I wish I had video showing exactly what Griffin’s doing with his nose at the gate – he’s so adorable. This is something we need for our competition obedience training.
We’ve been adding in an automatic duration nose touch to the gate. In the previous session I was giving him his verbal sticky-touch cue as he got close to the gate. Today he didn’t seem to need it – and later he even refused a Sit cue and chose to push the gate harder! We’ll balance that out with more Sits and fewer Touches.
Pieces to work on in future sessions:
- Set up a square ring. Change our starting positions.
- Put the jumps in the picture
- Challenge him with jumps closer
- Challenge him for straight even when the better ‘touch’ location is not straight ahead
- More distance
- Teach a set up/start routine
- Challenges outside of the gate
- Practice in other locations