Flying Poodles

Baited plates… or I try breaking a few rules…

I’ve been told by many people not to bait a target plate. Other people I know seem to be fairly successful with them. I’ve been working with Dancer on motivation and speed, and more than one poodle trainer I know uses baited plates to speed up their dogs’ dogwalk performance. I thought I’d try it.

I put the plate in position, I baited it, and then I told Dancer to come with me. I had to be very firm with a LEAVE IT! but she did come with me. Then she was a bit hesitant on the dogwalk, until I told her to GET IT! I repeated it with a tunnel-dogwalk sequence, and she got definitely faster, and I got a great contact performance as well. I asked for three or four more dogwalks, each with a slightly different short sequence before the dogwalk, and I watched her enthusiasm build. Then I picked up the contact plate, and asked for the dogwalk again. I got great speed, AND I GOT A GOOD CONTACT performance.

I gave her a break while I worked with Elly. I’ve been experimenting with various startline routines. Bizarrely, one that works well is to set her up facing away from the first obstacle, facing me instead, with me facing that first obstacle Then I start moving and call her to come with me, and I can get about two steps ahead of her before she gets going. It’s better than starting behind her (since we have no startline stay)–and I don’t lose her attention.

After we worked on that for a while, I went back to Dancer and asked her to do the A-frame only twice with a baited plate, but I got good contacts there too. So I pushed my luck, I picked up the contact plates, and I did a longer sequence with both the A-frame and the dogwalk. And I got good speed (great speed!) and great contacts (really!)–so it was time to quit.