The power of foundation

More new videos are up!!! It was a very interesting training session today, with SoBe in particular :-) As I was changing my location on the dog walk, SoBe's 2on/2off foundation kicked in and if I was stationary at the middle or bottom of the last ramp she wanted to stop in a 2on/2off position. I also experimented with running past the dog walk and this too caused the stop. The dog's amazing ability to recognize training and the power of good foundation is a most powerful thing! What I really find ironic is that although I have not asked for a stop in several weeks and we have been diligently training the run for that amount of time she still defaults to that behavior although would never even consider offering it in a trial environment!!!

SO, I had to think about what to do to change this behavior. The good news is that the very first thing I tried seemed to work! I released her with her verbal release cue to the go and ran with her. I have put this video up as well.

I was impressed with the fact that although when I stand at the base of the dog walk in a stationary position she has a tendency to launch because of the forward pressure I am putting on her, but, when I ran with her she was close to 100% running through the yellow!

I have said it before and I say it again, this is a truly fun, amazing, thought provoking process that will ultimately be a great learning experience for both dog and handler!