Over the weekend, I attended a two day workshop with Sarah Dixon. Day 1 was on Impulse Control and Relaxation and Day 2 was on Play and Motivation. Believe it or not, these topics are very much related!
Day 1, I had a working spot and I brought Captain Quint. Here is a video of a little of the work we did. I learned to train with clickers and I still use them for some things. They are really great for marking very specific behaviors and you can get results quite quickly! Throughout the seminar, Sarah also kept telling us that we could use a marker word in its place (like Yes!) if we didn’t have a clicker handy. What you see in this video is that I’m clicking and treating each time Quint looks away from Sarah and back at me. In other words, ‘Click for attention’. Quint does a great job of demonstrating this clearly in the video, and we’ve done this exercise a LOT. He REALLY loves people and greetings without jumping up on folks has been a very slow and long process for us. Sarah was trying to distract the other dogs by coming closer and having food in her hand.. I told her she wouldn’t need the food and that her presence would be plenty distracting. Clearly I know my dog well as that’s exactly what happened. The second half of Day 1, we worked in a group of dogs and people and worked on getting our dogs to relax on a mat on the floor and Sarah taught us some massage techniques to help them relax even further. I never got full relaxation from Quint in that setting, but I at least got him to lay on his mat for a good amount of time.. until he saw Sarah in his view, and then he wanted to go try to see her again. Yeah.. How about that impulse control! As I said, slow and long process but he’s improved immensely from where we started (when I had a Bulldog kite!)
What I’ve learned about my dogs and observed of Leavitts generally, is that Impulse Control is an extremely important skill to teach. Teaching release words and doing stay work is extremely important. They are very ‘forward’ and confident dogs and also quite strong. You can (and should) teach impulse control in play as well as in obedience situations like above.
Day 2 was about Play and Motivation. I love this blog post by Jay Jack about the difference between play and a game. Despite the name of the workshop, I know Sarah believes in a goal to game play too. This workshop was really about the basics of getting your dog motivated to play. Here’s a video of my friend Danielle with her APBT that she had not been able to get to tug with her… especially not in new places surrounded by people watching! But check this out! They did it! Notice how Dani is letting her have the tug and then running away, and Pistol is grabbing the toy and chasing after her for more. That movement was so motivating for Pistol that she was all about the tug and play AND they set a timer for 2 minutes and finished in success! Really fun watching epiphanies happen with teams! Dani also demonstrated ‘personal play’ with Pistol, which wasn’t something they had challenges with! I thought this was really cool to watch! I don’t do personal play with my dogs with my hands in their mouths like this, but I definitely get on the floor and act like a dog and wrestle with them. Quint especially loves that.
There were dogs with all different types of things that motivated them and preferred different types of play! Some liked chase, some liked to play independently, some preferred food over toys and vice versa. Very fun to watch the different teams work and learn. Sarah had asked me if I’d come on her Hair of the Dog Podcast after the workshops and I agreed, and was able to convince Danielle to join us. I’m so glad I did because she had so much to add and it turned out to be a fantastic podcast. She was one of my first mentors for Weight Pull and a big reason why we got into trialing in any sports! Keep your eye on the link above for that one. I was on it once before talking about my dogs if you have any interest in listening to that one too 🙂 They’ve even had Jay Jack and Chad Mackin on as well as some other really great guests! One of my other favorites for interesting information was when they sat with Joe Kelly. He talked about breeding practices and his Portugese Water Dogs. Super fun!
The Determined Bullblog 