A top dog of training today across the classes ๐
The intermediate gundog class had some fun working over fences, testing their direction casting and carrying game today and they smashed it!
We love watching the dogs take on new challenges and giving them their own bit of flare like Hugo showing everyone how itโs done with some impressive leaps on his recall over obstacles!
Our intermediate class braving the rain yesterday and all smashed our obedience course challenge that we set up for them โ๏ธ no fair weather trainers here!!
Our intermediate class braving the rain yesterday and all smashed our obedience course challenge that we set up for them โ๏ธ no fair weather trainers here!!
๐ WEDNESDAY WISDOM ๐
Letโs talk negativesโฆ.. a dirty word in the dog training business, however negatives donโt have to be a punishment. Teaching your dog a negative verbal can help them understand when theyโre doing something you donโt want and can come in handy in so many situations. Many of you will have probably inadvertently taught your dog โnoโ in their life.
As you can see in the video when Abiโs puppy beaks the stay she uses the โAh-ahโ noise to make that this behaviour she doesnโt want and puts the puppy back to where they started and they try again. None of this is distressing or uncomfortable for the pup, itโs just teaching them that this isnโt what we want. The stay is then made shorter to help the dog and they are rewarded, and you can then see how quickly they progress on to a much harder stay when the boundaries have been made clear (sometimes we do wonder if Abi is dog training or working out though!)
Teaching a negative verbal helps us to communicate boundaries to the dogs in exactly the same way that marker words like โyesโ and โgoodโ, or clicker markers, help us to communicate to the dogs they are doing well when youโre teaching them new things.
A super Saturday for trainer Abi & her dog Quinn picking up a 1st, 3rd and a clear in the agility at Chatsworth Country Fair! ๐
They also had some fun on the gundog scurryโs with Quinn doing some fantastic retrieves mixed in with some of his usual clowning around.
Mango and Evie had a great day out as support team getting well socialised in a busy environment and were both impeccably behaved.
Ring a ring oโ roses today for the obedience class!
Pushing those stays and all doing fabulous ๐ some of these dogs are only 5 months old and theyโre smashing it.
๐ WEDNESDAY WISDOM ๐
Play with your dog. Rather than have countless toys strewn around the house all day that your dog hardly bothers with get toys out for a short while each day to play with your dog.
This helps build the bond between you and your dog and gets them working with you.
Itโs particularly helpful to teach your puppy to play and retrieve, as it means when they steal your shoes (which they will!) you can encourage them to bring them back to you rather than run away with them and turning it into a game of chase. Donโt be in a rush to take things off them so they donโt start to think you take things away when they bring them to you, unless itโs for safety of course.
We love to see our clients putting their training into action in everyday life!
Our training classes are designed to teach the dogs things that make your daily life easier and safer with your pups ๐
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Great day at the Cheshire Game & Country Fairโฆ.
Ally and Lark only went and won the bale scurry ๐ (she might be insufferable for a while now) Dora just missed out on a top 3 placing too!
Some super retrieves for Lark, Dora, Quinn & Molly in the daily challenge gundog scurry, it was a tough selection of retrieves today.
Quinn gave the โChase the bunnyโ lure completion a bloody good go but was robbed in the semi-finals by a corner cutting cheater.
All in all the dogs were fantastically behaved and it was lovely to bump into a few of our clients โout in the wildโ ๐ฅฐ
As you can see from the last video, we arenโt scared to lead by example when we need to for the dogs ๐
Mastering the art of doing nothing ๐ง- A hugely important thing to do with your dogs, particularly those with high drive where relaxing doesnโt come so naturally.
Taking a little bit of time here and there to just watch the world go by and not be overstimulated by it goes such a long way for so many reasons whether it be working dogs or pet dogs.
Some stays with distraction today for the babies of Imperial Dog Training!
Some stays with distraction today for the babies of Imperial Dog Training! Training isnโt always prefect, thatโs why we do it after all. We have to set our dogs up for success and have patience with them to get the most out of a session. Gold stars for these girls today ๐
๐ WEDNESDAY WISDOM ๐
Think about what your commands are!
We teach our dogs โoffโ whether it be off the sofa, placeboard, bed etc. because our command for lie-down is โdownโ.
When youโre giving your dog a command and and they donโt give you the behaviour straight away donโt then start chatting away to them with loads of words.
โSitโ means sit. โPlease can you just sit downโ does not, unless youโve decided to teach that as a very elaborate command ๐
Try not to confuse your dog by giving them conflicting commands or assigning the same command word to really varied behaviours.
