Six is fixated on me...

[Justicemom]

I had this problem with Justice. Dumb obedience dog. What my handling instructor did was put a chair at the corner of our ring put a treat on the chair and teach him to look at the chair. We started on the down and back. I would say "Look" and point to the chair then look at the chair and move him to it. When I got to the chair I gave him the treat off the chair. Pretty soon all I needed to do was say look and his head when down and he looked straight ahead. I then started moving him around the ring. It actually transfered later on to Utility training with marking the glove and the go out spot. Handy. Justice got his Canadian OTCH and Canadian Ch on the same weekend.

[Lovely]

Originally Posted by corbinam

Very interesting--the same is true in agility. You reward your dog by looking, so they look more!

Of course, not looking is harder said than done.

Funny you say that because I'm having a little issue with Duncan's weaves. If I am on his right, he blazes through them. I am even working on sending him through without me doing any sort of dance to aid him. I am currently stopping halfway through a set of 6 poles with 100% accuracy and slowly creeping back to stop sooner.

But if I am on the left? Duncan starts beautifully and then swings his head to look at me like, "Hey, mom, what the heck are you doing over there?" followed by either a pop-out or him bumping a pole. I'm going back to super basics with the channel weaves and opening them WAY up to get a good run without him looking to build his confidence. The more confident he is, the better he does.

I like the idea of not looking at Six for you. I hope it works. Otherwise maybe treat for looking away? Conformation is sooo intensely confusing to me.