Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Go Outs

Rundle has been working hard on building the pieces of the utility "go out" exercise. We work on the send away to a nose target adding more and more distance. We work on the directional jumping part of the exercise, with and without actual jumps. We also work on the "turn and sit" portion. None of these parts of the exercise are 100% solid in either accuracy or distance, so I have not yet combined any of them.

The other day we worked a bit on the "turn and sit". I started teaching this by using 2 broad jump boards to limit Rundle's turning radius (I want a nice, tight turn and fast, straight sit). I then moved to a platform to get a more solid sit with no forward motion. I now am just using a paw target. It is very small and right now it is mostly just a way to get Rundle to move away from me and it gives him a reminder that he should turn and sit where he is and not move forward.  He is so cute when he does this and he tries so hard.


4 comments:

  1. fun!! what word are you using right now to get him to go out to the target? Did you begin close to the target then work back gradually?

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    1. I use the word "stomp". Yes, I taught it by shaping a paw touch to the target and then added distance. By the time I added the "turn and sit" he already had good distance on both the paw touch and the turn/sit, so I was able to add more distance quicker.

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  2. stomp!! great word! curious as to what you will use for your go backs, hand signal , or word?

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    1. I will most likely use both a hand and verbal. We already have a hand signal to mean "mark" (look ahead). And I use a verbal for both a the send away to a paw and nose target.

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