As more and more of us around the world are staying home to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, those of us who are used to going away from home to train our dogs on a regular basis are struggling to keep up the training at home. I am incredibly blessed to have a huge building on my property, which, in normal times, houses my dog training school, Northfield Dog Training. Because of the spreading virus, I shut down all operations other than cleaning on Sunday March 15. Indefinitely. That is so surreal to contemplate.
With all the sudden spare time on my hands, I have been training my dogs nearly every day. We have four: 8 year old Sonic (Flat-Coated Retriever), nearly 6 year old Jag (Border Terrier), Sonic’s 4 year old son Tigger and 2 year old daughter Clipper. I have been concentrating on obedience all winter. Clipper is my husband’s first-ever dog that he has trained, and they recently earned their Rally Intermediate title, as well as a couple of Advanced legs. I train Clipper for hunt tests and show her in conformation. I like to think I have finally really committed to teaching her Scent Discrimination, as I like them to know that before doing Force to Pile for her field work. I’ve also been starting her on basic handling for field and she is loving it.
This morning, I decided to do some fitness-related exercises with them. Many years ago - maybe 10? - when my FCR Gryffin was injured and then did rehab work, I came up with the idea of doing circuit training of the various exercises to keep it fun. I even ran some classes in it for a while. Several of the exercises are things I teach my puppies/young dogs as part of their obedience training. Others are tricks I taught specifically for the circuit work.
The basic idea is to first warm your dog up. I chose to warm them up for about 3 minutes today. Five might be better. Then I did given exercise for 30 seconds, then walked/heeled for 30 seconds, then went on to a different exercise, then walk/heel, etc. All in all, we did 12 different exercises, then did some jumping work, and then finally, I stretched their front and bag legs.
I found a free app called “Interval Timer - HIIT workouts” on the Apple App Store. After downloading it to my phone, I filled in the times that I wanted (3 minute warm up, 30 second each for the interval cycles, and 12 sets). It worked great for what I was doing.
Here are the exercises/tricks that I did today:
Back - dog moving backwards, whether in front of you or in heel position. Here are two videos of Sonic's early backing up lessons:
Back up lesson 1
Back up one week later
Perch work - turn on the forehand with the front paws up on a 4 quart rubber feed tub or a homemade perch.
With all the sudden spare time on my hands, I have been training my dogs nearly every day. We have four: 8 year old Sonic (Flat-Coated Retriever), nearly 6 year old Jag (Border Terrier), Sonic’s 4 year old son Tigger and 2 year old daughter Clipper. I have been concentrating on obedience all winter. Clipper is my husband’s first-ever dog that he has trained, and they recently earned their Rally Intermediate title, as well as a couple of Advanced legs. I train Clipper for hunt tests and show her in conformation. I like to think I have finally really committed to teaching her Scent Discrimination, as I like them to know that before doing Force to Pile for her field work. I’ve also been starting her on basic handling for field and she is loving it.
This morning, I decided to do some fitness-related exercises with them. Many years ago - maybe 10? - when my FCR Gryffin was injured and then did rehab work, I came up with the idea of doing circuit training of the various exercises to keep it fun. I even ran some classes in it for a while. Several of the exercises are things I teach my puppies/young dogs as part of their obedience training. Others are tricks I taught specifically for the circuit work.
The basic idea is to first warm your dog up. I chose to warm them up for about 3 minutes today. Five might be better. Then I did given exercise for 30 seconds, then walked/heeled for 30 seconds, then went on to a different exercise, then walk/heel, etc. All in all, we did 12 different exercises, then did some jumping work, and then finally, I stretched their front and bag legs.
I found a free app called “Interval Timer - HIIT workouts” on the Apple App Store. After downloading it to my phone, I filled in the times that I wanted (3 minute warm up, 30 second each for the interval cycles, and 12 sets). It worked great for what I was doing.
Here are the exercises/tricks that I did today:
Back - dog moving backwards, whether in front of you or in heel position. Here are two videos of Sonic's early backing up lessons:
Back up lesson 1
Back up one week later
Perch work - turn on the forehand with the front paws up on a 4 quart rubber feed tub or a homemade perch.
This is a 4-quart feed tub I bought on Amazon, but they are also available at Tractor Supply.
This was made from a puzzle piece of matting. I used a salad plate and a sharp utility knife to cut out the circles, then taped them together.
Beg or sit pretty
Crawl - with the FCRs, I use 3 chairs lined up that they can crawl under. Sonic remembered how to do this. Tigger was clueless, so we just worked with a single chair.
Cavaletties - I got the half pipes in the photo from a guy who was in a networking group I used to belong to. He did window tinting with plastic film, and one day asked if anyone could use the plastic tubes on which the film came. He was happy to give me a whole bunch of them, which I then had someone cut in half for me. There are many ways in which I use them for training my dogs and in classes. I had them set 24” apart on center, as my FCRs are 24” tall and that makes for a nice trot through for them. In the past, when I was doing this regularly with Sonic, I gradually added a few inches between the tubes to get her extending ing her trot.
Roll over - Sonic remembered reasonably well how to do this. Both boys were clueless. We just spent the 30 seconds trying to get in a few repetitions. This needs work!
Wave - I first teach my dogs to touch a target (plastic lid) with their front paws. You can also just have your dog target your hand with his paw. I hold the lid higher and higher, and gradually start “clicking” (I more often use a marker word) before he actually hits the target. I haven’t ever gotten any of my dogs to really hold a paw up in the air. They do more of a swiping motion.
Here is a video of Sonic learning how to touch a target with a front paw.
Play Bow - front end on floor, rear in the air. I keep my left forearm in front of my dog’s knees while I lure them into a bowing position.
Disk sit - I have them sit on a FitPaws disk. Don’t have one? How about a pillow or couch cushion? Or an air mattress?
Position change work - I have them cycle through sit/down/stand in all the 6 different possible orders. It builds fluency, and they are SO important for advanced obedience work, not to mention Rally Excellent and Master. I have been using this 2 x 4 U with Sonic to help her stay in place. Her down from a sit has never been a consistent fold-back down and this is helping her do it. I figure we might as well work on this consistently right now as we have time.
Sidepass to left and right - I had their front paws up on a set of small platforms lined up end to end. In the past, I’ve done this with their front paws in half of an extension ladder. You can also do it with no prop at all, either in front of you (as I was doing) or in heel position.
Sit on platform, knees over toes - this is something I learned in an on-line course I took with Petra Ford several years ago.
