This is an update of where we are at with distance control // position changes.
Apologies i dont have the brain capacity to make this flow! But there are some important points in here!
In the New Zealand system, distance control asks for 6 position changes, starting in either sit, down, or stand - the positions asked are at the judges discretion and must fulfil some criteria that I can’t recite.
Most of my training videos I’ve posted have included a prop of some description. Truthfully, they’re not my first port of call, they’re used to enhance understanding and not to become a crutch. I found with Sushi it helped her learn hold position rather than focusing on moving backwards.
Incidentally without a prop, Sushi understands her job is to not move, and she has gotten very serious about that job. This will improve with repetition, she’ll realise she can do it and have fun at the same time. I loathe to try add drive in, as once her natural confidence is restored, for lack of better description I’ll be f**ked! I’ll have created a monster.
Anyhow, the reason I’m sharing is, I have entered trial prep with Sushi, I ensure that my dogs see competition exercises under fatigue - not large amounts of heelwork or anything that could result in injury.
This lot of distance control was at the end of a big training session, that included a lot of running around. I use physical fatigue as a means of replicating some form of “ring stress”. When an exercise enters trial prep stage in training, I am no longer teaching the exercise, I am making sure it can hold up in competition. Training sessions for trial prep SHOULD be harder than competition in terms of what you ask from your dog. I need to make it clear, you’re not setting your dog up for failure. You’re systematically asking harder yet achievable questions of your dog. Therefore, competition day and your actual “run” should be the EASIEST picture of any competition exercises your dog sees!
I am findings ways to build muscle memory into Sushi’s distance control.
For the past couple of nights I have placed her on the edge of the deck.
A goal of mine is to eliminate the front foot movement, but she’s a fundamental happy feet dancer at heart (as evidenced by her little tippy tappy happy feet dance at the end). I have reduced the amount of movement a significant anount. There is a part of me that wonders if I will be taking something away from her by pursuing that goal?
Whilst it’s important to acknowledge that none of what we train our dogs to do is natural, I think something that is more important and shouldn’t be overlooked is who our dogs fundamentally are. If we honour who they are in how we train them, I truly believe we can build more joy into the work we do with them.
That was a little bit of a tangent!
I am beyond thrilled with Fashions work ethic and what she brings to the table.
It’s important to expose your young dogs to duration as early as possible.
This is to prevent getting stuck with a dog who only tries for a certain number of steps or seconds.
Part of it is allowing your puppy to fix their own mistakes. Fashion pops off the hand target twice to go “um have you forgotten about my reward??
It’s important to allow them to fix their own mistakes, and not make it better for them. Admittedly here I should have rewarded a few seconds after the first pop off. I only ever reward the instant choice a handful of times with any dog so they don’t think their job is to look away and reengage. I always wait a few seconds at least after they’ve fixed their mistake before rewarding.
The multiple pop offs is also information that I have become too predictable in my reward pattern. I need to load value for 7, 9, 11, and 13 seconds before rewarding. Then it will be easier to build duration.
I thought it would be beneficial for people to see Sushi’s warmup for heelwork last Wednesday. EDIT: This doesn’t include her physical warmup before entering the building.
My training objective was to expose Sushi to 2-2.5 minutes worth of heelwork. When a dog puts as much effort into their gait as Sushi, each step is sacred and has got to be worth something!
I first want to check that she is engaged with me and the one bringing the energy to the session.
I do this by letting her offer engagement, and I reward any time I see her invest energy. I use spins and body wraps just to get her body moving in different directions.
I only move onto the hand touch when I’m satisfied that she is bringing energy.
The hand touch is then used for a few seconds to see that she is coordinated in her gait and I nearly always end on jumping hand touches, so that she is used to exerting herself at the end of anything heelwork related. If she gets into the habit of exerting herself at the end in this way, she will naturally bring more energy towards the end of the pattern.
I do another rep of hand touch purely to check that she is building into the session. I stop in a freeze frame - albeit failed attempt - and then ask for an exertion of energy. I don’t worry that it failed because this plants the idea in her mind that she has to still focus on holding position and not just floating off into the abyss.
My main message in sharing this, is that the majority of dogs do not need to see screeds and screeds of heelwork before you go in the competition ring. If youve done your training, you need to trust your training and save your dogs battery for the ring! Often the best heelwork most dogs offer is the first couple of minutes and I see it time and time again being used up before the team even steps foot in the ring!
Your warm up shouldn’t be training! It should be making sure your dog is in the right mindset and good to go!
Distance control/signals/position changes - the key to success in these exercises is focus on the transition between positions and not the end position.
Sushi nailed the brief in her down to sit and sit to down transition!
I teach the hand touch to teach my dogs the concept of duration without praise in the actual performance of the behaviour or not to be reliant on a food lure. I have modified it with Fashion in that she is targeting a piece of card in my hand - there is no food on it! I will progressively make this card smaller, so I can make it more precise.
I wanted to expose Fashion to more than just one straight and I’m thrilled with her work ethic. The reason for this, is with puppies and young dogs we can get them into the habit of only doing one straight or a set number of steps. Then it becomes hard to get more out of them as they go well we only do x amount because they anticipate the release.
Aside from duration, I also want to build the right emotion into her heelwork. I want her to feel amazing and like a million bucks when she is doing heelwork. That is why I forgive a bit of a messy gait - I’m really more focused on her feelings around heelwork, rather than perfection.
In the video in the last straight I think I get a bit excited that she is still there driving and throwing herself into it, and I clip up a notch speed wise and contribute to the spontaneous combustion that is occurring beside me.
There are so many concepts in heelwork that your dog needs to have mastery over to be successful. It’s impossible, and more importantly, it’s OK, to only focus on one or two concepts per session… scratch that, heck it’s actually the best thing you can do as a trainer!!
Tomorrow I may focus on rhythm of gait, and really emphasise that I want a trot, rather than a spontaneous combustion upwards - however if you want your puppy to work for a duration of time, the combustion will get you those first few reps!
I do a maximum of 3 repetitions a session, every few days, or may do it a few of days in a row and then leave it alone for a week or so. There is a difference between training a skill and building emotions than getting something ring ready. I want to leav
Part of getting competition ready is building your dogs ability to perform under duress.
Now that Sushi has a base layer of heelwork fitness. I am going to start pushing her ability to exert herself under some controlled fatigue.
At the end of an intense sprint based session, I set Sushi up to offer one straight of heelwork. I am just after a moment where she pushes through and gives me a bit more.
I never ask for much in these sessions, just one single exertion of effort in the context of heelwork. This will build the belief that she can push and try.
In the video, I accidentally ask for a little too much… she lowers her lift a little. This is where I trust my training that she can pick herself up and try unprompted… Sure enough a stride later, she lifts in intensity. Sushi can be inclined to raise her left front higher than her right. To counter this, I try and time most my rewards with the left leg in the air.
The one caveat is that you can build too much dog and they bleed drive when everything is picture perfect (most dogs don’t need to worry about this though!!).
First Wednesday of one on one lessons completed! Big thank you to everyone for being so teachable and willing to learn! We have our start points… let’s smash some goals!
I think most seminar presenters or trainers can agree that the most common question we get asked is what do we do when our dog loses attention/gets distracted/gets it wrong?
I truly believe if you’re asking the above you’re looking in the wrong place for the magic you’re after.
You need to shift your focus to the other opposite end. You should be looking at what trainers do when the dog gets things right. This is where the magic happens. This is where trainers build the right emotion into the work. This is where trainers transfer the feelings and value of reward into the work. This is where confidence and self esteem is built. Mistakes shouldn’t be made from lack of effort or attention, rather they should be spectacular and spontaneous explosions of drive and power.
You’ll find the best trainers have levels to their praise, levels to their rewards, and most importantly levels to their emotions. They know how to build emotions into the rewards they use so that they can inspire and motivate the biggest of efforts in their dogs.
If your rewards don’t have levels to them. You have no room to be adaptive and dynamic in your reward strategies and therefore able to explain to your dog that maximum effort is worth their while and not just doing the bare minimum. This goes back to one of my mantras what you put in, is what you get out. If you can only give your dog bare minimum, if you’re not blessed with a Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, you therefore have no capacity to inspire maximum effort from your dog.
To contradict my whole essay above, we’re going to look at what I do when it goes wrong. This is a moment that actually occurs and I can walk you through my thought process.
I am bringing Sushi back into work, I am building up her heelwork fitness, that’s my primary training goal. I work other important bits and pieces along the way - though they’re not as important.
In this video is a Sushi gets distracted and looks away. What’s in the front of
Heelwork truly is the sum of the reinforcement history. Not just how you reward or what you reward with. It’s which parts you reward and how you reward them. It’s also about your dogs inherent feelings around teamwork, and if they value working with you on an intrinsic level.
Heelwork is built up of many concepts. Two that I really focus on are movement and position. I’ve always likened the relationship between movement and position as an arms race, because as you work on each thing, you’re constantly trying to catch up and or get ahead. But it didn’t allow for the finished product where both exist in perfect harmony. Truthfully with each dog you may only experience perfection fleetingly - but that pursuit is what makes it addictive.
Perhaps now I consider the relationship between movement and position to be like two masses on a balance scale. Picture it in your minds eye. A balance scale with two plates - one is movement and one is position. Your job is to balance the two by training each concept. Each time you reward your dog for a concept you add a mass to the balance scale. Initially each session may have a profound impact on the harmony and completely throw the balance off. The plot twist is every dog has a different start weight on each of the plates representing movement and position.
To explain it literally, if you build too much value and therefore drive to movement, your position will weaken and your dog will float wherever momentum takes them. If you build too much value and drive for position, your movement will weaken, your dog will get sticky in their action. To throw a spanner in the works, if you build too much value for the “up” component in movement, you can lose your movement!
As you train and develop your dog you’ll learn how to balance the two in your quest for perfection.
Sushi, as extravagant and big moving as she is, wasn’t always easy or naturally fluid. It’s been a true labour of love. Her movement is super import
Can anyone tell me what I am marking and rewarding - and why? Hint - I’m a fraction of a second late marking…
If heelwork is trained right your dog should build in strength through the pattern.
Here’s a few pointers:
Don’t rely on momentum to generate drive!
Instead teach your dog that they can make you move by bringing effort!
It’s their job to make you move and make you be fun! They will learn that their energy and commitment is what will make you move, become the life of the party and deliver reinforcement.
This means STOP giving your dog big games and your energy in the warm up when all they have done is flop out the crate half awake! Instead give them easy achievable tasks with rewards that reflect the task difficulty. As your dog builds in intensity, begin to ask for more and then you BETTER pay up! Teach your dogs that MORE = MORE.
In this video, pay attention to the pace I walk as it correlates to the first point.
It’s not fast and there is no energy in my step. Sushi has to make me move by bringing the energy into her gait.
I am bringing Sushi back to heelwork fitness post maternity and injury leave. I am refreshing her that it’s her job to bring energy when I drop in energy - this is why I stop and this is why my turns are slow.
A key point here, is notice how Sushi gaits DESPITE my slower than normal walking pace and with the frequent disruptions… a big competition ring/training area, and a flowing heel work pattern is helpful BUT if you are reliant on those in order to show off your dogs rhythm, you are relying on momentum to generate drive.
This video doesn’t show how to create what I’ve described in the first part, rather it showcases what’s further in to my dogs education.
