Starting the stand for exam.

Tonight I took Dragon to visit some friends in San Francisco. He's been to their house a couple of times and was always welcomed because he's calm and fluffy and adorable. He sat on my lap while we ate dinner, though he was a bit restless and was soon transferred to my friends' laps for cuddles.

After dinner I asked one of my friends to help me start training Dragon on the "stand for exam" exercise in competitive obedience. The final version of the exercise, in the utility class, is that the dog heels next to the handler, the handler cues the dog to stop and stay standing as she walks away, the judge approaches and pats down the dog while he stays standing, and then the judge retreats and the handler calls the dog back to heel position. Of course you have to break this exercise down to all of its components to teach it successfully. That includes:
- heeling
- stopping on cue
- staying standing as handler walks away
- staying standing as a stranger approaches
- staying standing as a stranger leans over and feels up the dog
- returning to heel position on cue
Each of those items must be broken down further yet.

Today I was kneeling in front of Dragon and feeding him as my friend stood next to him and practiced reaching for him, and just barely touching him. My goal was to heavily reinforce the lack of movement on Dragon's part. The first time he felt fingers touch his fur, he shifted his weight and moved a couple of feet, but otherwise he successfully stood still.

Next time I work on this exercise I will practice having my friend coming and going or moving around him, or I will have my friend stay close to him but start to gently "examine" him. Or I will only practice the same step we were at today, but decrease the rate of reinforcement. There are also plenty of steps for me to work on without another person around, and then with people around but not interacting with him. And then there's switching from working with friends to working with strangers, which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

I enjoy breaking an exercise down into little parts like this, and then seeing it all come together. This is a critical aspect of successful training, to make sure that the dog understands his job and is fluent in all of its components. I used to think that competitive obedience was a dreadfully boring sport, but once I started thinking about splitting out each of the exercises, I felt drawn to the challenge. I'm especially excited because I've scheduled a lesson with Denise Fenzi, a positive comp obed trainer (rare indeed!), at the end of August. Before then, one of the top items on my to-do list is to read the obedience regulations and make sure that I fully understand each exercise, and then make more training plans consisting of each exercise split out into its component parts.