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Training, Showing and Fitting It All in to Our Busy Lives I’ve missed a few months of columns due to the start of school, moving in to a different building which meant unpacking over a hundred boxes and dealing with a very ill mother who is now in Hospice care. I apologize for my absence! I’ve been thinking about what to write about and decided I might just address how to train and show while trying to juggle everyday responsibilities! I find that training has to become more selective and planned out better when life gets hectic. Each training session has to count. If I am actively showing (or at least attempting to even though I’ve been forced to miss some trials recently), I have to focus on the skills that need the most work. It is a good idea to check your scores and to talk with the judge after each performance so you can see what needs to be worked on. Often times, there are small things that begin to slip that you don’t notice until you have this discussion with the judge or you video tape and see them. For example, you might not notice that you rounded a corner, which is scoreable. I did it this weekend right before my signal stand. I had not idea until the judge told me. Now I know I have to really watch this in my training. I’d been focusing on stabilizing the stand stay and not thinking about the turn into it.
When life gets hectic, time gets short and
it is easy to put training on the back burner. Sometimes you have no choice and
you have to accept this and not beat yourself up over this. Sometimes a little
break is a good thing and both you and your dog come back to training after the
break with a fresh outlook. Other
times, try to fit in five minutes here and there. You’ll be amazed how many
front, finishes, turns, halts etc. that you can fit into a very short time.
Training sessions should be about quality and not quantity. If you work a dozen
fronts and 10 of them are crooked, what have you really accomplished? If you
work 1 front and it is perfect, you can quit! If it is not, do something about
it on your next one. For example, place your foot out a little to the front
(slightly off side) on the side the dog fronted crooked. See if that helps. If
the little guide helps and you get a good front, praise and quite! If it
didn’t work, try something else-be creative! Just don’t do front (or any
skill) over and over wrong! Practice does make perfect but only if the practice
is perfect! Another
thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to run to a training building to
train. Tonight, I put Echo in the van and headed to the car dealership because I
had to have some work done. Out popped Echo and my training bag and off we went.
We did go outs to several different posts in the lot; we did gloves in a couple
of different locations as well as articles. I even found a fire hydrant and put
the articles all around it-great fun! He’s a country dog so he had no idea how
city dogs use those fire hydrants! We did lots of heeling too! I was able to get
two things done at the same time. Other wise, Echo would not have gotten trained
tonight! So again be creative with your training and your time! Before
I leave, I have to share the best news I’ve had in weeks, both Echo and his
brother Cheers, who both earned their OTCH titles within two weeks of each
other, have been invited to the AKC Obedience Invitational in Until
next time, happy training, enjoy the journey along the way and don’t forget to
give your golden partner a big hug! One
last note, please say a prayer for Bob Reckart, a well known field trainer here
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