MORE GOOD AND HELPFUL STUFF OF THE ROTTWEILER HANDBOOK ENJOY .... 6.2.1. Exercises with a dog watching a ball and standing still while being animated by an assistant This is the most desirable situation. When your dog is standing and watching, the most important thing is its attention. In most cases, a dog will not stand properly. Beside attention, other important things are its standing and watching. While practicing this or another exercise, you should stay calm, breathe deeply, not sneak behind the dog trying to be quiet. You should behave and talk naturally. So, the helper takes the ball, calls for the dog while the dog is standing and watching. Then, you should repeat the commands “stop, stop” or “ well-done, well-done” with a smoothing tone every two to three seconds. If the dog endures up to 6 to 10 seconds of standing and being attentive, do not wait for anything else, but make a signal to the helper to throw a ball to the dog. It will catch it as a reward. Play a little with the dog and than take the ball from it. Do not pass the ball to the helper using your hand. Throw it in front of the dog and than the helper should run for the ball while saying something loudly. The helper should play with the ball a couple of times using his leg, while you should cheer the dog. When the helper goes somewhere to hide, you should turn the dog to the other side so it cannot see where the helperis. Again, it should be followed by calling for the dog. Calling should be used with measure, the same as with stimulation. If the dog does not react to the first calling, you should leave it that way. As soon as dog’s attention weaken, you should call for it again. That should be enough for the first training. Remember to play with dog and a toy first, and than to throw the toy in front of the dog so the helper can take it. We come to phase when the dog stands on the helper and watches carefully, but its legs, back and its whole body are not in tightly positioned. It can be fixed the following way: while the dog is standing attentively, you are saying “stand” or “good”, which can calm the dog additionally so it can stay in one place, but it also stimulates it because the dog is by its reflex expecting the ball. Hold the leash with one hand so it is tight, approach the dog and put your hand on his chest or back, pet it a little saying “Stand”. The dog might stop being attentive. In that case, the helper should say its name or whistle or bounce the ball for a second to restore its interest. You should see if the dog is attentive by its ears. If they are positioned in the front of the head, you continue petting it. In the beginning, this phase of still standing, saying “Stand” with dog’s ears positioned in the front should last 10 seconds maximum. Immediately after that, reward the dog with a ball. When it catches the ball, you can let it to run a couple of laps with the ball held by its mouth. The last phase is characterized by the dog standing on the helper who is calling it while the dog is allowing you to touch it and not paying attention. You should use this trust in order to pull its fore or hind leg in the parallel position if it is necessary and all that while saying “stand”. If the dog starts to pay attention to you, stop for a moment and signalize to the helper to draw the dog’s attention but just for a moment, so the dog would not move from the place on which it is standing. So, the helper is important in this exercise. He can distract the dog while you try to put his legs in desired position. During the first training, you cannot move all its legs, but as the time goes, the dog will allow you to touch it and most importantly, it will create a habit of standing properly. Depending on the dog, the time which a dog needs to learn how to stand properly is from 3 to 8 trainings.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 18:48:56 +0000
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