Obedience Seminar pt2
Ok, since you guys asked I will go into a little bit more detail of the Denise Fenzi seminar. I WAS going to leave it up to Crystal to really think and explain the important things I learned :)
Probably the most important thing for me was the necessity of inserting yourself into everything instead of relying on food and toys to reward the dog. The obedience ring is a long stressful time to go without external rewards so if you're relying on them in practice and even treating up to the trial gate and treating on the way out you're only making a clear contrast between ring and practice. She doesn't think that will get you past a UD, maybe a UDX but certainly not an OTCH.
As for silence=good you just have to make sure you're quiet before the click and don't mindlessy chatter to your dogs. Hard I know! Start slow and build up. But the other side of the coin is that then you MUST tell the dog when they screwed up. It's punishment, but it shouldn't be mean spirited and certainly not hurtful. Denise likes to use a happy voice to tell her dogs she appreciates the effort but it's not good enough. A playful tap of the dog or "where's my dog!" the moment the dog looks away, forges, is crooked, etc. The dog knows the difference between your genuine happiness with them and your praise to keep them in the game. Silence has to equal good so it can't be used when the dog is wrong.
I highly recommend you become a friend of her on facebook so that you can see the excellent videos she puts out of her training sessions.
Really interesting stuff! I would love to hear her speak sometime.
I love her videos she posts and I have attended some of her seminars, she is such a talented trainer and teacher, I really enjoyed her seminars!
"you're only making a clear contrast between ring and practice. She doesn't think that will get you past a UD, maybe a UDX but certainly not an OTCH."
I think this is so, so interesting. It's definitely a pattern I've noticed. Now, to some extent it's because a UDX is HARD and there are plenty of dogs that won't get past a UD, maybe UDX but certainly not an OTCH for a whole host of reasons. Illsuited dog, clumsy/sloppy training of whatever method, illsuited handler, injury, run out of time, etc. But I have heard of a large enough number of positively trained dogs that get to the stress of showing heavily in two classes a day and things fall apart to notice a pattern. Exercised Finished has an incredibly interesting series of posts on the topic.
Interesting! I doubt I'll ever compete, but it's a good thing to keep in mind if I ever do.
I already do the silence thing without even knowing it was good lol. In fact I've been trying to make myself praise and encourage more lol!