Before moving out, bait her head and neck up (let her nibble on the bait to help pull it up) and then with a flick hand motion, flick your hand away from the mouth and forward as if you threw the bait. They usually follow your hand motion and sort of look around for where the bait may have landed. At home you can do this and put a command to it (maybe look or watch) and actually toss the bait and when she looks forward, mark yes and tell her to get it! and release her to the bait. To build more focus and drive on the bait, I like to race them to it. Makes it a fun game. Then you can do the hand motion in the future and randomly release her to the bait as you build duration for looking forward.@Rits now that I've spent so much time on getting a focused heel, trotting around looking forward is going to be a challenge. Suggestions?
That's so very true! Most of the training sessions we've had for the last 6 - 8 weeks with our trainer have been focused on conformation and the next few will be too. Next time we are going to try to get together with the dreaded standard Poodle (don't ask me why she's scared of them LOL) to do conformation training together.Conformation takes much more work from both the dog and the handler than people give it credit for!
Everything is way harder to do than it looks on all those you tubes! Everything! Thanks for the advice and great explains!Conformation takes much more work from both the dog and the handler than people give it credit for!
Our old trainer did that during at least one of the group classes and it was really different indeed. I'm used to the feel of our own dogs so to handle someone else's is way different.After the 3rd wk, the instructor had us all trade dogs. That was quite interesting.
Derek was handed one of our breeder's dogs who is greener than Ripley when it comes to showing but a little older. He came back and said he's spoiled by Ripley's training It was her first outside show too so she of course was wanting to sniff the grass and thought it was play time.After the 3rd wk, the instructor had us all trade dogs. That was quite interesting.
An old saying in training horses: You'll learn more by riding 10 horses in one year than riding one horse for 10 years. It's very true!After the 3rd wk, the instructor had us all trade dogs. That was quite interesting.
I used to ride out some of the horses in training to expose them to different situations at a place I used to work and that's an understatement about riding 10 horses.You'll learn more by riding 10 horses in one year than riding one horse for 10 years. It's very true!