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Lottie's steadiness is in place at a basic level. That is to say,
she will sit and stay whilst I throw dummies around
her. Her off lead heelwork is coming along
nicely, and she will walk reliably to heel
without a lead for the 30 yards required in the
Grade Two test. I am therefore now turning my
attention to the 'stop whistle' and to
introducing some very simple right and left hand
signals.
Stop whistle
For some time now,
I have been conditioning Lottie to associate the
'stop whistle' with a pleasant consequence. I
give a soft blow of the stop whistle just before I
throw any dummy, and also before I return to
her when she is on the 'stay'. To Lottie,
the stop whistle has simply come to mean,
'something nice is about to happen' . It is also
firmly associated with the sitting position,
as she had always been sitting when I have blown it.
She looks at me very attentively when I blow the
whistle, waiting for the good thing to happen.
For the last week I have begun to associate the stop
whistle with the act of 'moving into a sit position'
from a walk. Walking her
at heel on the lead, I blew the stop whistle
many times, each time followed by the word 'hup'
and halting. Towards the end of
the first session I dropped the 'hup' and Lottie was sitting
to the whistle alone. Over
the last few days
I have used the whistle alone for each sit at heel,
and have begun leaving Lottie after each whistle,
walking a couple of paces forwards and then
returning. I have also gradually dropped the
pause between the 'stop' and me stepping away,
ditched the lead, and started to increase the pace.
By the end of today's
session Lottie was dropping into a smart sit whilst
we ran along together, and remaining steady
as I continued a few steps forward without
her. I am really pleased with how quickly she
has picked this up.
Hand signals
For her first lessons in
hand signals, I have had Lottie sat up with her back
against a fence, and facing me. I have
been throwing dummies out to either side of her,
sometimes picking them up myself, sometimes
sending her for the dummy of my choice |
