Banging the Teeter
Last week was our introduction to the full-length teeter! In order to ensure our dogs wouldn’t become teeter phobic, the trainer set things up for success.
She blocked the teeter so it was stuck going straight up, and we are learning the end behavior – of hopping onto the end (close to the fulcrum) and running to the end and staying there until called off. That teaches the dog to power to the end where the treats are! Quick got up to some motion, and he doesn’t really worry about the noise very much, thankfully. Quick loves motion, I’m so lucky to have him!
We also worked on getting the dogs used to noise by having them look at the teeter as the helper bangs it (at first only a tiny tiny bit) and giving the dogs treats. It’s also helpful for the dogs not to confuse the teeter with the dogwalk – apparently that’s a pretty common occurrence!
As usual, Quick was adorable on the dogwalk, even if he did fall off a few times when he got going too fast. Easy, boy, easy, please! I can’t catch him!
We also worked on his channel weaves. I’m less than thrilled with them, since he is developing a squirmy ‘wait’. Somehow I have to get someone else to hold him but with his hatred of being held and his size I’m a bit limited… perhaps his leash tab may come back out! 🙂 Does anyone else have a dog that is reactive to being restrained by not-their-handler? What do you do to combat it?
One more class and then a few weeks break.
Have you shaped a “go to mat” behavior? Or does Quick have a good table wait? If so, use that as the pause obstacle before the weaves. But, this is your opportunity to work on your start line behavior, if you ever want a wait at the start line. In this case, the weaves are simply just the first obstacle on course. Simply work on a solid stay/wait first and always set them up for success…ask for the wait, turn away, turn back, reward if your dog stayed…repeat many times…then, ask for the wait, turn away, take one step, turn around, step back, reward the wait. Increase your time/distance from your dog til they have a solid wait while you walk away. After that, sometime release from a distance as a recall to you, sometimes walk back to them before releasing. Then, add an agility obstacle in front of them and repeat everything. They learn to understand that do not get to self release themselves no matter whats in front of them. You are in control of the release…always. Good luck!