Friday, January 25, 2013

27 Weeks - Obedience Training

It is definitely easiest to work on obedience (versus agility) since most obedience training is low impact.
It is important that obedience stay fun.  Obedience is very detail oriented so it can get tedious especially for a hound and even more so for a hound puppy.
So I might ask Maddie to do something once or twice and then I will take off running so she can chase me.  I want to make sure that running around is MY idea and not hers.
We also play with toys and do some tugging.  These chase and toy interruptions are cut out of the video in order to keep the video short and interesting... but I just do not want you to think I am drilling her over and over again.
In this video, we do go outs outside with the neighbor's barking dog as a distraction.  And then dumbbell holds.  I just think it is so cute to see her holding a dumbbell.  So grown up looking.  And then I am always working on recalls.  I have started interrupting her when she is running and I am still jackpotting such recalls with canned dog food.  I cannot stress the importance of creating high value for recalls especially with breeds typically less motivated or not geared to follow the instructions of humans.
And all of this is so Maddie comes home and goes to sleep. 
Maddie is just growing up too fast!  The girls were all wet from a hike in the rain.