Flying Poodles

I am SO boring…

Yet another post about Dancer’s teeter training…

Yesterday I spent about twenty minutes working with Dancer on a low, rickety teeter. After a while, when she seemed to be feeling a bit more confident, I asked her to STAY on the table while I walked to the up end of the low teeter and held out a handful of treats. Then I released her, and she ran over the teeter to get her handful of treats. It seemed to work well, and I quit after just a few repetitions.

Today I worked with Cheryl on the sturdy metal teeter–which makes a noise Dancer hates–and we put it slightly higher than yesterday’s teeter. I did only three repetitions, and the third time she ran over the teeter, barely hesitating at the fulcrum, showing enthusiasm.

I am going to repeat that: she showed enthusiasm for the teeter.

Needless to say, I gave her an enormous handful of treats, and then played with her toy and did some other stuff with her.

But I know, dear readers (all two of you), that reading over and over again about how I am training the teeter must be like watching paint dry. But such is the nature of learning anything physical: endless repetition creates bodily knowledge of what’s expected.

I remember the first agility trial I went to: the endless repetition of practice meant that, once I started the run, I wasn’t nervous: habit took over. When I was done, and I realized that Elly and I had done quite well–we won our novice jumpers class as our first competitive agility experience (and then didn’t Q again for five months)–THEN I got nervous. And then I realized that habit had gotten me through the run.

Thus, the mantra: all runs are training runs.