Clean Run - January 2018 - 35

This month was Shady's birthday! He was 12 months old, a good time
to assess what we have. Physically he's still growing into himself and all
the training in the world won't speed that up. Although when you watch him
you still think, "gangly teenager," his physical skills are improving daily.
note, lots of people introduce tunnels to young dogs. I don't, as I worry
about toes being damaged. For Shady
there's the additional concern that he
will need to duck to enter a tunnel and
I don't want him doing that until he
has the core strength necessary.
I have also been trying to take note
of avoidance behaviors in training on
my part, as it's a good indication that I
know those situations will be hard for
the youngsters. At this stage I should be
actively seeking out situations that the
dogs find difficult and making sure that
they can cope with them. My personal
opinion is that there is very little that can
fully prepare a dog for all the craziness
that is an English agility show with 10 or
12 rings going. However, if you expect
your dog to work in those conditions,
you really do need to do your best to
prepare them well.

Rear Foot Targeting
It has always been obvious that Shady
needs to be very aware of his back feet.
His stride is enormous. Even if I decided
to teach a two-on/two-off behavior, if his
front feet were on the ground it would
be perfectly possible for his back feet to
miss the contact. I decided to change
Shady's box to just a mat, as the box was
moving and upsetting him. He's doing
well with the mat and can now hold position as I move past him. I'm going to
build the behavior to my running past
him, recalling him into position from 15
feet past the mat, and sending into position from 15 feet away. Once those are
fluent I'll eliminate the wait and teach
him to hit the mat on the move.

Darcey's list of things to consider. "Work"
has to be fun if you want her to consent.
So out came my trusty Treat & Train. To
introduce it, I asked for some basic hand
touches and spins and triggered the T&T
for the reward. For Dexi this is more difficult as he can't hear the beep and a
thumbs up from me means food coming
from my hand. Any other gestures used
to mean "reward," result in him looking at
me. After a few goes he got the idea but
wasn't happy with it. Darcey was thrilled.
Never mind that it's just kibble, she was
absolutely delighted.
We worked up a 20-foot send to a
paw target in the first session. Looking
through my notes for her I draw the
same conclusions every time: little and
often. So we keep sessions short, but I
am absolutely thrilled with our progress.
During this period I also attached a small
rope to her favorite ball, with the aim of
eventually being able to play with her
in my immediate vicinity rather than all
the excitement taking place away from
me as she chases her ball. This will be a
slow progression as I'm nervous about
denting her enthusiasm for her ball. To
date it's working well and she has had
one small game of tug with me.

Distance Training with Food
The trouble with trying to train for distance with food is the presentation. Why
go all the way over there if the reward is
back here? If the reward is easily available
then there's also not much point working
for it. As a Whippet, working isn't top of
January 18 | Clean Run

I attached a rope to Darcey's favorite
ball to start gently introducing tug.

I don't believe that every dog must play
tug; we are fortunate in this day and age
to have a large variety of rewards available to build behavior. That being said, if
you can teach a dog to enjoy playing tug,
it is a nice reward to have available, as
it's easy to utilize in crowded situations.

Confidence Building
Something scared Dexi right out of the
training arena whilst I was working on
a foot target with him and he went and
hid under my car. I hate watching his
confidence crack as it reminds me what
he was like when he first arrived from rescue. Although I'll always say that the label
"rescue" should not define a dog for its
entire life, you do have to take their backgrounds into account. When Dexi loses it,
he tends to go all the way. He's also highly
environmentally aware. The day he got
"stung" by our electric chicken netting, he
didn't learn to leave the chickens alone,
he decided that the yard was a bad place
to be and for three weeks flatly refused to
get out of the car there. In a similar vein
he decided that there was no way he
could go into the arena on his own.
I ditched the Treat & Train and instead
opted for a Lotus Ball. It's a little threesided fabric toy that opens out for food
to be placed in and then "Velcroes" back
together. I spent 14 days opening the
pod, placing a piece of sausage in the
middle, putting my thumb on it and
waggling it at floor level to get Dexi to
chase it, after which he ate the piece of
sausage from the open toy. I used five
pieces of sausage in each session and
played the game twice a day. So 140 rewards later Dexi was keen on the toy. I
then started to close it up and throw it
a short distance. Another 140 rewards
later I tried it in the arena. In between
times I'd set up Dexi to chase Tyzer
whilst he was working tunnel sends,
but noted that Dexi was worried about
being "only dog" in the arena. It worked
well. Dexi had a wonderful time and is
currently happy to chase the Lotus Ball.
35



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - January 2018

Contents
Clean Run - January 2018 - Cover1
Clean Run - January 2018 - Cover2
Clean Run - January 2018 - Contents
Clean Run - January 2018 - 4
Clean Run - January 2018 - 5
Clean Run - January 2018 - 6
Clean Run - January 2018 - 7
Clean Run - January 2018 - 8
Clean Run - January 2018 - 9
Clean Run - January 2018 - 10
Clean Run - January 2018 - 11
Clean Run - January 2018 - 12
Clean Run - January 2018 - 13
Clean Run - January 2018 - 14
Clean Run - January 2018 - 15
Clean Run - January 2018 - 16
Clean Run - January 2018 - 17
Clean Run - January 2018 - 18
Clean Run - January 2018 - 19
Clean Run - January 2018 - 20
Clean Run - January 2018 - 21
Clean Run - January 2018 - 22
Clean Run - January 2018 - 23
Clean Run - January 2018 - 24
Clean Run - January 2018 - 25
Clean Run - January 2018 - 26
Clean Run - January 2018 - 27
Clean Run - January 2018 - 28
Clean Run - January 2018 - 29
Clean Run - January 2018 - 30
Clean Run - January 2018 - 31
Clean Run - January 2018 - 32
Clean Run - January 2018 - 33
Clean Run - January 2018 - 34
Clean Run - January 2018 - 35
Clean Run - January 2018 - 36
Clean Run - January 2018 - 37
Clean Run - January 2018 - 38
Clean Run - January 2018 - 39
Clean Run - January 2018 - 40
Clean Run - January 2018 - 41
Clean Run - January 2018 - 42
Clean Run - January 2018 - 43
Clean Run - January 2018 - 44
Clean Run - January 2018 - 45
Clean Run - January 2018 - 46
Clean Run - January 2018 - 47
Clean Run - January 2018 - 48
Clean Run - January 2018 - 49
Clean Run - January 2018 - 50
Clean Run - January 2018 - 51
Clean Run - January 2018 - 52
Clean Run - January 2018 - 53
Clean Run - January 2018 - 54
Clean Run - January 2018 - 55
Clean Run - January 2018 - 56
Clean Run - January 2018 - 57
Clean Run - January 2018 - 58
Clean Run - January 2018 - 59
Clean Run - January 2018 - 60
Clean Run - January 2018 - 61
Clean Run - January 2018 - 62
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Clean Run - January 2018 - 65
Clean Run - January 2018 - 66
Clean Run - January 2018 - Cover3
Clean Run - January 2018 - Cover4
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