By Hexen –
Tonight was a very short practice evening at the dog club. It is very cold out and we could only practice at obedience no protection work as injury to the leg joints from hitting the hard ground could be a problem.
So I bring Hella on to the field and the master trainer says “Do you want to work at the barbell and bring?”
“Yes” I reply. As he sees me bring 2 of my own barbells over to the table and lay them down. The Gummi barbell for hella and a normal all wood barbell for Uly (as Uly is not doing very well with holding the gummi in his mouth because of it’s width).
Hella only only was having a problem with holding the barbell quietly but also when she would get to the object she was not grabbing it and heading directly back to me…She would grab the barbell and then loop off in a half circle beofre comming back to me….But that is a small problem to fix.
He then says to me “I have bought Hella a new barbell” Oh joy a Christmas present for Hella How sweet!
1 more barbell to add to my growing collection of 3 plain wood ones( different sizes of course), One with the center bar covered in a plastic ribbed hose like matieral, one with the center covered in a bright orange gummi matieral.
His son brings the barbell out, This is not an ordinairy barbell, Of course it is all wood, but the center bar is ovel not round!
Now from what I was told( not just by Adam but from quite a few different trainers) and the sugguestion that the “bring” stresses hella appears not to be true! and we had all mis-read it as such!
The master trainer had asked a few weeks ago if this was a problem Hella has had all along? and of course my reply was “yes I cannot figure out what is stressing her with this exercise”!
He says to me tonight what he sees is not stress but is “over excitment”, and the root cause is the all in how teaching to keep a grip on her bite/tug toys. Ooops you loosen your grip I yank the toy away and tease you with it, then letting you get one more bite inn hopes that this time you will not let go. Well Hella knows she is faster then me so she was turning the game around to her benifit Lets see if Mom can yank the toys away quick enough? He He you guessed it Hella is much faster then I am.
Oh my gosh! How funny was this tonight! I threw the barbell She ran and grabbed it like normal with out realizing something was different stright away she runs directly back to me (there was no half circle then back) by the time she got to the position to sit right infront of me, she THEN realized that something was different and drops her head and spits it out.
O.k take a step back and when she brings the barbell to me grab her by the snout with both hands so she cannot drop her head and spit the barbell out….. This worked!
This new barbell threw her off so much it stopped her half circle and she was about 80% quieter holding the wood! Of course though to keep her excitment level down I am still giving treats and not play time at the end of the exercise.
When all was finished I take the barbell and start to head off the field and the master trainer says “No No that stays here!”
What you said that was for hella ( I had intended to pay him for it no problem) Ah no it stays at the dog club But it is hella’s? ah yes but he wants to keep the progress monitored!