I decided to start this blog to document my random thoughts and training adventures with Oliver. He teaches me a lot so I thought it would be appropriate to have a blog dedicated to this. Yesterday and today, he taught me what kind of handling he needs.
During training, I always yap to Oliver... a LOT. But is this what he needs? Some dogs don't care if you talk to them or not. Sometimes talking is just background noise. Some competitions require little to no talking at all. I talk to him because I feel like it helps. But of course, I could be wrong. So, I decided to test whether my talking was helping or didn't matter.
Normally, I talk to Oliver, ask for a behavior, and keep on talking. When heeling, I intermix the heeling cue with a bunch of praise and am very vocal. Even when Oliver makes a mistake, I keep on talking with "OK, lets do that again" or "Try again" or other random things I decide to say.
Yesterday, I did my "test" by being quiet during the exercise but vocal afterwards. We started with just sitting. I quietly asked for a sit and then treated/praised after. His enthusiasm was very low but he was with me. Then we moved on to our 2x2's which we are working on for agility. He did them once, treat, lots of praise. The next time I quietly asked him to do them, he missed the entrance. I quietly brought him back and started over. He shut down. I was surprised at the impact. Luckily, Oliver bounces back quickly. Today when we went to train, he was his happy normal self.
Of course, my talking obviously helps him. It doesn't mean that I will always have to talk to him. Certainly once he is more experienced and confident, we could work on fading the talking. But we are not in a hurry to do this. He benefits from me talking and I like it too. :)
