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TRISHA STALL:
Om AGILITY og motivasjon
I disagree with any class setting
where:
1)
the
dogs are challenged beyond their
abilities
without being able to break down sequences into rewardable working
sets, and
2)
the
structure is so inflexible that it
can't be successful for every dog
(and, of course, every dog needs a
different training class structure to best succeed!)
.
That
weekend she happily went off course, barreling through a tunnel,
which she used to avoid like the plague, and I was just as happy, if
not happier, with that run because she was so darned fast and happy
out there.
Of course,
it's all how you make it;
you can take the worst course out there and go out to have fun and
let your dog go off course, praising
him as he does so!
The handler, knowing either she had
miscued or her dog just didn't have enough experience yet to avoid
it, praised the heck out of her and raced her to the finish line as
if she had just done the best thing in the world!
It's a big accomplishment that she maintains her motivation
so I really want to reward her for it!
If at any time dogs don't understand the job, or something happens
and performance falls apart, we go back, make it simpler, maybe put
them back on leash and/or lower the obstacle, and build the
performance back up. But
I strive to maintain the enthusiasm by
giving them a chance to succeed and not holding them back. It's
like clicker training, a trial and error process, we're molding
their performance but letting them make decisions and getting them
to think about it so they'll learn faster.
It's pretty neat when you can turn every agility learning
experience into a fun game, both for the dog and handler!
Your trainer is correct in not
punishing or sending any negative messages to your dog for the
zoomies. It's basically your fault;
so just calmly get her back to you when she zooms, get her focus
back on you, make sure you know what you're going to do on the
re-run, take a deep breath, and start again as if the zoomie never
happened.
Solveig Trippestad
www.solveigtr.com
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