Okay, yesterday I left you with bit of a cliff hanger. Why not do your recall work dangling your dog’s favorite toy as you run. Flyball trainers do it and their dogs run fast right? Two things about that, first of all, it is not good dog training but in flyball it doesn’t have as negative an effect because in that particular sport you can dangle your fuzzy bits during the actual competition all you like–there are no rules stating you can’t. On some level that may be part of the attraction of flyball, the chance to dangle your fuzzy bits:).
Dangling the toy as you ran away is using a lure to get your dog to want to come to you. It is trying to pump up the attractiveness of you alone by dressing you up with a ball on a rope. You are creating the behaviour of “run fast to me if you see something of value dangling beside me” rather than the behaviour of “ran as fast as you can to catch me anytime I call.” A better way to operate is to hide the toy in the opposite hand and only let the dog see it at the last moment when she gets close. Doing it this way you are rewarding the dog for driving hard to get to your side, the toy is the unsuspected dog’s surprise. It builds value for the response the dog just gave you. The dog running fast now has nothing to do with the sight of the reward (as it was hidden) and the dog learns to just run hard to you regardless of what he does or doesn’t see (something that we all want in our agility dogs).
Stayed tuned on Monday, that is the date of the big ebook launch. Check your newsletters as details where sent out yesterday.
Newsletters. I posted this in the comments yesterday but it is worth another look.
To those of you that are not getting the newsletter but when you try to sign up again you get an error message that says you are already subscribed the issue is likely that your server is considering the newsletter spam. You need to sign up for another account, say at gmail or yahoo or contact your server and make the newsletter email address a “save” address. The email will come from sayyesnews at profollow dot com — of course with the words “at” and “dot” replaced with the funky symbols.
I am signed up for newsletters but I don’t believe I am getting them. I get lots of emails about classes but if I want to see any newsletters I have to go to your home page and type newsletters into the search box. I think they are not recent newsletters because they are not the ones referred to in your blog. Do you actually email newsletters and if so may I receive them? Thank you. Priscilla Schultz
I am very interesting in the recall lesions. Could you tell me when the new lesions will be started and how I can registered me in your course.
Thank you very much.
Best regards Petra
Hi Petra! We run Recallers about once a year, and have no set date yet, but if I had to guess, I would say it will open again in early spring. In the meantime, if you go to r4.brilliantrecalls.com you can sign up for the update list, and we will email you when the course opens again. Thanks!
I play flyball and love dangling those fuzzy bits. 🙂 I definitely see your point about how it would be better training to hide the reward till the last minute — in flyball we do tend to emphasize the toy over ourselves. That comes in handy when we’re not running our own dogs, tho — in flyball, it’s common to run other teammates’ dogs, or even to step in and help another team by running one of their dogs if they’re short-handed. A couple of tournaments ago, my jack russell was actually handled by 4 or 5 different people throughout the weekend, some that she had never met before the race. She ran consistently and came back for her treat tug pouch no matter who it was for, which was what we needed under the circumstances.
Thanks, Susan, i love your blog.
lisa
DUDE!!!! I have been off the blog for a couple of days…so was reading the older into the newer. OH YEA BABY…I totally guessed the reason you don’t leave the toy to dangle.
YEA ME. (sorry, just had to pat my own back). hehehehehe
This is such an interesting post. Although I have competed in flyball ( I don’t now until I can find a better way to train the box) I hated the fact that people show the dog the reward. I am currently teaching my puppy recalls and repeatedly asking people to please NOT show him the goodies (food, tug, etc.) because in that situation it is bribery.
and ! ! you want your dog to drive into the reinforcement zone, not pass behind you through the blind cross area
Being consistent and conscious of this in everything we do is the one most important thing I’m learning that has made it easier to “keep my eye” on my dog.
Wow just herd the pod cast I think it is very helpful. loved it Kandy.