Doing a toy exchange.
Tags: German Shepherd Two Ball Game
© All Rights Reserved
Instructions are here: teamunruly.com/?p=5281
It took Martin 45 minutes to make and turned out far better than we expected.
Tags: German Shepherd Heim training platform
© All Rights Reserved
The photo shows Martin trying the final part of stage 3 of the two ball game with Bosco for the first time. In this step, Bosco has to voluntarily drop his ball (ie. an offered drop) to initiate Martin pulling the second ball out of his vest pocket. The responsibility for continuing the game has shifted to Bosco to push Martin to play with him by choosing to voluntarily out off his ball (ie. not a trivial task for ball possessive Bosco). Bosco has to trust that Martin will produce the hidden toy. As a person commented in The Force-Free GSD Facebook group in a thread on possession: “I want [the dog] pressing me with the out, not me pressing him.”. While the two ball game is ubiquitous to sport dog folks, I have never seen it parsed/discussed/analyzed the way that Shade Whitesel does. Terrific discussion and well-worth the price of the course. I can see how this foundation with two ball would lead to conflict-free clean outs.
Tags: German Shepherd Retrieve Two Ball Game
© All Rights Reserved
Bosco doing an offered drop of his tug to push Martin to produce the hidden tug in his jacket. Bosco is slowly developing confidence in this step of the two ball game (ie. the last step of stage 3). The importance of the game is shifting from who possesses the toy to the interaction between Martin and Bosco. Experience has taught us that if the dog has conflict bringing the toy back and giving it up then this conflict will haunt you in the retrieve (ie. chewing in the hold, glacial returns, avoidance body language, etc.).
It’s way too cold to be training outside in Central Alberta. :)
Tags: German Shepherd Retrieve Two Ball Game
© All Rights Reserved
Martin watched the lecture in our Drives & Control 1 course on shaping pivots on Friday night and made a sturdy platform by cutting a gym mat into quarters.
In two sessions, Bosco, the dog that has steadfastly refused to pivot, was freely pivoting ~130° into heel position (without any angry barking). One more session should get him to 180.
The Shade Whitesel online foundation courses are excellent and we highly recommend them.
Tags: German Shepherd Heeling training platform Left Turn pivots
© All Rights Reserved