Second entry

Before I move on and Start Over I need to review what we already know.

With Genevieve, we know many obedience commands, we can fly thru Rally and in Freestyle, all I have to do is mention the move and she usually responds. Agility – well – while we have our Elite NADAC titles, I can’t say that every run was completed with full precision. My thoughts on all of this are that while Genevieve could basically do everything I asked of her, I had to give her many cues – verbal, visual, and more visual. I discovered that the smallest of body moves (shoulder tip, head tilt, finger flick) could mean volumes to her. I also found out that there were times when my mind would think one command, the voice would say another and my body would somehow convey the idea of both. Genevieve is wonderfully clever. She figured out what I was asking her to do in all those cases!

With Pippin, I am finding that he is also wonderfully clever. In the last two years I have tried to concentrate his training mainly on precision. No guess work on heel position on all four sides, no guess work as to what paw to pick up, no guess work as to anything that I ask. Why am I working so hard with him on this? Genny is a wonderful girl, but there were times that we “guessed” what each other were doing and well, this did not always come out good. Now I am looking for something more out of my future performances – partnership without the guess work.

What is Partnership without guess work? I am going to try to define this here and would love other thoughts as well.

Partnership – where my dog(s) and I can work together as one. We mirror each others’ moves, we listen to each other, compliment each other.
Guess work – there is a loss of communication and the dogs tries to guess what is next.

Now – in practice, guess work has produced some really neat freestyle moves from Genevieve and Toby. Shoot – the major part of their brace routine came from guess work. It is a great time to get new moves and I call it “playing around to music.” Somehow, I conveyed the idea to Genny and Toby that I was listening to what they wanted to do. But, it was not always clear when it was time to stop giving me what they wanted but to listen to me.

With Pip, I want to clear things up.

From his puppy hood, we have worked on learning behavior and giving me that behavior when asked. I may ask with visual and verbal, with verbal only, with a ball in my hand (that is the hard one) or sitting on the couch. So, how are we doing?

Hmmm – when I am standing and working with him with a clicker in my hand and cookies not far away, Pip does great. When I am sitting the couch (which is a lot right now) … well, we need to work hard again.

This is where I am starting now, see how much Pip understands as the environment (me) changes.