Erika is almost ten months old now and she is in my opinion almost ready for the Bh. Actualy, the training director said she's ready, I'm not ready. I've made a course in my yard and my three kids and a tricycle is my group. My question is would I be "overtraining" if I did this everyday with her? I always follow it up with fun stuff and treats.

Hi Dennis,
do your dog and yourself a favour by not training every day like this. If you are always following the BH scheme, this will soon result in a very bored dog who can go a BH all by herself without needing a handler at all. At the BH you might get a problem with your dog sitting or lying down too fast before you can give the command. In fact, if I train for the BH with any dog, I will only do the whole routine only once, just to be shure. On the other training days I will do some parts of the BH, but always changing the place and the sequence. And I will do lots of stuff which has nothing to do with the BH, like training the "Steh", the "Platz" out of running, teach the dog to "Revier" around the blinds, showing him the "Voraus" and so on. If your dog can do all the tasks of the BH, then there is no sense in repeating them over and over again. Dogs are no machines, they likes changes <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />Do some tracking, prey work, agility or other things that cross your mind...
Another point is that I personally would not train such a young dog every day. I know it is hard to believe when you see your young active dog with loads of "will to please", but esepcially these youngsters can easily be overworked. I have seen too many promising young prospects falling in a deep "hole" after beeing worked too hard during their adolescence. They then had to pause for a couple of weeks, before the training could continue.
And as you said you are not ready for the BH: I found it always very useful for nervous newbies, if they did some training WITHOUT their dog. We like to send out two handlers together without dogs on the field (one as the handler, one as the "dog"), where they can concentrate on the scheme without paying attention to what their dog is doing. It may give you a strange and funny feeling, but it will help a lot <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Best wishes,
Barbara

FWIW, i agree w/barbara. when training horses, the best thing you can do is take them out of the arena onto the trail. it refreshes their mind by exposing them to something other than repetition, repetition, repetition. it relaxes them, and, you can throw in some excercises along the way. keeps the the interest up. don't see why it wouldn't work with dogs too....

Dennis, I think if your doing the whole BH exercise every day, that's to much (for the dog). When those on our club do their actual BH, the dog has done it only 1-2 times, start to finish. On the other hand, the handler has gone through it by themselves many times. I just did mine in December. I suspect that I did the pattern by myself 30-40 times.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is, if the dog can do all the exercises well, There's no need to pattern train by constantly putting them all together. JMHO!

and don't you think they're actually sharper for NOT having pattern trained? i've never trained or done a BH, but it makes sense to me as far as the actual training/trial goes in light of past experience with other species....

Keep your course, bust out the video camera, and go thru the course with and without the dog one time each and watch your performance. This is a major help. I know I think sometimes that I don't do body Q "A" anymore, and boom, there it is on tape. Very helpful, give it a try.