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Thursday, February 5, 2015

The Power of Patience - Agility Part II

Patience
Agility Part II

Agility Continued:
Part 1
Part 3

Want to have a wonderful relationship with your dog filled full of success, trust, love, and a bond that will last throughout time? Then you better be patient!

I must confess i'm not always the most patient person in the world, I get frustrated sometimes because I occasionally take it personally when Ziva isn't understanding what i'm asking of her.
But this doesn't help anything, in fact it can damage your relationship if you are taking your frustration out on your dog. They don't deserve that. 

Hubby with his partner in crime! Ziva loves muddy canicross adventures!

Your dog is your partner, remember that they want to please, and if you both aren't having fun then you should stop and go find something fun to do! And then go back to training later when you have a clear mind.

I find it sad when I run into people who would rather abuse their dog than spend a few minutes a day practicing a behavior. If this is you - then you shouldn't have the dog.

Agility Update!
Agility so far is going great! Ziva has taken to the tunnels just fine, she's done a couple small jumps - again no problem there! This last week we also learned the chute, and we're continuing to practice tight circles around an object, and running large circles on whatever side I ask her to be on.

Other things to work on, "two on" front feet on an object, "two off" back feet only on an object, and pivots!


Whew....sound like a big enough list?

She has "two on" really well, her back feet are a bit more of a challenge. Our instructor said it best, dogs aren't used to using just their back feet. They operate the front, and the back just happen to follow along wherever the front feet go!
Rear end awareness is important for advanced tricks, agility, and obedience competition. For example in agility Ziva needs to be able to run up an A frame and then stop on the other side with her front paws in the dirt, back paws on the ramp.

As for Dante, he's getting off easy! We do normal training with him, "heel", "come", "sit", "stay", "back", "let go". I want to get more involved with his training but I need to clear one thing off my plate first - that one thing is school. I'm so excited to graduate in June! I'll be done FOREVER!!  And then I can focus more time to Dante's trick training, Ziva's agility, and hopefully start agility training with Dante.

Here is Dante practicing, "Back Up", and "Let Go."



Hopefully this weekend the weather will cooperate so that I can record a couple videos of Ziva practicing and you can see what we've been working on!

In the mean times, I'd like to show you a couple blog buddies that I find very inspiring. They have spent countless hours on their dogs and have developed a strong bond through their training.

I'd like to show you something...that I'm hoping will inspire you to work with your dogs.
Here is the end result of a lot of patience and training.



And Zoe - From ZoePhee


Patience and practice.


Heart Like a Dog
www.PepiSmartDog.com, Thankful Thursday Weekly Blog Hop, pet centric



16 comments:

  1. You are absolutely right! Patients is one of the most important things. I sometimes loose mine, too. I think everyone has the moments! When I loose my patients we stop whatever we are doing and take a break. Sometimes we go back to whatever it was right away and sometimes I will just let it go for a few days and try again at another time.

    Thanks for sharing our video!

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  2. Every pawrent needs to remember that the relationship with your dog is #1, no exceptions to that rule. In the flash of an eye a relationship can be damaged so badly it might never recover. And dogs don't understand much other than the tone of the pawrent's voice. You can't go back and say "kidding". We often run into people who are so impressed that me and Stanley know some tricks (they aren't even hard ones). They just don't grasp that their dog can learn them too. The pawrents just have to make the time.

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley

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  3. Congrats on almost being done with school - that must feel so great! So agree with your statement on patience, it's been so critical in our rehabilitation of Maggie.

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  4. You're very welcome! You are a great source of inspiration for us! 💓

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  5. You definitely need patience and practice when training dogs. I wonder if Storm could beat Dante to that Kong? :) Thanks for joining the Barks and Bytes hop!

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    1. I wonder! It sure would be fun to meet up and do a play date, Dante would love that! *Woof!*

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  6. Patience is very important when you are owned by a Basset Hound! BOL!

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    1. Those silly bassets...I bet it's a bit like living with Sherlock Holmes, only following lots of scent trails around! :-)

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  7. Don't you just love those light bulb moments when your dog finally "gets it"? I swear Jedi grins.

    We have a few silly tricks that Jedi has mastered (touch, shake, etc.) When things feel like they're getting tense I'll throw a couple easy ones at him then quit on a happy note. Jedi is very sensitive to my feelings, so when I get frustrated things get ugly quickly. Keeping on top of my stress and anxiety is a difficult part of training for us.

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    1. Sounds a lot like over here too! Keeping myself in check is the biggest challenge, I have to remind myself that both her and Dante aren't doing/not doing things just to annoy me. LoL
      Dante sure can be a pill sometimes though, we're back to working on recall with him. All our time training Ziva has made him lazy and he's gotten really good at ignoring me. But I can't teach him to come back to me if I'm angry, so I have to take a deep breath, retrieve him, and now we're back to training basic recall and he's lost his off-leash privileges temporarily.
      Isn't it crazy though how sensitive to our feelings dogs are?

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  8. I always like to finish on a win too. If it's a struggle to learn something new, I'll take a step back to a command they know and reward for that. That way we all feel like we've succeeded at something.

    Thanks for joining the blog hop.

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  9. My guys have SO much trouble with "back-end" awareness. It takes ages to get them to learn something that focuses on their back legs! But you're so right: patience is the key to success! (Though it's hard to remember sometimes...) :)

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  10. Wonderful post! I can't wait to see all the agility videos! So fun!

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Barks & Howls are always welcome!!

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