Thursday, February 12, 2009

Lagging

Looking at our recent run thru scores for open obedience, we lost 6 1/2 on heeling, 1/2 on drop on recall, 1/2 on retrieve on flat, 1/2 on retrieve over jump, and 1 on broad jump. So I have been trying to reduce lagging on the heeling. I have been luring with cheese on all the different kind of outside turns to try to get him speeded up on those turns. That's where we lose most of our points. He also seems to lag on "fast" at run thrus and trials. My thought is to try and get speed on the turn and get that into his muscle memory.

2 comments:

Stephanie Colman said...

When I'm working about turns and right turns, I'll have a piece of food in my hand and when I'm about 3/4 of the way through the turn, I'll toss the food out ahead of me and tell the dog to "get it." Do that several times in a row, and then suddenly don't do it and I bet you'll have a quicker turn! For general lagging in heeling, I do a lot of pace changes to keep it interesting. You could also try going back to upping your rate of reinforcement when the dog is in the right position -- and when you reward, feed ahead of heel position - picture where the dog's head would be if he were forged and feel there.

John Heffernan said...

Thanks, Stephanie. Good ideas!