By Hexen –
Master trainer 2 asks me last night in reguards to Hella what are we working on? I say everything and he stated to me weeks ago after the BH he does not have to be directly with me/ watching while I train.
(My honest feelings are I would rather have him watching/coaching me, but he is usually at the same time while I am on the field with one or the other dog,He is working coaching with the members that have no training experience and green dogs at the same time, (O.K what ever) Anyway…
I “warm” Hella up by doing heeling exercise (Warm up should always be done with your dog same as human athlete) practicing her sit and down in motion first. From there we move onto her blind searches. In my last Blog I made mention that master trainer 1 said add the sit directly infront when she comes to you out of the blind. O.k I can do this, and my thinking was, as I got no expliation of why to do this, is to teach her a little more control and focus on me and her not to just rush off to the next blind. This sounded reasonable in my mnd.
So last night I sent hella 2 times revier and she was super, Fast,and clean and all this with no bite toy in the blind but the reward of bitting the toy that I had hidden in my pocket. I then decided to follow master trainer 1 sugguestion of adding the sit directly infront of me before rewarding her.
This did not go so well. And I guess that Master trainer 2 was watching me by this time out of the corner of his eye…
She came, She sat, I rewarded her. had her sit again, then out command, then commanded Foose. The second time I sent her revier she ran forward, but then dropped her head and started searching around the ground about 10 to 15 feet infront of me. I got her attention while she was searching for what ever, I pointed in the direction of the blind, command revier once more then she went into the blind circled it and came back out to me.
I tried this 2 more times with each time the same result.
I then decided to move to the blinds on the right side of the field as I can see us always practicing only on the left side blinds might create a problem for the both of us not being so clean on the opposit side (this proved to be true), plus I was getting frustraited by the results of her comming to sit infront So best to stop if something is not going right before the handler gets too frustraited. And this is when master trainer 2 came to watch. I explained to him what I just wrote and he agreed with me inreguards to practicing revier on both sides of the field.
When I was finished with blind searches exercises and walking to the end of the field to practice the barbell exercises he walked with me and he asked me “why did I have Hella come and sit in front when she came out of the blind?” “Ah because that is what Master trainer 1 said to do” and I said to him what I thought was the reasonable answer as to why teach sit in front”. “FALSE” was his answer. You want the momentum from the dog the same going in and exiting the blind. He said that the command “here” coupled with reward of tug, teaches them when you recall here to come close to you as you walk down the field to the next set of blinds (as there is 6 total the dog must search when you test for the VPG 3).
Oh wow I felt so stupid trying to give the reason to master trainer 2! And I hate that about master trainer 1 they never give me a reason WHY to do something! It is always DO THIS and that is the end of it!!! With Master trainer 2 if you can give him a reasonable answer as to why teach something ( as was the case with Uly’s bitting on the sleeve with only 1/2 a bite and not a full mouth bite the problem was that Uly was comming in so fast to bite he was actually bouncing himself backwards then bitting down thus creating 1/2 bite was reasonable and logical. If Master trainer 2 can see the reasoning behind your answer then he figures a way to fix it or work with the problem to achieve the desired end results which we did with Uly’s problem.
So driving home I started to think of why hella dropped her head and started to search the ground instead of going revier into the blind… She was confused by the sit command and thought I had thrown the bite toy or a barbell, as she really acted as if we were doing bring exercises!
So I have to think is club 1 purposly telling me to work at things to set me up to fail? Or is it the fear of lack of communication or that they think they do not or can not explain why simple enough and that I will not understand?
(Mind you… all you newbies…… I am living in Germany, not 100% fluent in the language (but fluent enough to get my point across and to understand) and I am learning all this with no english translators!!!!!)
I do not know for sure, but that is sometimes the feelings I am getting are…
Master trainer 1 is jelious as they see Hella and Uly making faster progress in their training at club 2 then we made at club 1?
Club 1 does not want me to suceed to far or do too well so they are telling me things to fail on purpose?
I was thinking of E mailing with master trainer 1 and asking him why have Hella sit infront when comming out of the blind, then taking his response to master trainer 2 printed out for him to read with the answer?
Or should I just wait until I go back up Jan 26th for the year end meeting to ask why?
So on to Uly…..We are working with Uly on the send out and also bring of the barbell. The bring of the barbell is not as bad as some of the other boxers as young as he is at club 2. There are 3 other boxers about the same age that are way behind his level.
I am however finding a little bit of trouble coordinating my movments with everything together… Dog sitting at your heel side Throw the barbell, command bring, run with the dog on leash forward towards the barbell as he picks it up (if they have a tendency to run to the barbell and drop their heads and mouth it to play. If they do this then run with them as they pick up the barbell passed the barbell the dog learns to go stright grab the barbell and follow you forward and not stop and linger to play with it, then take the dog by the snout place them in a sit while holding the muzzle closed to teach them not to spit it out but to hold it. This is much easier with a lab or GSD or long nosed breed!!!!!Something long to hold onto and they do not view it as such a bad thing. But for the snub nosed breeds this can be quite uncomfortable and they tend struggle a bit having your hand cupped on their noses….
What we are now doing instead of cupping hands on the nose to keep the dog from spitting out the barbell is run forward dog picks up the barbell quick I jog past the barbell keep the dog moving in a circle with no command place the dog in a sit, step quick and only for a second infront of the dog then get the dog moving around once more commanding bring to the dog, grab hold of the barbell tug, tug, tug, to ensure the dog keeps a good grip, release the barbell from my hands (but still in the dogs mouth) then command bring and while the dog is in a standing position command out. the start from begining with sit at heel position ….. and practice 2 more times. This functions quite well! Now if hella was only so easy!
OH by the way.. I really have to think with both clubs having me as a member that of course there is some feeling of competiton between them… Club 1 has gone to the bayern regionals trials 3 times and 2 members this passed summer did so well that they were invited to the Deutche meistershaft or Germany finials (they did not place but still quite an acomplishment to be invited)…
Now I cannot be 100% sure of what I understood but I was listening to club 2 speaking over the weekend together and I could have sworn that master trainer 2 is now in training to try to take his Boxer Etzel to the Deutche Meistershaft next summer.