Well, as the business winds down for the time being, it's time to really concentrate on the training plan for Whirli. She's 4 months now, and so very, very bright! Every bit as bright as Mr Finn, and so much more confident and happy about life!
There's so much in the way of Foundation or Pre-Agility work that you can teach the pups these days if you have competitive agility ambitions in mind (and non of it involves anything horrendous like putting them over dog walks or A-frames or asking them to jump yet!), and I really love this stage of training. Most of the work we've been doing with Whirli and Dazzle falls into one of two categories (although there is much overlap between the two!); 1) Familiarisation, confidence building, body awareness and balance-type exercises involving novel items, odd surfaces, things to climb in, on or under etc, and 2) teaching them 'Thinking Skills' using shaping exercises and choice games, letting them work out for themselves what they need to do to earn rewards, allowing them to problem solve. We've been doing all of this with the clicker, and with the application of copious amounts of food or toy rewards when they get it right so that we build in real enthusiasm and create strong behaviours. And blimey are they quick to learn!! I love training this way - letting the pup do all the work, thinking each new problem through, gaining in confidence as they work it out. I so love that 'light bulb' moment when they work out what it is that they need to do to earn a reward and start offering you behaviours; it's just the best thing to see - dogs that can think for themselves! And to see it in ones so young is just the most heart-warming thing ever, it really gives me a buzz!
Our training plan for Whirli and Dazz is going to be very heavily based on this brilliant new book called 'Agility Right From the Start', as well as incorporating Greg Derrett's Foundation stuff, Susan Garrett's Crate Games and early training, and everything we've picked up from the wonderful Lauren Langman of Devon Dogs. Hopefully this should give us the best possible start! And if we put in the effort to building a solid foundation, then introducing the pieces of equipment at 12 months is so very, very easy that they'll be out there competing successfully in no time! You only have to look at the results of those coming through Lauren's training system to know that it works - all those coming through Devon Dogs go to their first few shows and seem to start winning classes straight away, and move up through the levels so fast, achieving such consistently good results. And I know she's one of the biggest proponents of Foundation training in this country. If we only lived closer we'd be down there training with her every week! (and we have more-than-jokingly looked at the possibility of moving in her direction so we could!!)
Anyway, here's a little vid of some photos and clips of the pups from the last few weeks. The training clips make it look like all we do with them is the Familiarisation stuff, but we do also do a huge amount of basic things such as teaching hand touches, buidling reinforcement zones, teaching them to move with us, wait and release, foot target to a mat etc, but somehow I either haven't managed to film any of that, or it looked a bit dull on film!!
My God they're cute!!! :) xxx
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