Monday, July 07, 2008

Second Chances

I am wondering if my general policy of trying again and giving a second chance is backfiring.  I am seeing three specific instances where Wyatt is consistently doing an incorrect behavior the first time.  These are:   drop on recall where he does not drop on the first one of the day, dogwalk contacts where he jumps off, and on long downs where he frequently pops up.  On the dogwalk, I have been doing only NADAC where you can train in the ring (no Q, of course).  He will consistently blow the dogwalk and I take him back where he almost always gets it the second time.  [This could also be related to my position relative to him where he has a real problem if I am behind him.]  So, what I normally am doing is giving Wyatt a second chance and he still gets a treat after the second, correct performance.  

I am wondering if I have inadvertently trained him to do it "wrong" the first time since he is still rewarded.  I am going to try consistently breaking off training with no reward when he does not "do it right" the first time.  Interestingly, I only see the dogwalk problem at trials.  I cannot get him to fail at home or in class.  The obedience issues I see both at home and in class though I see it more in class.  


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