None of yesterday's Zoom videos

 None of yesterday's Zoom videos recorded. So, trust you were paying careful attention to the lessons and can remember what to do.

Alice, have your Dad do the 'rapid retrieves, 4-5 in a row' with Mabel. PLEASE RECORD and post for me. You want to practice your Setup mechanics with Kimber and a stuffed animal. PLEASE RECORD and post for me.

Chris, you are to redo the Lesson 3 EXAM with the changes we made in class yesterday. Do NOT let her collapse on you, nor lean into you, she is to do a proper Sit and maintain that Sit as you smoothly and fluidly do the SetUp - then present your new DB to her at 1" in front of her face. SHE HAS TO MOVE HER HEAD FORWARD AND PUT ON DB, CLOSE HER MOUTH, THEN YOU RELEASE THE SETUP.

Onward...

Sarah and chris week 3 take 2

 

https://youtu.be/BbgJk-oHwN4

Updates, reality, and encouragement

 Class,

So you know, as I've stated already, EVERY dog will have its Point of Contention (where it refuses to do the retrieve work) and EVERY student will hit their own, "This isn't worth the effort, I quit!" point. Happens in every Retrieve Class. I remember wanting to quit with Sugar at Lesson 2 when he WOULD NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH. Margot corrected him, in a way I refuse to do with ANY dog, and he opened his mouth. We got through Lesson 2 as that was Sugar's Point of Contention.  When we got to the "Hold" part of the retrieve training process, I was the one that wanted to quit as it was WAY harder than I thought it should be.  

All of this is being shared with you so each of you recognize the process to train an inexperienced handler with their FC trained dog is a journey, not a destination. It is what happens between the handler and their dog that makes this training process so time consuming as well as mentally stressful. It is also this training PROCESS (meaning NOT automatic nor easy nor simple), that creates the handler and their dog into a working team. 

Rarely is this retrieve training process linear, predictable 

and ever upward.

Instead, it often looks and feels like this:

As long as you hang WITH me, there is always a way for a handler and their dog to succeed, just it doesn't look like the same journey for any team. So, Alice/Mabel - breathe and know we'll get the two of you through where you are stuck right now. And Chris/Sarah - breathe and know that I'll get the two of you through where you are stuck right now, get you working on Sarah's right side, and experience success.  I've never had a single Retrieve Class were all the teams got through each lesson at the same time, not one time. Each team, handler and their dog, work at their own level of understanding and newly acquired skills and we build on that with each EXAM.

So, you may be feeling like this#$#!

Or you may be feeling like this.

However you are feeling, I understand as I've been there too, got the t-shirts to prove it, and went on to success. The best is yet to come, I promise. Breathe. 

Roxanne

Chris and sarah week 3 exam

 

https://youtu.be/B79nzAQgn20

Week 10 Exam Attempt

Lesson 3 EXAM - this time 10 consecutive retrieves on each EXAM

Link to Lesson 3 EXAM 

Week 3 Update on Kratos

This week has been going good. Kratos will do all of the retrieves without any pressure at all. He gets totally wiped out after about 8 or so. But. His avoidance behavior is gradually getting worse during the "set up" before the Fetch command. Because of this, tonight I mostly worked on the motions before the fetch without ever presenting the dowel and asking for a fetch. I would start and then stop on different steps of the set up and just hold that position until Kratos relaxed. I'm hoping this will help him understand that he can be relaxed for the entire process of doing retrieves and that my thumb can be in his ear without a need for a correction. I hope this is all in line with our training. I will post a video of tomorrow's session and we will see how his behavior is.