Epic Flatwork Crossing & Gait Change
Getting a handle on a high drive dog’s movement on the disc dog field is tough. FlatworkFlatwork is the stuff that happens between the catches. How the team moves and transitions, often without the disc, is flatwork. Flatwork concepts in disc dog are taken from the agility and herding... More is a tool that can be used towards drive management to great effect.
Combining crosses with gait changes tests a teams ability to throttle back and be precise.
Evolution of Patience
This is the evolution of a cue I use to stop Premature EjumpulationAlso known as Irrational Leaping, Premature Ejumpulation happens when a dog leaps before a disc is catchable. This phenomena is most often seen in long tosses and is almost always caused by running... More, (aka: Irrational Leaping) called “Patience”. Patience means to track and collect. It’s a bit less discrete than Track or Collect, but it served a tremendous purpose in thoughtfully slowing my dogs down.
So patience kind of morphed into a slow down cue, a replacement for “easy” which I used pretty much everywhere and was little more than noise.
While working the FlankOut to the side of the handler is the Flank. If the dog is out to the handler's right or left the dog is on Flank. If the dog is moving with the... More after giving the patience cue, I noticed that the dogs were trotting. So I kind of crammed patience into that trot cue.
OverAn Over is any leaping catch that happens over top of the handler’s body. Overs are usually named by the part of the body over which the dog flies, i.e - Leg Over,... More the last couple months, I’ve been cuing the verbal Trot with the physical backing off you can see in the video above.
Physical Cue & Pressure
There is some funky pressure going on when switching your dog into the trot. I think for many dogs, the trot is the gait they use to slow down and stop. It’s the only time some dogs use it.
The dog needs to kind of ride in the pocket of the Flank, too. If the handler pulls to fast, or is pulling the dog too much, the trot is not likely to happen. Also if the handler is too slow the dog will stop or skip behind to get in front of the game.
Easing back the physical cue by bending the elbow seems to do a good job of indicating the reduction in speed while maintaining the Flank posePosing is a communication tool for throwing discs to dogs (or people). A pose is a frozen moment of a throw; a key moment of the backswing perhaps, or a flashy presentation of... More. Popping the disc out with the straight arm is a good Go cue.
Release Early and Often
You want the Trot to be a duration behavior. Duration has a release.
Once the dog trots, even for a moment, give your release cue (or marker). Releasing early and often will mean that the Trot is always reinforced after the release cue (or marker). Learning to release your dog early and often is a key to all duration behaviors.
Perfect implementation of this means that, practically speaking, any time a Trot cue has been given your dog has trotted until the release cue (or marker) was given. Create a standard release cue that is well reinforced and you have a very powerful backchain that makes trotting on cue a given.
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