy chains, and high arousal

In a recent blog, I talked about the value of three second behaviors in distracting environments. I suggested setting the dog up for success by using simple behaviors so that your dog can develop the habit of accuracy and love of work, regardless of location. There is...

Silence is…Good!

Those of you who follow me on FB or who take classes with me at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy know that I have a lot of opinions about how our training decisions affect our ability to move into competition.  One of my favorite rants refers to the use of silence in...

Figure Eights

The most notable contributor to poor work on the figure eight is the tendency of the handler to do it in exactly the same fashion every time, so that they are completely predictable to the dog.  It makes sense that our dogs would learn the pattern and would begin to...

Lyra – General Training

Here are the sessions of Lyra that I taped a few days ago – I strung them all together in one long 11 minute video. I push her pretty hard here, which is unusual.  You’ll hear No Reward Markers (NRM’s) as we work on some heeling details.  I do this...

Proofing Scent Discrimination

This blog isn’t about teaching scent discrimination.  There are plenty of ways to teach scent work that are kind and effective; pick one or blend a few and find a plan that works for you.  Here is how I taught Lyra if you want some...

Lyra – Run Through

Today I took Lyra for her first run through in many months.   It is rare that I do a “run-through”.  To me, that means I have pre-decided which exercises I will do, and mostly I ignore errors.  I’m checking to see what needs work.  I use no classic...

Lyra – training update

It’s been a while since I posted a generic training video.  So you here you have it, unedited, full of mistakes (hers and mine) for your viewing pleasure. Note that Lyra is working for food.  I’m doing this for two reasons.  One, I want her to learn to...

Motivation Part 2

Oh, things are going well around here.  Very well. Here’s a video – Lyra has had three or four training sessions since my last post. Things Lyra has learned in that last three sessions: 1)  Work from the training yard can be rewarded with a trip to the...

Motivation – Part 1

Some days there is so much information to be shared about a topic that when I start to write, I end up with a great big mess. A  jumble of ideas lead to other ideas, and to other ideas and next thing you know, I want to write a book.  And having just finished a book...

Impulse Control

Unlike my prior dogs, Lyra has had almost no impulse control training.  That’s because she rarely wants anything badly enough to experience the conflict between cooperating with me or taking what she wants directly.    The things that Lyra wants badly enough to...

Lyra’s second Fun Match

Today I was good!  I took Ms. Lyra to a fun match so she could practice her “Ring Confidence” and “Environmental Comfort” skills. In case someone might find it educational to see the value of matches with a young dog,  I’m posting a link...

Happy 2nd Birthday Lyra!

Lyra turned two years old yesterday, so it seemed fitting to post a video of our training.  I took this video for a class I’ll be teaching in October, but it can serve two purposes. Here’s a five minute clip, start to finish, of our morning training....

Those Pesky Finishes

My least favorite precision aspect of obedience is the finish.  No surprise, it is also where I lose the most points.  Funny how that works. I do pretty well with the “around” finish but I struggle with the  flip to heel.  That bugs me.  I want my dogs to...

Heeling Games!

Heeling games are simply fun ways to practice your heeling.  Basic heeling games involve some kind of movement – either vertical, horizontal or some type of trick behavior.  More advanced heeling games are a compilation of movement, patterns, surprises, opposition...

Selecting Criteria

Two weeks ago I talked about criteria – decide what is important to you and hold the line. Now I’m going to tell you one more thing, since it might appear that I have a lot of criteria for one young dog.  In reality, I only have one criteria for Lyra. I...

Training Criteria – proofing

Last week I talked about my criteria for trialing.  Many of you will be surprised to learn that I was only holding her to one criteria – the fact that she did excellent work was a bonus.  I’ll get back to that topic in another week or so. This week...

Heeling Games – “Fly”

“Fly” is what I call it when a dog is sent out of one behavior, out around an object, and then called back into another behavior.  In this blog example, we’ll use heeling for both behaviors with a fly in the middle. There are many reasons I teach a...

Obility – Teaching the Retrieve over High Jump (ROH)

Here’s a simple video showing how I’m working on Lyra’s retrieve over high jump. She knows how to fetch.  She knows how to jump.  She knows how to stay.  She has a reasonable clue about fetching over a jump in the outbound direction, but definitely...

beginning obility for Lyra

Obility is what I call obedience where you keep the action moving as fast as possible by blending exercises together and removing as many fronts and finishes as possible.  Sort of an obedience/agility blend. All of my dogs learn obility, and we play obility games...

Placement of Rewards

If you want beautiful heeling, there’s something you need to know. It’s more important than your reward structure.  It’s more important than verbal markers or clickers.  It’s more important than throwing corrections into your training....

Holding an Object

Lyra has a pretty good retrieve – she’s fast and enthusiastic.   A few weeks ago I began adding the behavior of “sit in front and wait” If you think about it for a second, the “hold in front” is not an integral part of the retrieve...

Pressure – or Patience?

And I thought everyone would get up in arms over my blog post on my use of pressure.  Nope. Now it’s time to admit that I don’t  use much pressure with my own dogs, especially when they are young.  I did the video with Lyra to show a technique, not...

Pressure

Not long ago I wrote a post about tolerating distractions; how to introduce distractions in small doses to help your dog function and succeed – a little bit at a time.  Let’s say you went home and thought about this.  You believed that you had done good...

Lyra – Tolerating Distractions

The first step towards getting your dog to ignore distractions is to include them in training from the beginning.  When you introduce controlled distractions, you can help your dog to “win”, therefore building confidence and love for work. This video...