Wisp teeter and dog walk plus her first sequence (lesson 11 modified)

newfire's picture
Submitted by newfire on Sun, 2007-03-18 10:17.
wisp showing off what she will do for play and corned beef!!!  She has become a demon for the teeter and will take every opportunity to either run over the whole thing or to pull down the end and down.  I will have to work the ups on the dog walk more!!  (...welcome to open eh?).  for the first time I thought I would let her do a few jumps in a circle.  She did so well that I decided to let her do the opening to seq 1 followed by the big circle.  ...... I could get to like this!! ...elizabeth
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Olga Chaiko's picture

Re: Wisp teeter and dog walk plus her first sequence (lesson 11

Submitted by Olga Chaiko on Sat, 2007-03-24 21:24.
Wisp is looking great on her teeter! Quite a change in attitude, ;-).. Good work Elizabeth! Raise the height.

Even with the low DW, please give the dog at least 15' on approach. Wisp is happy running her planks. Good girl.

And congratulations on Wisp's first sequence! She does look all grown up and pretty, doesn't she? Welcome to open.. You'll like it just fine, ;-)..

Olga.
newfire's picture

Re: Wisp teeter and dog walk plus her first sequence (lesson 11

Submitted by newfire on Sun, 2007-03-25 17:32.

Thank you... wisp is a good girl and lots of fun, but I am very glad that I din't start with a border collie.  I think I learned a lot more about training with terriers.  However having a border collie now makes training th eterriers a little easier in that if wisp dosent understand something in a couple of tries, then I need to break it down more for the lakies (for wisp too) - but learning how to present something to a dog that actually cares to learn is quite diffferent from presenting something to a dog with a different agenda! 

As far as the teeter is concerned, she will run to the field and tear over the whole teeter.  Should I only let her run the entire lenght with me at the end to control the decent of the board?

As far as the 15' should that be at 'both ends' - should I have a toy several feet from the end or do you think I should throw the toy? ..elizabeth

Olga Chaiko's picture

Wisp teeter plus.. nerdy bc's vs. terriers with different agenda

Submitted by Olga Chaiko on Sun, 2007-03-25 18:49.
You are very welcome, ;-)..

I see your reasoning about the (in your case) terriers leaving you with the sense of accomplishment as a trainer. Having trained a bunch of different breeds of dogs for a living, ;-), I like to SEE THE DOG.. NOT THE BREED. The interactive aspect of the Border Collie personality may make it easier for us humans to train a dog, since we like cooperation so.. ;-).. but it doesn't make it easier for the Border Collie to learn. I lot of times dogs with a "different agenda" actually learn faster. It's a well known fact of the learning process. School kids are known to ace a difficult homework assignment in a jiffy to get the hell out of the study and go play ball with friends. Sounds like some dogs we know, ;-)?? Border Collies work for the heck of working and sometimes forget to learn at all.. but it's fun treading water during the training session with a BC..

I like this one-liner: ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MADE A BORDER COLLIE OUT OF A DOG, lol. Forgot where I saw it first..

Now back to regular teeter programming. I don't let my dogs engage the teeter without a proper setup and a command. Too much risk of injury, imo. From Wisp's video of her teeter play, I see the next step would be to raise the board and then repeat all the games that you have played so far: bang and assume contact position, then exit; run up to mom holding the board up, stay on the board while mom lowers the board, assume contact position and exit on command; etc.

Introducing the height of the teeter is very important and it's time to do it.

15' is the minimum length of the "runway" to any contact equipment. As far as throwing the toy goes, you are asking about the DW, right? I like to throw a toy, but if your dog doesn't mind racing to a "dead" toy, you can put it about 15' past the exit.

Olga.