Foundations for Ring Readiness Series (Working Spot)
This series will introduce you to the concepts of building verbal cue reliability, adding proofing, building behavior chains and back-chaining behaviors to rewards outside the ring. We will focus on these 7 skills during this series: sit, down, nose touch, call to heel, zen bowl (leave the treat in the bowl alone until cued to get it), station work (go to a certain spot- mat, crate or chair- and wait for your reward) and a few steps of heeling. This series is perfect for dogs who know 4 or more of these skills.
Session 1: Reliability and Foundations
We will start working on our foundation skills for back-chaining: short behavior sequences, ring entrances, leash on, leash off and mat work. Using our 7 skills, we will work on building and defining our criteria, building reliability with the verbal cue and ensuring that we are giving the cue clearly without extra body language. We will work on stimulus control instead of anticipating the cue and we will play some fun fluency games to build reliability.
Session 2: Proofing and Behavior Chains
We will add play into our behavior sequences, add longer behavior sequences for one reward and we will work on proofing our ring entrances. We will work on adding layers of understanding to our 7 skills. We will work on adding distance, distractions, and duration. We will work on adding food in the zen bowl on the floor to our other 5 behaviors. We will also play some fun fluency games such as can you do the cue when your handler does weird body language or when there is a prop nearby or if the handler hides their face or behind a barrier or if the handler turns around?
Session 3: Back-chaining
Now that our behaviors are more reliable and our dog can do some short behavior sequences, we will work on building more behavior chains and back-chaining rewards to outside the ring. We will work on sequencing behaviors to our station behavior and sequencing moving between exercises to a set-up and reward. The dog and handler teams will practice back-chaining a known Novice or Open exercise.
Instructor: Mariah Hinds CPDT-KA
Mariah, is certified by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers and is an instructor at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. With experience stretching over more than fourteen years, she’s handled every problem a canine can dish out, from dogs that fight, to rehabilitating severely abused dogs, to training winning performance dogs. Mariah is an avid dog sport competitor and recently achieved first place out of 100 dogs in a statewide competition and third place overall out of 300 competitors. So, whether you are looking for great pet dog training or high levels of competition obedience and trick training she can help you.
Working Spot $100.00 Members
Non-members registration opens May 26, 2017
GCOC reserves the right to cancel or reschedule classes.
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