Monday, February 18, 2008

NADAC Practice

We had a great NADAC practice yesterday with Lynn Smitley. She is a keen observer of what is going on physically between you and your dog. I believe she is a gym teacher. Must be where she gets it from. Wyatt did great with super contacts. We put a hoop on his up contact to prevent him from slamming into the up contact like he usually does. It worked great. It felt funny not to hear the crashing sound. It must be MUCH better for his body. By the end of class, I was able to get a really big distance from him for the Chances courses we were running. Chances courses, in NADAC, contain 1 to 3 distance, discrimination, and directional challenges. He also did great discriminations between an A Frame and a far tunnel at a distance. Lynn taught us how to use a "switch" command to change your dog's lead. For me, it is an opposite arm command that I already do but adding a verbal command and using it at a distance.

Patriot did great too. He still needs hoops for his running contacts and does not work as far away as Wyatt but he was very motivated and fairly fast. That running contact is a great feeling that you can keep on booking it without stopping at all. Patriot really worked to keep up with me.

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