Monday, August 13, 2012

Week 3, Day 3

Decided to mix things up a little more today. We stayed home and worked in the back yard. I did a bit of work on the mini-blinds. Both dogs already know the mini-blinds but I like to reinforce the Figure-8 pattern that I have them run. I do that by just setting up 2 mini blinds and running them, multiple times back and forth, and reward at random places. They are set up far enough apart to allow the dogs to clear the blind, make eye contact with me, and then I send them on to the next blind. They both like these types of games alot and are VERY fast and tight to the blinds.

I know that many people really worry about having their dogs look in every blind. I don't really work on that too much. It's been my experience, and I admit my experience is very limited, that judges are so pleased with fast and tight that they assume the dog looked in. But, I've also found that once the dogs are fast and tight on the blinds that I can get them to look in pretty easily by moving the helper around occasionally.

I like the idea of clipping a ball to the blind and having the dogs snatch it out of each blind before coming to me. But I haven't done it. I'm also not sure that I want to be futzing around in the middle between each blind that much. Partly, that's just because my dogs are pretty ball crazy and I would almost certainly have to stop them to get them to drop the ball between the blinds. And, I just don't like the idea of that.

It was quite interesting - we haven't worked blinds in quite awhile. But we have been doing the Bob Bailey exercise. And though, in some ways, it is the exact opposite of running blinds, it has similar principles and the dogs both ran very fast and for extended rounds right away. Tor made one mistake on entry the first time I sent him to the left. But that was it for both of them. They were both very fast and very sure of themselves - no hesitation at all.


Program: 2 sets of blinds (4 or 5 reps for each dog/set), OB between and after sets
Total time: ?? minutes
Status: Didn't use ice vests today. Interestingly, Gata seemed to have the better endurance of the 2 of them for blind work. I don't know if it was because she gets in the stock tank and lays down (Tor just stands in it), or if it was because I started with her and Tor was already frustrated by the time he got to run, or what, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

Our obedience work was nothing fancy, just heeling. OK, well sometimes that is pretty fancy with these two ;-)   With Gata I was just working on precision with her left turns a little. With Tor, I have allowed him to start to develop a bad habit that I need to get rid of. If he doesn't see a toy in one of my hands he tries to forge and wrap around my body a little bit. I'm not sure what exactly he thinks he will accomplish with this. But I guess it must have worked once or twice when I carried a toy in my right hand or something. Anyway, it's not very bad ... yet. And I don't want it to get worse. The body position isn't as bad as the head position, the lack of eye contact, and the lack of movement due to the different head position.

A fun morning was had by all. They sure do like running blinds :-)

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