My two year old dog is doing well in tracking EXCEPT at the articles. He is a dog that naturally
rocks backwards when downing or sitting. In everything he does he moves the back end instead
of tucking into it. When he downs he never moves his front legs, he moves the back legs out
and then down. So my problem is when he gets to an article he
does this and is too far from the article. I hope I am explaining this right. Does this make any
sense? What can I do to fix this problem? We have been working on "show me" but he just
stretches his giraffe neck to touch it but he is still too far from the article. I have to hide the
articles or he will really "false" indicate. Any suggestions?
On Ed's tape on Competition Obedience by Tom Rose, there is a great section on using a small table or something similar to teach the "down" (I believe he uses a cut off tree trunk). By having to stay on the small surface area, the dog must go straight down and cannot stretch out in either direction. This is not a "forced" down, but it leaves the dog no choice if he stays on the table.
A second option would be to try a clicker. Reward first for approximate behavior, then require more and more precise behavior. I suppose you could combine them if you wanted to.
It's interesting to read about this problem. I am in the middle of reading Ivan Balabanov's book ADVANCED SCHUTZHUND and he talks about correcting the opposite problem. The dog walks the front paws into a down and overshoots the targeted position. In his example he suggests having the dog go into a down while you stand right in front of it so that it can't go forward. The table sounds like the best approach. In that situation, down can only mean one thing, straight down.
With my limited experience, I have no business posting at all but what the hell, I'll learn from others critisism of my post as well as in the field. As far as the articles issue goes, learning the table down is not going to solve your problem if the dog is stopping short of the article. I would do article work seperatly from tracking and reward the correct position when the dog hits it with its favorite treats. No reward for the short down. Try the down with the article under the dog and see if it winds up between the paws. Also, isn't it optional for the dog to pick up the article? That could be another way around if I'm not mistaken. O.K, now you can tell me to go back to my book and stay off the board.
The problem Karman is facing is his dog does not do the tuck sit or the crouch down. So if the dog does not do the crouch down difinitely the dog will be away from the tracking article when he is in the down. so I think is better to teach the dog on the table or the cut down log like what Tom Rose did in his video "Training the Competition Heeling Dog"
First thing I would address is the down..you need to reteach it so he doesn't rock back. Once he is doing that reliably.. add in your articles for your tracking..
How did you teach article indication (food or force)?
If you use food, you could try placing it directly on the opposite side of the article. Yes, this may encourage the dog to nose the article but that can be cleaned up after a few sessions.
Or using the force approach, you can teach the dog that it must lay its chin on the article or bad things happen.
I used food to teach the articles. When he would approach the article and down I would feed him with his head on the article trying to get him to understand he has to get his body close to the article. But his giraffe neck would stretch and he would still be too far from the article. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
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