The 10 step program continues

7. Just like it sounds, George had to start going & getting the ball from further & further away, and sometimes not that far away, I like to keep it random. George isn't tuned into the ball like some ball freaky dogs, so sometimes he just doesn't see it so we keep it light, no big deal, we'll just get it & move it a bit closer. We worked up to basically a 15 ft radius.

8. Again, pretty self explanatory. While I usually caution people that a moving or thrown ball is not the same as a flyball retrieve (it's not), this is about making the ball fun & unpredicatable, and cause fetch is fun & it's another way for George to interact with the ball. Again I'm working in basically a living room size room so the ball isn't ever terribly far away. At this point I start moving, once he gets it & turns, I take a step away from him, then a few more steps, then a jog away. This is important b/c I want to be able to run away from him and I'm just building up to that 1 step at a time. This is hard for dogs, often when they see movement they will often drop the ball at first, cause you are moving you have the reward! If he dropped it I just asked him to get his ball again & bring it w/ slightly less movement on my part.

9. So now he's picking up a ball, stationary or moving, so we take it on the road, we do it outside, in the training building, in the basement, in the garage, wherever to help solidfy that no matter where you are or what the distractions, the game is still the same. This is something that people tend to skip, or you hear "my dog does this at home but won't even look at a ball here!" Everytime I go to a new place, we start with very easy stuff, just pick up the ball right in front of you, then increase difficulty & I keep it mixed, sometimes it's a dead ball, sometimes it's thrown. I never try to trick him or hide the ball. If it rolls somewhere he's not going to immediately see, we just go get it. We worked up to him going about 50 ft to get a ball, then chasing me back with it about 75 ft. Good boy!

10. So, the next step, is that I take the white prop board and put the ball on the other side of it. Why? Because George is going to have to carry the ball over 4 hurdles, and the prop looks a lot like one. He's also going to have to jump over the prop & get a ball off the box, then jump back over that prop. So we start simple, he just needs to do a short retrieve with the prop in his way. I use my body to guide him over & back and only click for the retrieved balls that make it over the prop. He drops on the "box" side of the prop, no reward. If he'd been really struggling with this, I would have made the requirements easier, like pick up the ball, turn towards the jump, click. Luckily I didn't have to, but if you could literally shape this behavior that minutely.

So that's it, now you have a flyball dog.
Just kidding. Well you can at least see that George is progressing towards something more flyball like in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVSw_AXWpyY

A few things of note from the video.

1. This was a hot, hot practice, literally, 85 plus high humidity. George is now in great physical shape and other than a slow start for box work, he really worked hard this practice. All these clips were shot sequentially, so he didn't wander off & take a nap or have a nice lay down between attempts, he was working hard! So was I! At this point his slowness is more related to him saying I'm not sure what you want vs not being in shape. So you see lazy & unmotivated, but I see a dog who doesn't want to be wrong & is showing me he's not confident in what I want.

2. In the first set of box work, we've gradually moved the carpet board up the box. By the end he's hitting the box w/ the carpet board at the same angle as the box. The next step is to take it away entirely. I do this with out a ball in cause I want him used to the slightly different sound & feel without having to worry about getting the ball.

3. For runbacks, the dog he's running against is my dog Nikki, she is very fast, ideally I'd pair him with a slower dog to try to build some race drive, but Nikki is the dog he MOST loves to chase and body slam playing in the yard. So for this exercise I'm not really looking for race drive, just that he stay focused on me while his favorite wrestling buddy is running. Which he did beautifully! The gating goes about 15 feet past the last hurdle, so he can certainly go chase her if he wanted to. We also moved the lanes closer together & that seemd to throw him off...see all the barriers & I moved the gating over. But as we kept going I was pulling the barriers & gating back away & he stayed on task. He usually does a better job staying in line for runbacks.

4. Best of all, you get to see the very first time I've combined step 10 with retrieving the ball off the box. We put the carpet board down low again, so that he had the best chance for success, then we moved it up slowly but not all the way up. I was more concerned w/ his confidence & success rate than getting the ball up to the ball hole area. He is again working with another dog and staying really focused, the dog is a total stranger to him. Good boy. You can see towards the end after a string of nice ball retrieves I cue him poorly & he drops the ball almost immediately after jumping the prop, the next attempt he is like cool, I don't have to bring the ball, so you can see how quickly stuff can fall apart. I just ignored this, he got no click, no treat & we tried again. The next time *I* remembered to tell him that 2nd cue..."bring it!" and then he brought it back to me. No reprimand, no big deal, my bad, try again dude! If you watch closely to this whole series you can also see him go from jump the prop, put head down, pick up ball, to jump prop aiming his head right for the ball. I've done this enough that I could see that while working him, but it takes a bit of experience to watch & see what you want develop. I also helped him smooth out his turn, by pushing into the lane with my body. George also seemed to enjoy having a whole chorus of "good boy" from my teammates. They all seem highly amused by George's training, I thank them for their support. Angelic you need to buy Skidmarkz a bottle of Margarita, Cuervo Gold preferably :)

Addendum:
We practiced again tonight & George was able to have the ball much higher, so we'll just keep building til he's going to have to grab the ball outta the box w/ no speed (ie the box isn't triggering). He also was doing a great job bringing the ball further & further, and not dropping it til I clicked. Once he's doing a nice turn with the ball in it's actual hole, we increase the speed once the dog is confident by increments, basically, 1/3 speed, 2/3 speed, full speed. Again this enables you to back chain, if it was too fast you slow it down again.

That's it for now. Squibby is doing super awesome, but that blog update will have to wait til tomorrow! And yes, I like to make numbered lists.