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Ragnar at AKC Advanced Obedience

Congrats on your success at class!!! told you those compliments where coming :rofl: they’ll bring out the giddy little kid in you sometimes, almost like catching a fish, no matter how old you are it’s the same excitement from the first bite every time you get a bite, even a million years later lol
 
@Ddski5 Congratulations on a great job!! You have every right to be proud and excited!! :yatta:

@Doberman Gang I grew up with Poodles! Our parents came home with a miniature silver poodle pup when I was 7 years old. (they are black as a pup and get silver with age) They only had miniature and tiny toys but I always thought the Standard poodle would be awesome to have! I just couldn't deal with the haircuts and grooming! Heck, I don't always get mine cut! lol All of our family poodles had the simple puppy cut. The show cut is just for show! ;)

Your poodle is SOOOO handsome!! :love:
 
Congrats always a great feeling to accomplish something with your dog. Which ecollar do you use?
 
@Ddski5 Congratulations on a great job!! You have every right to be proud and excited!! :yatta:

@Doberman Gang I grew up with Poodles! Our parents came home with a miniature silver poodle pup when I was 7 years old. (they are black as a pup and get silver with age) They only had miniature and tiny toys but I always thought the Standard poodle would be awesome to have! I just couldn't deal with the haircuts and grooming! Heck, I don't always get mine cut! lol All of our family poodles had the simple puppy cut. The show cut is just for show! ;)

Your poodle is SOOOO handsome!! :love:
Thanks, yes grooming is an everyday thing if you want a show poodle. Probably a minimum of 30 minutes everyday to brush him out and then trips to the groomer every couple of weeks aren’t cheap and neither are the costs to have him shown. But that is what my wife wanted, still scratching my head on that one.:facepalm:
 
In order to show poodles you have to have the show cut. My girlfriend showed her two and it was a tremendous amount of work grooming everyday. They were beautiful and fun dogs. They were always so light on their feet, nothing clumsy about them. She did their show cuts and that’s how I learned to groom. :)
 
2nd week

Ragnar was not as anxious towards other dogs today but yet hardly anybody came today. Maybe because of high% rain. Had 5 dogs today.
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I am supposed to be working on attention but I keep on dropping the treats, so no wonder I can’t get him to keep eye contact!!



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Sit/stay walk off- did better than I expected. He knows the command, he just does not like to sit for long periods of time.


754B5D07-B30F-4362-9978-F7DE4A047FC1.jpeg Down/stay walk off- I could take off a long way and he wouldn’t budge. This is easy for him.



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Two gorgeous black GS. I think they are brother/sister. One of the owners is pretty mean to them when he messes up. Makes me think twice about being angry. I correct myself and try to figure out where “I” failed in my communication. Keep it light, simple and fun works better than domineering.



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Trying to figure out what the instructors next exercise is. She speaks so lightly that half the time I am watching other people on what to do. The other four owners here are repeaters so they have been here last season.

Only used ecollar maybe 5 times. Really trying to get him to stay focused on me without ecollar. I do have to say, that if I wanted sustained attention on me, all I have to do is bump the ecollar once, stim-10 or vibration. He wil stay on me until I free or I allow his attention to focus on another dog. One time during sit/stay walk off, I felt as if he just wasn’t with me mentally so I hit the light stim-10 to get him 100% back on to me and he sit/stay just as tall and long as the repeaters did. The instructor walked around him three times and he did not break sit nor attention until I said free.

All in all- an okay job. I tend to wonder how much of his lack of focus on me is because he is 8months old? This is what I need to work on focus and attention.
 

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Are you kidding? He did great! For an outdoor setting too? At 6 months old Kaiser could do this in an indoor ring, but not outdoors. I actually still wouldn't trust him outdoors today!

The lesson I'm getting here is that we are way too hard on our Dobes. From what you've posted, Ragnar was perfection and you thought he only did ok? What went wrong?

Tonight was class for us too. I got a lot of correction on being too demanding. It's a regular correction I get :rolleyes: like nagging :whistle: so I've been ignoring it to my own detriment :bag: Soon as I loosened up Kaiser was on fire :dobe: Yet I was ready to leave the class <10 minutes in, I thought it was so bad. By the actual end of class, I wasn't a hot mess and got a lot of positive feedback...on Kaiser :rofl:

Really, I think our problem is perfectionism. Anything less and we're disappointed. Isn't it exhausting? How is the dog supposed to build on that when we are supposed to end training on a high note? I'm glad you wrote about your experience because I was feeling less than enthralled by mine too. Now I feel like Kaiser did great, maybe even amazing given all the distraction. Yes, he spent the first 10 mins play bowing EIGHT NEW DOGS, totally distracting to anything with a pulse, but after that, he was like a shining example! What a boy! :hearteyes:
 
Thank you @Kaiser2016.

You are correct, we are our biggest-critical critic. I realized this years ago when training my girls on the soccer fields. I will get a lot more out of my girls and Ragnar in the long run if the environment is upbeat and challenging rather than negative and domineering. And prob the biggest is that I need to chill out and enjoy the moment and not get so damn caught up on not screwing up....

Find the positives:
-he did not bark/go crazy at other dogs when we got out of truck.
-therefore did not have to stim-30, as a matter of fact, I don’t believe it got over 14.
-we worked offleash for most of the session and he did not distract and break ranks.
-he went into his “zone out dad focus” three times and I was able to break it off and bring focus back to me. A dog five feet away was barking.
-his heel in front of instructor and class is fantastic. I don’t know if he feels the pressure I feel of “geez, don’t screw up”.
-he did really good on the different recall exercises considering that I did not fully understand what the instructor wanted. Ended up being 2 segments in one exercise.
1. Sit/stay walkoff 40ft turn wait 15 secs. Entire time instructor is standing next to your dog with a toy trying to distract and get him to break, also saying loudly- call your dog. After 15 secs, walk back to Ragnar, go around him and stop on his right.
2. Sit/stay walk off 40ft turn and wait 15 secs. Call Ragnar to front, then to heel sit. Then walk at heel back to starting position.

Yes Kaiser2016, you are correct, it was better than an okay night. Ragnar did great. He showed improvement in a highly distractable environment just on his second attendance.
 
I think the 'cloud hanging over my head' is that Dobermans are ranked top 5 in intelligence and if he's not showing me that he's worthy of that rank, then I get frustrated or annoyed, he's better than that and why doesn't he live up to my expectation? It's like a tiger mom with a delinquent :spit: Now, he's "just a puppy" still and has a lot of learning to do yet. If I'm going to lean on that excuse for a 22 month old super charged Dino donkey, I think you can probably relax a bit with an 8 month old :woot2:

Now I have to try to not have a complex over that last sentence :facepalm:
 
Wow he's doing really really good, and so are you! He isn't doing this by himself, you're obviously teaching him well, don't forget that.

Also I love the name Ragnar. Great show, can't wait for next season! Although the show went a little bit downhill for us when Ragnar got sick...
 
@Kaiser2016
A lot of respect sent your way for that last post. Not a lot of people would post their frustrations and worries on something they feel they are in control of.

Keep on keeping on..... continue with training. Maybe try a new angle if you have not tried already.

I know I have said this before but will say again. Have to start somewhere-somehow. In those picts, those two black GS are absolutely fricking spot on but at some time or another they were not. “One day, one day we will be there”......
 

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