Working With Distractions

Today's exercises were directed jumping and some heelwork. Ieper gets very excited at the dog club when she sees other dogs and it is hard for her to concentrate. She pulls and wants to go talk to the other dogs. If she's off lead she wants to chase and play with them. It can be frustrating and embarrassing trying to get her back to me and paying attention. When she finds a dog to play with she is fast and furious in pursuit and her playmates need to be robust to withstand her herding and roughhousing - she's not nasty or mean in her play, she's just strong and boisterous, full of life.

Last week in obedience class, after doing a perfect recall, she wanted to run off and play chasings with a Cocker Spaniel. She started with a lovely play-bow, then herded the poor Cocker, shouldered it into the ground, tipped it on its back and left it screaming in fright. Wimps need not apply to play with my puppy - sorry - she's not aggressive or a thug but, like most Bouviers, she's not a dog for the faint of heart.

I'm not sure why she gets so excited by other dogs at the dog club when she manages to stay quite self-contained at dog shows - there are many more dogs at dog shows.

But this makes the dog club a good place to practice paying attention and working through distractions. It helps, too, that there is a mob of hereford cattle in a paddock at the end of the working ring - they are interesting for a young working dog - another good distraction.

At home in our training yard we have no distractions - so her work is wonderful and focused. How many times do you hear someone lamenting "but my dog does it perfectly at home"................

Today we had cattle at one end of our working area and two small dogs playing in the adjacent paddock. Excellent distractions!

We started with sendaways and directed jumping - eepie was watching the small dogs playing in the next paddock and i had my work cut out to get her attention back onto the job which was simply to go out to the box and sit - and then to watch me for the signal to jump either bar or solid on the way back to me.

I stayed calm even though i was nervous about letting her off lead. I didn't want her to run away and scamper up and down the fence line and rehearse "bad behaviour". It is important to learn to trust your dog - to expect the correct behaviour and set the dog up to succeed rather than fail. I have been training her to Watch Me - so i asked her to Watch as we headed out to face the box. And because she was so interested in the dogs playing next door, i shortened the distance to the box to make it easier for her to succeed at the sendaway. Once she was in the box i walked backwards to the full distance before asking her for the jumps. When she was in the air over a jump i added the command "Here" so that she would look at me and not be tempted to take off and run to the fence to investigate the dogs-next-door. When that worked i could praise her for getting it right. Little by little i will be able to remove these "props" and she'll be working happily with other stuff going on in the background. It is important to build her confidence and mine by rehearsing successes.

The extra work on my part meant she did well with a high level of distraction - i was surprised - and i reflected that her beginners Agility class is probably also helping her to handle the pressure of working to me and paying attention to me when there are a lot of interesting happy chaseable dogs close by.