New Purpose!

This blog seems to take on new life again and again!

I am now going to re-purpose it as a place where I will share Bandit's training.  For right now, particularly his Rally training.  Although, me being me, I won't stick strictly to that!

This is partially in response to Denise Fenzi's blog post . . . 

Denise Fenzi: Controversy

In this post, Ms. Fenzi invited those of us who are trainers to share video of our training with our dogs:

Why not just start a blog?  If you’re a trainer, start a blog and post unedited videos of your training sessions when you feel like it.  You don’t even have to add words if that’s not your thing.  Just show what you mean.  How do you teach something? What does your session look like?

Being both teacher and trainer, and one who loves to video and write, this is right up my alley!!

I am no expert, by any means.  Really am a training enthusiast.  I train dogs because I enjoy training dogs. I compete because I enjoy competition.  I am not a "top trainer", nor do I aspire to be.

But . . . I am happy to share how I actually train my dogs.  


Some Background

Bandit is a young Border Collie, going on two years old at the end of February.  I raised him since he was 9 weeks old.  His puppyhood was quite the adventure and I have enjoyed knowing him as puppy Bandit, and then "teenage" Bandit.  Now the adolescent soup that his brain has been is quickly transforming into keen mind of a grown up Border Collie!  Bandit and I are off and running, doing quite a bit of training.

I have done a lot of little foundation work with Bandit, but nothing terribly serious.  We have done a few Fenzi Academy classes, and have taken some in-person training classes, but up until now my training with him has not been too terribly focused.

My ultimate hope is that Bandit will be my Freestyle dog.  He shows great promise in that regard.  He absolutely loves moving to music, and he seems to like an audience!

I am also training Bandit for Agility.  Agility is not really my main focus with him, but I know the day will come when Tessa will no longer be able to run.  When that time comes, I know I will turn to Bandit as an Agility partner, at least for a time.

I also hope to dabble in some Rally FrEe with Bandit, and we are going to take some time very soon to work on some traditional Rally Obedience!

Our Current Training

In preparation for the Rally class that we will begin next week, I have been working with Bandit on the concept of "stay".  For the sake of simplicity, we are starting this with a sit, but will eventually go on to do this work with Bandit in a down and in a stand.

As Bandit has worked on "sit" extensively, I am not reinforcing the sit initially, but am making slight movements and then I click and treat Bandit for maintaining the position as I have moved.

I really wish I had a video of our first training session.  He went from jumping up from the sit almost immediately after getting his treat to starting to offer the amount of duration that you see in this video after just one session!

When Bandit breaks the sit before release, there is no consequence.  I allow him to gather his thoughts for a few seconds and then I just set him up again, in a very neutral way, and we repeat the exercise.  The point that I am striving to convey is that the treats come when he maintains the position.

Part-way through the video we switch to some basic position work.  I do this mostly to give him a few second break from the duration work.

This is very rough work - I realize he is not getting into the best position with the two finger target.  I mean to incorporate some platforms into this work.  Mainly I just wanted him to be reinforced for following the two finger target into position.

Finally, yes - I am working him on the left and the right.  While I hope to compete with Bandit in traditional Rally, I also plan do some Cyber Rally-O with him in the Performance division.

OK, with no further ado . . . here is our first training video!  Enjoy!