Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Stubborn

Aren't we stubborn? It is hard to change our habits sometimes. I have been doing sits and downs in the morning when I have less time. But the floor and basement has been cold in the mornings and Wyatt has trouble with downs in the cold. It took me a long time to change so I do sits and downs at night. Instead, I was struggling with Wyatt. Since I really don't need a down in very cold conditions, it is much easier and will be better for him to do them at night. Easy, but how often do we stick to our guns when things aren't working rather than taking a step back and reevaluating things?

4 comments:

Urban Smoothie Read said...

hmm... i used to have a dog who will never sit or down (ofcoz) on a wet surface....

so i juz ignore that behaviour and guess what happen...

during her Obedience test... there was rain and the ground was WET,...

the instructor told me there is no excuse for that...

John Heffernan said...

I think it depends. If I knew I was never going to trial outdoors, I would not worry about asking for a sit on a wet surface. It would depend, to me, on where I was going to trial and how much I wanted to try to ask my dog to do that they do not like. In my case, since I know sits and down are difficult and there are plenty of trials around, I won't trial in mid-winter. I still work on it but I won't set my dog up for failure. Also, in my case, I don't want to get him in the habit of raising his elbows on a down when it is cold (classic whippet behavior!), so I am training on a mat first and working on the cold separately. In rally, I can use multiple commands to encourage a full down so I do rally all year. By the way, our dogs are much better now on doing sits and downs in the cold and wet conditions. It seems to come with time and practice.

Urban Smoothie Read said...

thanks for explaining..

i got your point there...

i personally prefer indoor trials too...not only that the weather in malaysia is hot and humid, plus my dog had the tendency to run wild when she see grass and open field..

unfortunately trials in malaysia does not take place every other weekend....usually it happen once every 3 months...so we wouldn't want to miss, regardless is indoor or outdoor...

we juz can't wait to be there...

John Heffernan said...

Wow. I did not know you were in Malaysia. How cool is that! If I had less trials or lived in Alaska, I would probably train more for the cold!!!! ;-)