Monday, August 31, 2009

Breaking Down Drills for Confidence

What a night. Took the Freebinator (Freebie) out to train. Now Freebie is a long story... For a rainy day. Anyhow, we started Force to Pile (FTP) back the end of July, 2009. Due to a few health related issues, we haven't been able to train on a regular basis. Things are on the up and up now.

Well, Saturday I attempted to perform some FTP with him across a pond that was mostly running water. This ended up a disaster. Barn Swallows kept distracting him and robbing him of focus. The water was too much of a obstacle; it took away from his focus I believe. The stress of the drill and dive bombing Barn Swallows consumed Freebie to the point of over stressing him. It just didn't work out well.

Sunday he still showed the typical signs of residual stress from Saturday. He stayed at home while everyone else was loaded into the truck for the trek to Omega Farms and a training session with others from our training group.

Now it's Monday. As I put together a tandem welding wire demo for work on Thursday, I would find my thoughts drifting to how I was gonna break this drill down further for Freebie aimed at a session of success. Well, my thoughts paid off.

I used a white bucket to mark a back pile out approximately 35-40 yards. I randomly set out the bumpers in front of the bucket. As I walked back to the truck to get the boy, I focused my thoughts around my actions for performing the drill. Should he take off without being sent, "No!... Here!" would be the correction. As I envisioned myself lining him up and he would look in the direction of the pile, "Sit... Good... Dead Bird, right there. Dead bird, Back." If he would happen to spin (as he has done previously), "No!... Here!" would be the correction. Regain heel position, slowly walk him forward towards the pile commanding "Dead Bird... Back."

I got a good vibe from him after he exercised and got the e-collar cinched up. As we walked towards where I planned to run him from, he had already picked up on the white bucket and was intensely staring at it. Commands of "Good... Dead Bird... Right there... Back!" came from my mouth. He strongly ran straight towards the bucket and scooped up a bumper.
Promptly returning to heel and delivering the bumper, Freebie looked out towards the bucket once again. "Sit... Good... Dead Bird, right there. Dead bird, Back." was said and Freebie, again, ran straight towards the pile and scooped a second bumper. Nine more times we repeated the drill and finally the last retrieve was made by Freebie. We now completed 12 repetitions without one single spin and only one break for the pile without being sent. Hmmm.... What's different?
The difference I believe was the white bucket as a marker or identifier.
I replaced the 12 bumpers again at the pile and chose to rerun Freebie. The first send was from heel position. "Sit... Good... Dead Bird, right there. Dead bird, Back." Freebie sprinted to the pile and scooped a bumper. As he returned I made him perform a front sit to me. I took delivery of the bumper and slowly stepped backwards as I commanded "Sit". I slowly stepped off to my leftside. He watched with intensity, like asking "What are you doing there?" I raised my left arm above my head and commanded "Back!". He turned in the direction of my arm, looked out with a little pause and took off to the pile. A smile came across my face and praise was delivered to Freebie. I was able to get him to take four (4) more left back casts with more confidence each time. After returning from the fifth left back cast, I switched it up and repeated stepping off to the side, only this time to my right. Success was delivered 5 more times, this time only from the rightside. The final retrieve of the 12th bumper was from heel position. He sprinted to the bucket, scooped the last bumper and returned promptly to heel. It never felt so good to deliver a fun bumper to a dog who lives to retrieve. We celebrated by me throwing a couple more fun bumpers. What a sense of accomplishment.

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