COMPETITIVE OBEDIENCE TRAINING (Part 5) by Sandy Wadhams
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obedienceuk
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14 Jul 2026 16:05
The tricks Perry would get up to - only in the ring of course. In training, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth! A favourite of his was anticipation, particularly in sendaway. I'd tried all sorts to stop him. Of course, now I wouldn't allow this to develop. One day I was watching a video of Crufts, and one dog in the sendaway set up, marked the sendaway and then flicked his eyes up (not his head) waiting for the handlers command to go. That's the answer, I thought. So I taught Perry to look straight, and then look up at me before I sent him. He went as fast and as straight as you could wish for. Well, this worked like a dream - for a few shows. What does he do after a bit? Look straight, then looks up at me, away he goes on command and after a few yards, still running at full steam, he looks back - "Well is this what you wanted?" Of course he looses his direction never his speed!.
He was the past master at anticipating positions in distance control. Incredibly, he would always anticipate the correct position long enough, not varying the sequence of positions, not controlling myself or how I tried the commands, ie. Perry would read my eyes and body move-ment. I didn't really need to give the verbal commands, he was reading my body talk. The trouble was, I was not reading him. He was too quick and too clever for me.
Anticipation is usually caused through a) lack of respect from the dog, b) the dog not listening to the handler,
c) over excitement, d) repetition of exercise. So once you have motivated your dog, be calm and quiet in your handling and your commands. Teach your dog to LISTEN to you. Sometimes a LOUD voice, sometimes a QUIET voice. This will really help to teach the dog to concen-trate on you. Perry was particularly good at listening to the stewards commands, especially the ASSD positions. One year in Ticket at Lichfield, Perry anticipated every position on the move, he did three downs. Next day was Govan Ticket show in Scotland. "You're not going?" said my friends. "Oh yes I am" say I. "But he's antici-pating stewards commands" they said. "Never mind it will be alright, because they say 'now' differently in Scotland, it sounds like - noo" is my reply, Sure enough it fooled Perry and we ended up third in the ticket. But really what a crazy way to carry on. I let that dog play with me like that for seven years. I said there are some thick dogs, but boy, was I one hell of a thick handler then!
The more you work and compete with a dog the harder it· becomes to maintain the concentration of that animal and the correct response from the dog to command in the ring situation, eg. the dog that drops short in sendaway. In this instance, I'm thinking of the experienced 'C' dog who knows his job and anticipates the sendaway box and drops short - he has a preconceived idea. Ideally in training, you never drop the dog in a box - you run him through, but you DO have an instant drop on command. However, sooner or later, with certain types of dogs, they start dropping short. There are many ways to overcome this problem and perhaps the best guidelines to give is to change your tactics of training completely. In other words, instead of showing him what you want, DON'T, and then let him make the mistake, which he will if you do enough of them and then correct him. This worked beautifully with Kim.
Some dogs, when experienced, become bored with training. Really, the work has become easy for them by this stage and although they appear to be concentrating, they are not. They also start testing you, and it's at this point that you really start to learn to read your dog. To be one step ahead of him and control not only the dog, but the situation and yourself. This requires skill, self awareness and self discipline, and to me, is the real challenge of competing. It is not what you win or how much you win that matters, but what obstacles you meet in the process and how you overcome those obstacles that matter.
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Part 6
To be successful in Competitive Obedience, handler and dog must have a good solid grounding in basics. This can-not be overemphasized. The
majority of my own training consists of teaching .the basics to my dog every day, particularly my ticket dog. In fact, I think this facet of training is so often overlooked by C handlers. All the exercises must be carefully taught, not just the one you like best. The winner is nearly always the team who completes all the exercises accurately. This I found out to my cost with Perry, especially in retrieve and then of course, scent.
In my opinion, an exercise like retrieve should be taught in a calm quiet manner using one of the many compulsive methods that are available. I have found none better than that taught by Charlie Wyant. With Perry, I wasn't sure how to do this. So I taught him to hold, but when it came down to the actual retrieve I backed down and just threw the dumbell. Well, I paid dearly for that mistake. Perry would pounce, grab, you name it - he did it! Over the years I cured a lot of these faults, but could have saved myself a lot of headache IF I'd taught the exercise prop-erly in the first place. If you are not sure how to teach this exercise, go to someone who does know, for help. How does the saying go "If you think education is expensive then try ignorance". Even though I eventually controlled Perry's retrieve, the weakness always came through into scent.
The key to teaching the retrieve is TIMING, applying the correct AIDS and PRAISING when correct. When taught by an experienced handler the dog will learn this exercise in a few minutes. The most common question I've been asked as a teacher is at what age should the dog be when you teach him this exercise. Well, certainly OON'T teach him whilst he's teething.
As a general guide, I would say as soon as possible as regards the age of the dog. If you have a GSD, wait until the pup is eight. months or older, you will have a big strong dog on your hands and resistance is sure to be met. Often this results in the handler
backing down and then of course, the dog has won and next time the handler tries, it will be even more of a battle.
During Charlie's week course we used to go down to Bing Bellamy's kennels and she would show us how to teach retrieve. She would bring out a fourteen month old pup and with a knotted rag, show us how to teach the pup to retrieve in a matter of minutes. It's true to say, I never saw one of Bing's Sealights do a bad retrieve in the ring. Nobody loved their dog training more than Bing. I met her recently at East Grinstead Show and she told me she'd just bought a trailer tent so she could still do the shows. She'd had a few health problems, but she wasn't going to miss out. ''You know Sandy," she said, 'Tm seventy two now and I find it hard to do all that travelling on my own, it's so tiring, so I thought of the trailer tent". Well how's that for love of the sport and sheer determination? Still filled with the same enthusiasm as when I first met her and still enjoying her dogs.
To get back to the retrieve, bearing in mind what I've already said, in theory before you teach the retrieve you should have the confidence and trust of your dog and a good novice recall. Most handlers easily teach the novice recall. It's impor-tant for the recall, that the dog immediate-ly responds to the command COME and the hand signal. Eventually, the dog should come to just the hand signal. We used to have a dog called Mr Pip (should have been Mr Drip!), who in the mornings would jump on our bed and whilst my husband was putting his shirt on, would rush up and push his head between his legs and sit. "Can't you stop him doing this?:' Brian would yell. Well, I would just
grin and say "He's doing a recall". You see, every time Brian did his lower shirt buttons up, Pip thought it was the novice recall signal (perhaps he wasn't so thick after all).
To start with a pup, just call him in an excited way and he will be happy to come, especially if you make a pig fuss of him. I always prefer to have speed and keeness first, rather than accuracy. The accuracy comes later, otherwise if you insist on precision first, the dog can become bored, hesitant and slow.
Take your time in teaching these exercises and make sure your dog has a secure foundation of the basics before you start throwing the dumbell and putting the novice recall and retrieve together. In other words, DON'T throw the dumbell until it is accurate and a fast retrieve on the lead using the aids, with you, the handler, in CONTROL.