Clean Run - May 2018 - 24

I set dogs up to succeed. I do think that dogs need to learn persistence
and that they do get things wrong every so often. But when they do, a huge
history of reward will give them the ability to work out how to get it right.

she enjoys chasing crows and putting
up pheasants, it's easy to call her away
from them. She hates rain and being
wet and will often refuse to go out if it's
raining. Evidently one bad experience
in a wet tunnel was enough to put her
off the entire game. We tried all sorts of
things, including going back to having
two people rewarding (one at each end
of the tunnel) and offering her the opportunity to chase Tyzer through, all to
no avail. Darcey was miserable and unhappy, she would do the thing, but the
joy had gone. I left it and then the snow
hit so it had to be left for a little longer.
The next time I set up to train, I deliberately left Darcey until last, so that she'd
hear the other dogs having fun. I got her
out with lots of rewards and left her coat
on to make sure she was nice and warm.
She was not happy, so I didn't train; I simply threw her ball for her. She wouldn't
chase it near the equipment, so I took
her out to our canter track and threw it
for her there. I then got Tyzer out for her
to race and I played with both of them
until she was happy again. I have to say
at this point that if she doesn't want to,
she doesn't have to. It's no fun training a
dog that is miserable, and if Darcey finds
water in the tunnel to be so punitive as to
override all the positive associations that
I've worked so hard to build, then agility
in England is probably not the sport for
her. I will keep trying, at the moment I'm
simply playing with her, in and around
the equipment. If I have to I'll leave actual agility training until the spring when
it will be warmer and we might see
some dry days. She's still enjoying contact training, so we will continue that.
The online course I'd booked Darcey
onto was a bit of a disaster. People often
ask me what I mean when I deem something "collie training;" this is a prime
example. There was a video shown of a
dog trying nine times, getting it wrong
and not being rewarded, simply being

24

reset. The trainers dismissed this as "well
sometimes sessions go this way," and
this is obviously something they accept.
There are very few breeds of dogs that
will continue trying to work out what
is wanted with that level of failure. My
standard rule of thumb is that if there
have been two mistakes, I need to pay
attention, three and we stop. I will then
sit down and think about what might be
wrong. Did I up criterion too fast? Are
there too many distractions? Even with
Shady, who would without doubt carry
on trying for me, I wouldn't ask it of him
as it risks his enjoyment of training with
me. I set dogs up to succeed. I do think
that dogs need to learn persistence and
that they do get things wrong every so
often. But when they do, a huge history
of reward will give them the ability to
work out how to get it right.
The next point with that course, which I
hadn't considered before, is how much
feedback will you be given? If it's one video a week which should be a maximum
of two minutes and one lot of feedback,
is that enough? Say you look at the first
video, go out and try it a couple of times,
and videotape. Your first feedback is
that you've got it wrong. Now you try
again, but won't get feedback until the
following week, after the next lot of instructions has been given. What should
you do? Carry on perhaps training incorrectly, or stop and wait? If you get it
wrong again, you'll now be three weeks
behind and feedback is only given for
the length of the course. I've taken several online courses before this one and
not come across this problem. Looking
back, there was no limit set on feedback,
it was given as, and when, required.
Darcey had no problems at all, but
what I didn't like was that she was being taught to do the equipment slowly,
rewarded again and again for trotting
across the plank and then across part of
the dogwalk itself. The ethos here is that

when they understand what's required
they'll speed up. Again, to me this is "collie training" pure and simple. If you teach
any dog other than a high drive dog to
do something slowly then that's how
they'll do it. For Darcey, there is such an
extreme difference between her dainty
trot and the fantastic flat out gallop that
all sighthounds display, I still can't see
the point of teaching her to do something at a trot. So we gave up on that
method. I'm going to revisit Darcey's
paw target which she enjoyed and see
where we go from there.
Dexi has decided that agility is his
thing; he loves it, and can't wait to get
out amongst the jumps. I'm being very
careful now not to reward him for taking
jumps or equipment that I haven't indicated. Although I was happy with that
at the beginning, now I've added my
cues-which at the moment are hand
and foot-I don't want to teach him to
grab equipment. It's hard with any dog
that has struggled, as we are desperate
for them to succeed, and with Dexi in
particular his journey has been a diļ¬ƒcult one. However, it won't do him any
favors to think that the idea of the sport
is to grab any equipment that he sees.
His running dogwalk has now been put
on a full dogwalk and it's going well. I
withhold reward (thrown food pod) if he
leaps off, and reward if he runs though
smoothly. It seems to be working well,
his reward is always thrown low, to keep
his head down and his focus forward.
It's very obvious when he leaps, as he
does so from quite a way up the plank.
He loves the jumps, these are now up
to half full height which will be 350mm
(13.78 inches) for him. He stands 21cm
tall so will have to be built up to full
height quite slowly. He does watch me
closely which is understandable and I
do think I'm going to have to try to be
ahead of him for turns, unless they're
simple turns, because there's just no

Clean Run | May 18



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Contents
Clean Run - May 2018 - Cover1
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