A few recent Nikon videos to share…
This is Nikon doing some bitework. It’s a little boring. Ironically, Nikon is really good at all the trial/routine stuff. His secondary obedience is excellent. He’s never had a problem outing. He fights back in the drives and against the stick and he bites full and hard. What we’re working on right now is helping him switch between drives more seamlessly. He’s a very serious dog and tends to fall into defense drive, which is not a bad thing, but prey drive is what gives a dog more speed and more power in the bite. Since I did not have time to work towards IPO trials this season (due to horrid tracking conditions) we’re just doing some of this “easier” bitework, more foundational stuff. Here you can hear changes in the barking. The important thing to note is when he *stop* barking and tracks/chases the helper or sleeve. This is actually what we want to see (we ALL know he can bark forever!).
This video is from flyball last night. I’m working on training Nikon to pass into other dogs. As the video shows, my passes last night sucked!
This is my first attempt at making an instructional video. I’m making it to supplement the flyball pushboard equipment that I’m selling. Nikon helped me shoot some new footage earlier this week. It’s rather boring for him but he’s being a really good sport 🙂
Terrific videos Lies. Is that Bill H doing the helper work? With the passes, if they are bad is that the handlers error? i.e. letting the dog go to soon or too late?
Fly ball would be fun to try….how many years until my retirement?
The helpers in the video are Sean Murphy and Bill Hanna (training directory).
Passes are mostly up to the handler, though with a dog that’s just learning passes there is a lot of inconsistency from the dog as well so you just have to keep doing it. Even a drivey, fast dog can lack confidence passing into another dog at first, so even if the handler releases at the right point based on how the dog *normally* runs, if he’s having a slow day then you’re late. If Nikon had been running his usual lead-off speed, he would have been passing early rather than late. He started a few weeks ago by passing into a tiny dog, but last night he was passing into a very fast dog that’s his size so his confidence will drop and his speed heading to the start line will suffer a bit.
If you pass your dog in early then you get flagged and have to re-run at the end if you want that time to count.
Lies,
So far I’ve only watched the first video of you and Nikon having fun
doing some protection stuff. Nice work.
Nikon is a good lookin’ boy.
Terri
Great videos. In the flyball pass video, what is the purpose of the white board that is sometimes slid in front?
Nikon has always been one of my favorite dogs. He just keeps getting better looking with maturity!
The white things are called “jump boards”. They are actually lightweight cardboard triangles (those things you get from FedEx for packing posters). We have the short one that is one triangle and the tall one that is three triangles. I prevents the dog from sliding into the box and forces the dog to turn higher on the box. Nikon’s is placed two feet in front of the box.
Great videos Lies. Nikon is his usual handsome self.