Box work update

Road to competition!

Tonight's practice was nice. We found out that if the box loader taps the opposite side of the box encouragingly, Duncan is completely turned off! I see this as a positive because the box loader can't do that in competition anyway. It was a little frustrating finding that out because Duncan blew a couple turns and I was like, "What changed?!?" When I asked the loader to stop, he went back to his last week awesomeness. We have successfully back-chained all of the way to the line! Wooo!!! Not that he doesn't need good, solid warm-ups, but he is doing it.

To get used to other dogs, we had a calm dog sitting just off the line. At first, Duncan was dropping the ball early and veering away, but he started to get it better when I was more vocal and drew his attention away.

How do other teams introduce other dogs and passing?
 
That interesting because exactly the same thing was happened here - we realised one of the dogs was put off by the boxloader tapping the box.

They really get temperamental about what they want the humans to do. With Deska as soon as I ssay go I have to keep quiet - only the boxloader will call his name, otherwise he will turrn around to look at me. Tully on the other hand I have to yell the whole time otherwise she gets nervous (and will look at the other lane/other dogs).

I had a revelation on this week too. We were doing box practise and everytime I told Tully 'round' she kept doing a U-turn on the ground and not the box. Then I realised I tell her 'round' at agility to turn around and take the obstacle behind her! Sheesh, no wonder she gets confused. Now I just have to get the boxloaders to stop saying 'round' when she gets to the box.

As for practisng with other dogs - we do that from the start. We practise recalls with 2 lines of dogs going in different directions - initially quite far apart and over time the lines get closer and closer until the dogs can run past each other at 1m apart (we put jumps in at this stage as it helps the dogs focus directly ahead). It takes at least 6mths for the lines to get tthat close thuogh. We had a guest trainer one time who got the dogs/handlers to make 2 lines and we had to do recalls between the 2 lines.

Also something new the coach introed last year is we tie up team dogs along the side fence next to the training so the training dogs get used to mad crazy barking on the sidelines. We had a new group start this year and for the first 6weeks only the small team dogs were tied up at the side but from week 7 the bigger team dogs will now be brought in.
 
Hmm... not sure that method of introducing dogs would work at our club. We have about 10 dogs total for both teams together. Which means that we only have 1-2 green dogs at a time. Plus, Duncan was quite skittish at first with the box/trigger, that we wanted all of his attention on that. When we're more comfortable doing the full length, I guess we'll start racing more often. Perhaps one of the other height dogs? Or would it be smart to pick a really fast dog? So many decisions!

And yes, the dogs are quite particular about the set of circumstances that give them the greatest chance to succeed. We have a dog that has to have squishy pink balls, for heaven's sake!
 
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