Resq TailsThe trials and triumphs of rescued dogs

Well, we had a great time training on Friday with the dogs. We worked alot on Twist’s dumbbell retrieval. Seems like alot of times we run into one training challenge and then overcome it only to create a new one! LOL Guess that’s just part of the learning process.

For example: Twist was having trouble with his “wait”. He would anticipate me calling him, and break out of the sit or down, or whatever. So, I really worked on reinforcing his “wait” and the same time I accidentally taught him that he needed to “wait” till I gave him a verbal release of “OK”. I guess that it would be fine in some situations, but in regards to his dumbbell work, not great at all. It means that when I tell him to “wait” and throw the dumbbell out there, then he won’t move until I say “OK”, then give a second command of “get it”. That’s a problem. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t give a double command like that. (Ughhh, I won’t make that mistake again though…I hope).

So, to overcome this we are working on sending him out to a target lid with a treat by just saying “get it”, (no “OK” beforehand). He was a bit confused to start with, but we started using the clicker to mark any movement forward and boy pretty quick he was figuring out what we wanted from him. What a good boy! Then we started really increasing the distance till he was running all the way across the building to get to the lid. Then we repeated the same process with his dumbbell. It worked!

I decided to try it out at a friends house that has a basic obedience class last night. She lets me come and train with my dogs off to the side of the class. They use me for a distraction and I do the same. Anyway, Twist did great. Woohoo! I just sent off the entry forms for an Obedience trial in Aug. in Idaho. I’m really hoping that he can get his second and third Novice legs for his CD there. Our Obedience instructor wants us to have our Open work ready too, just in case we get to move up to Open for the third day! That would be so exciting. Here’s some pictures of Twist from this morning in our yard.