Vito's Agility Lesson

Earlier this week Vito and I had a lesson with Loretta Mueller.  I wanted her help on Vito's tendency to pull off  jumps if I have to send him and run off somewhere else, and his difficulty of getting back into drive after tight turns.

Vito was thrilled to play with only ourselves in the building, and his tennis ball of course.  Loretta quickly gave us some great solution for addressing both issues.  In the past I have rewarded Vito for pulling off of jumps since I saw it as him responding to my handling.  Yes he should commit to the jump if I tell him to take it, but I couldn't help but feel my bad because I turned my shoulders or something before his 2in commitment point.  I've only recently started to look at how often Vito pulls off jumps and realize it's a problem that needs to be addressed, and I wasn't sure how to handle it without pulling Vito out of drive.  Loretta suggested something I had just started doing, which was standing my ground and pointing if he hadn't yet run by it.  When he does blow by it I am to quietly bring him back around.

On my own I've also tried to tackle Vito's loss of drives on turns and getting him to accelerate out of it.  I've done a lot of wraps to chasing me/throwing a ball but it hasn't helped transition him to accelerating out of turns on a sequence.  Actually, Loretta pointed out that it has likely contributed to his pulling off of jumps as she noticed Vito immediately came into handler focus after wraps.  To fix this I am to to work on lots of sends to turns and running away, but running away so Vito can accelerate into a line of jumps, or his beloved contacts.  Reteach him to be in obstacle focus.  This should be much fun for the Toller!  I also think it is going to be key to fixing his speed in trials.

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Assigning Responsability in Vito's Obedience Training

I took the boys to an obedience lesson with Nancy last week.  This has been something I have been wanting to do for a long time but had never made a priority.  Usually I post about things really quickly after they happen but I have been doing a lot of thinking about the advice given to me for Vito.

I see Vito as having 2 issues that is keeping our obedience career on hiatus.  #1 is his anxiety over people watching, especially ring stewards.  #2 is getting him ready to really work/play instead of just going through the motions; this may or may not be related to #1.  I have been handling our 2nd issue by having Vito do some tricks and really trying to get him jazzed up with a toy or treats.  I skip formal set ups and do lots of walking backwards a few steps before turning into him to heel.  It allows an effortless transition into work and keeps enthusiasm high.  Once Vito is in that happy mode he does a fantastic job of working and has a lot of fun.

So at our lesson we talked about putting the responsibility to work on Vito.  Nancy observed that after a period of down time, such as being on a down stay while we talked, Vito had a hard time popping up to work and I fell into my routine of jazzing him up.  She urged me to work on duration sitting in heel position, being quiet, and creating a conditioned response to the two.  Basically I'm supposed to stop working so hard for him and start letting him step up.


I know I didn't fully digested Vito's lesson plan and this week that followed I had many conflicting thoughts.  Shortly after the lesson, Denise Fenzi posted about her long journey with her new OTCH dog Cisu.  Denise wrote about her need to be there for her dog, maintaining that connection through interaction and just supporting her every second.  Comparing those thoughts to our lesson and my want to have an enthusiastic and pushy dog I was confused.

So I've been thinking about how to balance the two ideas and have finally reached the conclusion that they really aren't opposing each other like I feared.  Vito may need that constant connection once we start training, but he needs to make that choice to connect in the first place.  While I've been trying to create more drive for working I've really been luring and pleading with him to start.  My efforts need to go into maintaining the connection that he chooses to seek out with his complete focus, not just attention.

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