Our North American tour for this year is getting close to it’s end and we have, as usual, had a great trip. Really, it has been fantastic! But I will not write about that now, that will be the next blog or something. I have been playing around with my verbal commands for the dog walk and I had some difficulties to decide what to say in different situations. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, but it has probably changed since I wrote my blog how we trained Lilli’s RC. And now when I have finally decided what to say when, it feels like the last little piece is put in place!
So, first I always say the command for the DW, which is ”balans”. Then I have a forward command (”fram”) that I say if I want her to go straight and take the most logical obstacle ahead. If I want her to listen to a turning command on the down ramp or my moving direction I say ”jajaja”. So that could be ”jajaja” all the way on the DW until the down ramp where I could say for example ”sväng” (turn left) or ”back” (turn right), and then I want her to turn either left or right immediately after DW. I could also say ”jajaja” all the way and then ”runt” (backside) on the down ramp, and then I want her to go to the back side of the jump after DW. If I just keep saying ”jajaja” I simply want her to follow me in the direction I run. I also have a command ”kom hit!” (come here NOW!) that I can say after the DW when I have used ”jajaja” for her to follow me, and then I want her to avoid all obstacles and come right to me. And I think she has got a pretty good understanding for this whole concept. It’s also pretty easy for me to plan the course walk and decide what to say (at least together with Nettan ;)). The best thing with this is that, whatever happens after the DW, I can still push her with my ”jajaja” so she keeps her speed better all way down, even in turns. But, she really needs to hear the command for what comes next on the first part of the down ramp, otherwise she already has a plan and she might continue straight forward ;). But as long as I remeber what to say and I say it in time she is pretty consistent now :).
Yesterday after the seminar here in Orchard Hills Training Center, (Barto, PA), Mary-Ellen, George, Kathy and Elena helped me to set up and video a training session where we played around with all those commands in different combinations. George was shooting from up on the DW so you can see it all from Lilli’s perspective. It was fun, thank you guys for training company and video help!!
