The last couple of tuesdays we have gone to special obedience practices meant to the ones who compete or soon will compete in obedience. The trainer is the 3.time Estonian Obedience Champion Anne Tammiksalu. This year she again won with her border collie Tending Eagle-Eyed "Rika" the Estonian Obedience Championship, what was held in 5th september Viimsi. So it is really nice to get some tips and feedback from her.
Illustrative picture of the hold from ACD Greta's owner.
Well the practices are mainly aimed to build the relationship and motivation, furbish the elements and practice through the compete situation. The idea is to train with as many distractions, dogs and situations as possible - then it would be easier in the competitions. Today even we could practice with heated dog (Poppy) - very good training for male dogs ;) There is no need to spoil our dogs with good conditions :)
Picture from ACD Poppy's owner.
At the very beginning of the practices Aapo got really easy distracted and had difficulties to concentrate properly, but that was no surprise, cause we hadn't trained together with so many different dogs a long time now. But Aapo has developed much and is more contactive. When at first Aapo wanted to be sure about who are the other dogs, then now he doesn't even give attention to different dogs. Every training Anne watches our doings very carefully and gives always some feedback and good tips - what and how we could train. Mainly we train with heelwork. The keyword here as well in anywhere else is - less is more. You want to achieve the result where your dog wants to please you and do whatever you want him to do just to get your attention. You don't want to make the obedience to him dull, but in the contrary - the best and fun thing ever in the world.
Picture from ACD Greta's owner.
Well as I mentioned before - now we train more the heelwork. I mainly train it at home when I feed him. I just wait when he wants to get next to me and then when he does - I praise him. Then I praise him when he keeps the contact. I at the same time try not to watch him - not to get the habbit watching him during the heelwork. The last unofficial obedience competition as you see above the theme on the video I held the contact some times with him, cause I knew it would at the moment work the best. Cause we haven't trained that much and long heelings when I don't watch him. But for ideal I won't watch him during the heelwork. Well when I get the contact and praise him then I start slowly heeling but only one step at a time - and when he keeps the contact I praise him. Then I some time again praise him when he keeps the contact on my left side. The first steps are very important and to keep the contact already the very beginning. The last practice I noticed that Aapo has an habbit to heel awry and get little ahead at me. So the element - lieing down while heeling - he mostly does as well awry and just because he then heels awry. When I got him properly heeling then he went down also perfectly straight. Actually no news. The last training he has done the lieing down while heeling correctly and hasn't just stopped, like he did at the last two unofficial competitions.
Stopping has also gone good - haven't been problems with that. At the trainings we have done really interesting group exercises where we train lieing down and stopping while heeling but little alike the elite obedience class so-called the idiote ring element. And its really useful and fun.
Last training I familiarized Aapo with the metal dumbbell. We haven't done any work with that, mainly cause I don't have it at home. But I have played and got him familiarized with spoones, keys, etc metal things - just what we have at home hehee.
Aapo with wooden dumbbell at home.
Practicle all the trainings we do the down stay and different ways. One way is you leave the dogs to down stay and then someone calls her dog to herself. But the other dogs can't come or even move at the same time, they have to stay. Well we just train with as much different ways as possible - cause at the begginning obedience class, there are usual the most distractions.
Picture from ACD Ella's owner.
Well there are a lot thoughts and good feelings about our trainings, but I leave something to the next times as well...
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