On the adventures and training of Cinnamon Snapdragon, a papillon destined for greatness.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

First formal obedience lesson


Dragon and I had our first lesson with Denise Fenzi on Thursday morning. I have been reading about the sport of competition obedience, and about how to train for it using positive methods on the Click Comp Obed list, but I didn't have any direct experience with it. After bumbling along on my own for a bit, I decided that I better call in an expert to help me figure out what I'm doing.

Denise's coaching was wonderful. She started off by asking me to show her what little progress we'd made with heeling so far, and the rest of the lesson was spent not on training Dragon but on fixing my mechanics/handling and improving my way of communicating with him -- which is exactly what I knew I needed! She was also very attuned to Dragon's comfort level and ability to focus, which I appreciated.

We talked about giving the dog a cue which meant that his window of opportunity to work and earn reinforcement was now open, but that cue doesn't mean that the dog has to work. If the handler has done their part to always make the training fun and rewarding, then it follows that the dog will usually choose to work, and if he doesn't, it's a sign that something might need to change. We also need to let the dog know when the window has closed (such as when the handler is busy talking to someone), and so I would pick up Tiny Dog whenever we took a break.

The biggest chunk of points when trialing in obedience is the heeling patterns. Denise helped me figure out where Dragon should be when heeling -- the space between his giant ears and giant doe eyes should line up with the seam of my pants. I need to reward him so that his head is up and my hand should be against my leg, close to my knee. She had me hold the treat between my thumb and forefinger, with my other three fingers pointing straight down and lightly touching the left side of his muzzle, so that he learns to line up against my hand and I can use that as a guide when pivoting and to help him get into position.

practicing feeding in heel position
Coordination is not my strong point, so I have to practice just the feeding part.

practicing feeding in heel position
I should be feeding higher and closer to my knee here.


Then we practiced actually taking some steps. She coached me to move quickly, talk to him, be animated, and look at my feet and not at my dog (especially if he's lagging!). I would back up to get him moving and looking at me, then turn to the right, walk in a right circle, and reward him when he drove into heel position. (This is a varient of the "choose to heel" method.)

Our homework is to practice more of that, along with our left pivots, and practice more on our right side to balance him out. (I had initially trained both the left and right sides evenly with Silvia Trkman's method, but was practicing the right side less and less -- oops!) Left turns tend to slow the dog down, so I shouldn't do any left turns yet other than our stationary pivots.

Last part was introducing sitting in front. I'll use a little platform for his front feet to get him to pivot so that he's lined up in front of me. (I'll have to hold my hands low at first to keep him in front and not pivoting to my side.) Denise also likes to teach dogs to drive between the handler's legs to get speed and close fronts. Dragon is nervous about going under my legs, so I'm starting by tossing treats between my legs.

I'm now really looking forward to training for obedience!

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