Rally Excellent Help

Silaria

Silaria

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I think I broke Edan regarding rally. :(

We started working on the "3 Steps Back" against a wall and Edan hates it! After two or three tries he'll completely stop heeling and when he does heel he lags behind like he's afraid.

I didn't really realize how this was affecting him until a Rally trial today at our Sheltie Specialty show and he wouldn't perform any of the stationary stations. Even the "Moving Down Walk Around Dog" he wouldn't do. I ended up just stopping the run after 7 obstacles because I was really getting frustrated with him and didn't want to really get mad at him because he just picks up on my emotions and it causes him to shut down.

Does anyone have any advice?
 
that is interesting- we haven't started working on that sign but that is how I have been told to teach it......

will be interesting to see if anyone has any good suggestions on how to teach it without a wall.....
 
I don't think it's the wall as much as he HATES the sudden backup move. I've never see him completely shut down on something before but he seems to have completely turned off on Rally. We were pretty successful until I started working on that sign. It iz the only Excellent level sign we can't do.

It worries me that he doesn't even want to play rally since we started working on that sign.
 
I wonder if he's just confused and worried about not getting it right. I trained it with the wall method, but we didn't push for 3 full steps at the start. We began by rewarding a single step back, and then worked up to the full three steps.
 
Lexi learned that sign without a wall. I just had her leash straight back low on her back and started facing her side saying back. I gradually moved more to heel position. She's great at it. I never was able to teach Pyper. The solution....AGILITY!!!
 
Way back when when I was playing in Excellent, I refused to teach that sign. I would make the attempt, take the 10 point hit for failure to perform, and move on.
 
All - I appreciate the feedback. I have been working with Edan on a wall and I have been only looking for 1 step to start. Trust me, I've done enough training with Edan and CJ, as well as teaching other dogs in agility, to know you don't expect the entire performance when you introduce it. The dog doesn't understand what you are asking them for.

My problem is, Edan shuts down VERY quickly when trying to teach this station. One, maybe two attempts tops, and he doesn't want to get in heel position, won't move with in a forward heel, will stay in a sit position, etc. He just completely shuts down. It's very very unlike him.

I need to proceed carefully with this because I do NOT want to completely turn him off of Rally because he's afraid I'm going to do that backup "thing" with him.

ClantyreSheltie said:
Way back when when I was playing in Excellent, I refused to teach that sign. I would make the attempt, take the 10 point hit for failure to perform, and move on.
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Rachel, I'm curious why you opted not to teach this sign. Honestly, I'm leaning in this direction myself since we can do all the other stations (provided I read the signs right) and I really don't want to cause Edan to shut down and not want to work with me. He's a great working dog and normally wants to work for me and with me. I don't want to loose that; this one station isn't worth it.
 
Though we can't do Rally anymore, I found that Beckon learns best when everything is "heel." If "heel" always means "Stay right beside me in the perfect heel position," it doesn't matter if you're going forward, circling, backing up -- it's all "heel."

We just did one backward step at a time with much praise.
 
I didn't introduce the wall until mine were comfortable with backing up. Were they accurate and speedy with their backups at that point -NO- but they were comfortable with their hind feet moving and they understood my command.

Since Edan has an aversion to backing up, see if his desire to play will override this issue. Is there a method where you can make backing up a game for Edan?

I taught Dalton how to back up by using one of his favorite toys and his favorite game. He loves small squeaky balls and he lives to chase and return with the ball. He didn't like bringing the ball back to my hands but would drop the ball and let it roll to me. He figured out if he came all the way in then he didn't have a running start to get to the ball the next time I threw it. :wink2: What I did was when the ball rolled into my hand, I stood up, squeaked the ball a couple of short times while taking one small step towards Dalton. He was delighted to hear the ball squeak and he was preparing to leave for the retrieve, but he couldn't take his eye off the ball and at this high level of anticipation it had him backing up away from me. By the 2nd or 3rd round of this, I began marking his footwork using the word "back".

I played this and a few other games with Dalton and it completely switched his attitude about backing up. He absolutely loves the 3-step backwards exercise. If you go this route, I would suggest using a different word for backing up than the one you have been using. He's already associated the word back with something he doesn't like doing.

Dani
OTCh Staymat Magnificent Journey UDX, OM2
Armitage Dazzling Spun Gold CDX, RAE
Double Dare Derrick CD, RAE
Blackmyst Poker Face CD, RN
 
Silaria said:
Rachel, I'm curious why you opted not to teach this sign.
Click to expand...

Lazy, and because I was only out for the title, and I didn't care about scores. Everything else were things that I would teach in the normal course of teaching through Open/Utility (I don't think that's the case now, it's gotten more complicated). But that one sign was bizzare to me, so I didn't teach it.
 
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