Figure 8's

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
Another Carbon SD training video. He aces the first try (and had been acing the practice before we started filming) but then looks at me like he has no clue what I'm asking for the second time around.

Ideas on what I did to confuse him? :unsure:

 
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Boogie

Moderator
Location
Manchester UK
I think it’s a good idea if they don’t know where the treats are coming from. I tend to have a few tubs around the room so that he can’t focus on the treats. I mark the behaviour instantly then go for the treat. He knows to wait where he is after the exercise while I go and get them.

:)
 

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
I talked to my trainer about this yesterday and her take is that I've not built enough motivation for the nose touch. I didn't realise that I shouldn't be having him do two touches to go around one leg: it should be one per side and much more fluid.

She gave us some new practice exercises to calmly build interest in the nose touch and work following my hand much more incrementally. That seems to be a theme with me: taking too big of steps forward all at once. I'm still learning how/when to break things down into MUCH smaller steps!
 

Emily_Babbelhund

Mama Red HOT Pepper
I'm finding it challenging to adjust to the much higher learning rate of a Labrador and I think that's what is behind most of my 'jump the gun' behaviour. Both Duncan and Brogan were much slower to learn behaviours but once learned they performed them very consistently and generalised quickly.

For example with distance down stays, I remember with Brogan going from doing stays of a few meters in the front garden to putting him on the sidewalk and walking halfway down the street while he waited in the space of a couple days. Carbon learns very quickly but takes very long to build up distance or duration. He also learns much better in a fairly chaotic environment - which sounds great (and it is for SD work) but a little harder to consistently set up for multiple daily training sessions.

No complaints, however. It's actually really fascinating and I'm happy that Carbon is so much different than my other boys. The whole process of me learning along with him is perfect team building, which more than any specific behaviour is the most important part of SD training. :)
 
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