If you could dictate the content, what would you like to see on your idea of a perfect Foundation Skills DVD? I know what I want to include but since my objective is to provide the information that the masses desire I am seeking input.
I will be looking forward to your replies :-)
So, we are back from Las Vegas! It was a truly great trip and we had a blast, but, I did have my fill of Vegas for a few years I am sure. We did get to see some great shows and I think hiked close to a hundred miles up and down the Las Vegas strip.
The whole idea of Vegas is almost other worldly, the people watching is incredible and the whole sort of lack of rules is quite amazing!
It is always nice to get home to the dogs though, well home in general! As I say this I am packing for a trial in New Mexico this weekend followed by about a month straight of road tripping to teach.
I will be sure to keep you posted on the weekends proceedings and most importantly, SoBe's dog walk performance :-)
So, please answer my inquiry about foundation stuff and have a most wonderful weekend doing whatever you love doing!
4 comments:
Proper reinforcement basics, transferring value from one reinforcer to another.
establishing criteria for performance of each obstacle, so you know in your mind what you want the finished product to be
ground work exercises to be done with household objects before the dog even sees equipment
a good sense of which exercises are okay to do on their own, and which should be done together (ie: can i be doing step 7 of jump work when i'm only at step 2 of wobble board), and why
body awareness and how/when to do it in the steps of everything else
trouble shooting for when the steps don't work for my dog
....
Just some random things that have been missing from a few of the books and dvd's i've read lately. Sorry for poor organization.
The perfect foundation DVD would include using a completely green dog so it's helps people thru the obstacles & problems one might face when starting a dog. Even MORE perfect would be to use two or three dogs in one segment covering different dog types: high drive, low drive, soft, etc.
So many times the videos only use high drive dogs which does not help the rest of the agility world, no offense to BCs of course!
I eagerly await this DVD!!!!
For ANY DVD I prefer ones that show "real people and real dogs" learning, like at a seminar or class, rather than a "scripted" DVD of the presenter and their trained dogs. I want to see what different reactions and behaviors dogs are doing and what to do to fix them. I want to see what mistakes dogs and handlers commonly make and how to avoid or correct them.
For a foundation DVD it would be neat if you video'd a couple students with new puppies or totally green adult dogs and followed them through their first 6-12 months of training and classs. Show the order in which you train things and explain why you don't teach "X" before the dog fully knows "A" and "B". Emphasize using the handler as the primary reinforcer. Point out signs that a dog may be over threshold and not mentally able to learn due to excitement-stress, fear-stress, etc and what to do about it - after all if the dog isn't in the proper frame of mind the best training in the world isn't going to sink in.
Seeing as no one has answered, I'll start the ball rolling.
- rear end awareness (various 'tricks' to work on for this)
- tug/play (creating drive)
- focus on me or focus ahead (a lot of people have problems with the focus ahead aka obstacle focus)
- confidence (at trials and in other situations)
- movement exercises eg wobble board
- flat work/ground work eg following you on left/right with FC/RC/push/pull
- get out eg with witches hats
- target work
- I like to do a bit of shaping to get puppies thinking
- don't know if others would do this but I've been teaching left/right cues which means wrap the jump either left or right
- restrained recalls
- this one is for running contacts (which I do with my Shelties, you commented on my tri-colour boy and his running AF when you were in Western Australia), running plank on the ground, gradually elevating height, I start this quite young
- coz I do running contacts .... also teaching turns at the end of the contacts
- play, play, play, I want mine to think that training is play/fun for them and to be bursting their bubbles to have a turn!!
Oh and I try not to rush it ;-)
That's off the top of my head, it's a start anyway.
Sandra
Western Australia
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