Non-podengo post here...
So Miss Spry (now appx 9 months old, 19-19.25", which is 2+ inches taller than when we got her at the end of August!) is really becoming a lovely working dog. She LOVES to learn and is quite smart. She is catching on to the 2RTO behavior very well. We are still working on it on the ground, and adding the verbal cue. She is very funny when I have her walk the length of the board and she comes off... I wait and she backs up, but it's more like her legs just kind of flail randomly behind her, hoping to hit the board, and finally if she can't find it you can tell she is frustrated and she turns to look and is like "THERE, my foot is ON the board give me a CLICK!"
The box work is going very well too. The other night she did jump it a few times, which I'm not terribly surprised about because she is becoming more enthusiastic every time we train. She is now beginning to bark between reps! I will say she has a FANTASTIC wait, thanks to my hubby doing zen at all meal-times for her :) Anyway, the problem we are having is that if I send her, she does fine, if I recall her, she does fine... however if I run WITH her, she focuses on me so much so that she won't focus forward to see the box. Partially I think it's bc I'm running with the toy in my hand to throw, so I might try to eliminate that but am not sure if I should just put it on the ground ahead of the box for her to drive to, or if she will skip the box and go to it... or if I should just use a food reward, but I love that she's working for this toy and would hate to lose it by doing too much food rewards.
Any suggestions on how to get her focusing ahead more? I am glad she's into me, but seriously she runs INTO things because she won't take her eyes off of me! Same problem with the tunnel, so maybe I should just work on getting her to look ahead for the tunnel some since it's an easier behavior. I don't know!
3 comments:
Some ideas:
1. Practice the skill with an open tunnel. My guess is that she won't go in the tunnel either. So if you fix that, you'll probably see an improvement with the box without 'messing' with your behavior(for instance, would you want to reward a poor hit or even a miss just because she finally *went* to the box?)
2. Try a manners minder or even a bait bag. Show her it's there and then add the distraction of movement - hopefully, she'll have enough focus on the 'lure' to ignore you and then you can fade the prop.
3. I'm assuming you're not actually *running* and that you are just moving at a slow walk. But if not go slower.
Thanks Lisa - I definitely think tunnel work will help because you are right I don't want to have to decide what to reward/not reward in respect to her working ahead/independently and hitting the box.
I don't have a manners minder unfortunately, but BOY would I love one! I will try the tug n' treat over there though and see if it helps.
And you know, I think you probably hit the nail on the head with the last one. She was doing fine when I was walking, but I went right to running from walking, and she is getting too excited by me. I need to go slower and increase my speed bit by bit. Thanks!
You could also try just running with her. I think often we ask for so much focus and short movement work that they have a hard time with just "going" parts. I had to do this with Pix and some w Roady. They would get so excited with me running I'd get lots of jumping on me, running into stuff (like Spry) and in Pixie's case barking - not that *that* has gone away. It was even a hindrance with gaiting for Pix if I picked up the pace at all. So I started running in big loopy counter clockwise circles when the dog as on my right and clockwise when on my left. If I had smooth running and the dog looking ahead I would c/t or throw a hidden toy ahead.
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