*We really need to work on our stay for both sit and down. I think she's getting extra frustrated because I've been asking her to do it a lot around sheep... but frankly she's never been very good at staying in position. Love to hear any ideas for how to improve this!
**She's started anticipating R turns and will sometimes float her butt away when we come to a halt. I want to do more work with her on the pivot bowl at some point to work on my own body language for both L and R turns.
Based on these videos, you're doing a really good job pacing building duration. She always looks happy and engaged.
Over-right turning: My reflex for how to handle this would be to stop or slow or walk straight when I see the dog is swung wide - the point of any of those being to give the dog a moment to think about what their body is doing at that moment and correct themselves. (Confounding variable of fully stopping: the dog might sit, and they might not know how to correct their position after sitting. This skill is dependent on their proficiency at left finishes with auto-halts.)
Mark & reward for the dog correcting themselves/fixing their position - pivoting their butt in again.
I have garbage footwork from hell (CURRENTLY), so my dog being able to self-correct is CRUCIAL. (lmao) I wanna hear if you fix this with footwork though!
Hover butt: The unfun solution may just be that you actually have to work on the criteria of butt (sit)/elbows & butt (down) to ground under high arousal. Marking and rewarding quickly when the criteria is met. Feeding in place more. Slow down and don't reward or move on with your sequence if she's hovering.
I know it's hard to see it happen in live time sometimes, too. (Especially for sits.)
Stays: I would have to hear more to help. I'll probably recommend at least using a consistent NRM to immediately give her feedback that breaking the stay was not what you were looking for. Reset her in the same spot she left. Drill in a way that is mindful of anticipation. Proof things you would normally do before rewarding/releasing/moving on with the sequence.
*As a general note, she has not been doing great with full sits. As I watch all the videos of us working on fronts or halts, she's probably 80% of the time crouching and not fulling tucked.
We'll go back and work on fronts and halts with full tucked sits later, but let me know if you have any advice on this!
Wow, it's like your garden was made for practicing 90 degree turns, lol!
This is great!
I think this is the first time I've seen right turns on video for you, and they look great. Super nice to see how much she's generalized about position.
In this video:
Figure 8
Spin + Heel
Down w/ distractions*
Halts, L Turn, L About Turn
Right turns**
Spin w/ L Turn
Sit w/ distractions*
Heeling Endurance
*We really need to work on our stay for both sit and down. I think she's getting extra frustrated because I've been asking her to do it a lot around sheep... but frankly she's never been very good at staying in position. Love to hear any ideas for how to improve this!
**She's started anticipating R turns and will sometimes float her butt away when we come to a halt. I want to do more work with her on the pivot bowl at some point to work on my own body language for both L and R turns.
In this video:
Spin + Heel
Heeling Endurance
Sit/Stay w/ new distractions
(Fronts*)
*As a general note, she has not been doing great with full sits. As I watch all the videos of us working on fronts or halts, she's probably 80% of the time crouching and not fulling tucked.
We'll go back and work on fronts and halts with full tucked sits later, but let me know if you have any advice on this!
Wow, it's like your garden was made for practicing 90 degree turns, lol!
This is great!
I think this is the first time I've seen right turns on video for you, and they look great. Super nice to see how much she's generalized about position.