Obedience Games with Callen

Callen is now 8 1/2 months old. I haven’t started any “formal” obedience with her. Instead we are playing lots of games which are building a foundation for the skills she will need for the formal obedience exercises. I really like this way of starting my puppies as then I don’t get caught up in the ‘big picture’ (the finished exercise), and I also have no expectations of right and wrong. How can there be a right or wrong way to play?

Callen came with a hard-wired retrieve to hand which I absolutely love. All my dogs must return the toy to my hand when we are out playing tennis ball fetch or the game doesn’t go on. This includes the grand-dogs, Riley and Emma, when they come to visit. I do not like a dog who comes close and then tosses the ball in my direction and I don’t play their game. If I don’t pick it up, they figure out pretty quickly that they have to put it in my hand. Generally this takes about 5-10 minutes to teach, but does take a ‘refresher course’ the next few times we play. But Callen didn’t need to learn this so I am very lucky.

Callen has been playing with the plastic dumbbell, doing pick up games and fun retrieves since she was about four months old. There are days she is just so ‘into’ these games and others, for no apparent reason, that she acts like the dumbbell is going to eat her. On those days, I help her thru her phobia, but I don’t let her get away with refusing to pick it up or play with me. Playing with me is not a choice, or it is, but on my terms and my terms are that I will continue to get in her face and push her and tweak her butt until she begins to interact with me. She does this to Trey and Beckett so I figure turn-around is fair play. It generally doesn’t take long for her to begin playing with me and the dumbbell. But I don’t force her to take the dumbbell or pinch her ear for not taking it. At this point we are still playing. It’s just a game.

Last week I introduced her to a metal utility article. Callen thought she had died and gone to heaven since when she was a tiny puppy I had given her an aluminum canning  jar ring as a toy so that she would get used to the taste of metal. It was her favorite toy – really. She used it as a teething ring and I finally had to throw it away when she chewed it into two pieces! So other than adjusting to the weight of the triple bar article, she had no problems picking it up and carrying it around.

I also found a single bar article (looks like a dumbbell) that she also enjoys playing with. I leave that one on the floor for her to pick up and play with. She regularly brings it to me for a game of toss. I truly think that if we could use a metal dumbbell in Open that she’d have no trouble with it like she is having with the plastic dumbbell. Unfortunately the regulations state that the dumbbell must be made of wood or plastic. Ah well.

We are also playing target games, which have also morphed into rear-end awareness games. Target games help her learn to go away from me which will help her learn go-outs and directed retrieves for Utility. The rear-end games teach her that she has a butt and that she can and is in control of where it is for heeling. Celeste Meade has videos on YouTube on how to teach it.

Callen just started the rear end games. I started her on a Frisbee on the ground like Denise Fenzi showed on her blog, but Callen doesn’t seem to “get” that her feet are supposed to stay on it.

Callen will hold one foot on the Frisbee while standing

Callen wants to 'sit' when both feet are on the Frisbee

So I put her up on the step-stool (a game we’ve been playing for quite a while) and am now asking her to pivot around that without taking her front feet off the stool. She is better going counterclockwise than clockwise, which isn’t unusual as dogs are “left-handed” or “right-handed” just like people. Beckett is left-handed and Trey and Callen are right-handed (this might explain why Trey’s away flanks are better than her go-bye flanks in herding!).

This game is easy!

And this morning I introduced a glove to hold and she took and held it almost immediately! This is for the directed retrieve in Utility.

Introduction to glove and her 1st hold!

I am going to start scent discrimination training with both Callen and Trey. No, Trey is not going into the Utility ring, but I figure the more dogs I teach, the better trainer I become, and Trey will not be an easy one to teach this concept to!

Playing games as a beginning to the concepts of the formal obedience exercises really helps to reduce the stress on me and the dog and helps me to remember to keep it fun!