Dog agility contact re-training

Here is stage two in retraining my dogs the 4 on the floor contacts

I am training them to run to the mat and lie down on it, hopefully facing in the direction they were traveling and not curving back to me. I think that bit will be difficult but I will keep working on it.
At the moment Ben seems to often have a nice striding pattern down the contact running all the way down with good seperation between his back paws - so that looks good for a possible running contact eventually
Mia I will have to work on more, she is going down the contact but the last step her back paws are together and she is jumping onto the contact mat - but still getting her contacts

The Secret Life of the Dog (Part 1_6)

This was on the BBC a little while ago and it is very interesting

In this clip they discover that dogs actually read humans faces in a different way from how they read other dogs faces, and it is actually the same way as humans read other humans faces

Kiss the dog - the website is live

Finaly I have started work on the website for my dog training classes.

I have a fantastic venue for classes but for the summer I have decided to be more European and run outside classes. This means dogs and handlers can have more space from each other, but it adds real life distractions.

I have only got a few pages up so far but please let me know what you think - cick on the log to get there

Punishing is for the lazy

Interesting where you can get inspiration for dog training.

Today on 'The Wright Stuff' on TV this morning I got some amazing advice from Joe Mangle from Neighbours.

They were talking about raising children and how some children are so out of control.

He had a amazing point

It takes time and energy to be consistent, to teach our children (or dogs) that actions have consequences and that we mean what we say.

It is far easier to give in and give the sweetie when the child is chucking a tantrum (or let our dogs pull on the lead because we are in too much of a rush to teach them to walk nicely on the lead)

Then we get angry with their behaviour and yell or punish them. This is confusing, sometimes they get what they want, sometimes they get punished.

If we are fair and consistent, make sure they know what we want from them, let them know when they are doing the right thing and, when needed, show them the consequences of doing the wrong thing (naughty step, no pudding, dont get to keep walking forwards on lead) then children and dogs will be better behaved, less confused and everyone will be happier

Bens gone digital

Enchantedmemories on Etsy made me this lovely logo for my dog training business (when I decide to take the plunge)

Its a digital image of Ben with a kiss on his cheek

I think it looks fab!!

Slowly starting to Kiss the dog

Still planing for this to be the year when I take my first steps to be a dog trainer then a behaviourist.

I have the hall all lined up, just short of funds for a few weeks.

So my friends kindly let me practise on them and their dogs.

A pair of lovely crazy collies.

I was wanting to practise some of the 'control unleashed' stuff I have been doing with Mia, so I kind of used her as a demo dog while at the same time working on her with bigger distractions.

First I did a little focus work, showing them how to build focus in the dog and what to be looking for.

Mia gave a great demo, when I started she was sniffing about paying no heed to me at all and then as I clicked her for any interaction with me she quickly turned from no focus to lots and lots of focus.

The first dog Bu**** (white face in the fotos) is a typical collie with a high work drive so had no problem with focus so we were able to get onto moving a little and the beginnings of circle work

The 2nd dog Bl** is a lot more sensitive. He gets stressed by being asked for commands.

You can see in the first foto (sorry about quality) he is looking very dejected by the clicker being out and him being asked to work.

But within about 5 clicks he realised that he wasnt being asked to do anything he just was getting rewarded for paying attention to mom - then he really started to get it

We ended this bit here but you can see a total change in his body language - focus on mom, tail up, happy looking dog.

We did a little 'go to your place' Bu has been clicker trained and is used to free shaping so got this vv quickly Bl did v well too.

Not sure if I explained the point of this exercise well but hopefully they work on it a little because this would really help with Bu's reactivity when he is watching Bl work.

Finally as a little trick and to teach back end awareness I showed them 'brick work' Both dogs figured out getting their paws on the object so thats a good starts

Next step is getting the back legs moving :D

I talked a little about 'LAT' exercises, default behaviours (Bu showed a lovely default sit) and how to keep a training sesh really short espech for Bl to build motivation.

I had fun although it was a little weird, I hope I didnt do too bad.

Then we let the dogs play a bit and practised some weaves - Mia actually did pretty good and Bu was doing them better with his owner moving a little beside him.

Pretty fun day - and now Mia is crashed out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBS6bEuSlaY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blo6YcFWNtw&feature=channel
At agility lots of people are saying they just dont have the imagination to teach tricks so I was wondering if that may be somewhere to make a start with some classes. I love training tricks, I think its the best way to make the dog think and sitting, doing agility, obedience, not chasing the postman, really they are all tricks for the dog

Kiss the dog, my new venture has a name (and a facebook page)

For ages I have been trying to think of names for dog behaviour training classes.
I am rubbish at names - and I know how important they are.

So thinking about what I wanted the name to say

First - that training should be kind and fair to the dog
Second - that its simple - too many training methods seem to over complicate dog training. Trying to imagine what your dog is thinking and figuring out how he is being bad, disobedient or dominant and then how to assert your authority over the dog.
For example - and this is something I have actually seen
Dog chases children
Problem must be dog is thinking it is too dominant
Solution
Dog cant go on sofa or upstairs and must wait till after owner has eaten before it gets to eat

Too complicated!!
Problem - dog chases children
Solution - teach the dog not to chase children

Simples (OK well there is more to it than that but you get the point)

So thinking of my old days in the world of business I remembered their fave acronym
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple Stupid
and thought that was perfect way to say what I wanted to say

Kiss The Dog, Kind Simple Effective dog behaviour training

What do you all think??