Reinforcing the Cued Drop with the Flatwork Compass

The idea was to work on the Flatwork CompassThe Flatwork Compass is a disc dog form that separates the Flank from the Pass, creates a reliable trigger, and exposes the team to all of the key elements of Team Movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW7Czz-7ows&list=PL8zWXaJfi1-synGOkBJ7u4p-WkotsL3LR... with Otto and Kris, clean it up and get it nice and solid then roll that clean and functional 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... Compass into their first Fly Chi FlowFlow is a key component of the modern day disc dog game. Keeping your dog moving with seamless, ever moving and flowing sequences with little to no set up time is the goal... Form, Form #1. The combination of the tight and mechanical Flatwork Compass and the free flowing flatwork creates a situation where the Team really learns to move together. There is only 1 problem… Otto has a VERY early Drop and we’ve been working on it for a couple weeks and we have to keep that in mind…

Be a Splitter, Not a Lumper

I fully intended to run Otto in the Flatwork Compass with the goal of prepping him, mechanically, for the Fly Chi form he and @Kris were going to do later. But the moment we started, I realized we had to deal with the cued Drop, and I needed to do a bang up job so as to demonstrate and lead by example with Kris.

The first two reps were my fault because I was not prepared. It’s cool, I handled them well, even got a BIG epiphany rep (0:49), but initially I was unprepared. Be prepared. Be aware of what, exactly your criteria is. If you have a basic mechanical problem, like an early or latent drop, budget that into the game and make it a focus.

Use the framework of the training pattern to create opportunities to hit the criteria that fixes or avoids mechanical problem.

Flatwork as Frameworks

Practical Flatwork and Team MovementTeam Movement is how dog and handler move, as a team, out there on the field. It is a judging category in some organizations and certainly is a focus of many judges, players,... with good communication creates a framework of play that we can use to deliver information and ideas to the dog, handler, and team. A Framework is required to analyze data and pull out a signal from a data stream. Without a framework the data is just a bunch of noise and the stream is unintelligible.

You have to have a framework of experience of intended and purposeful movements that is easily replicated in order to pack it full of the information required to learn how to do things, but more importantly, how things work.

Flatwork patterns like Zig Zags, Arounds the World, Passing, and Pendulums are great, but they are very limited patterns and are easily gamed and learned as patterns rather than skills. They will enable you to do the thing, but will hide the how things work angle from the dog, handler, and team, embedding too much knowledge into too simple a framework can trick dogs, handlers, and teams into thinking they know what it is that they are doing and doing well.

The Fly Chi Flow forms and more complicated patterns built upon cooperative work and Team Movement both provide tight frameworks for working on basic disc dog mechanical skills.

Flatwork Compass for Early Drop

This is actually a pretty solid form for Reinforcing the Cued DropA cued Drop, or Drop for short, means that you tell your dog when to drop, purposefully, and upon your discretion. A cued Drop is a must in the game of disc in..., both fore early and latent droppers. It is a static form and the Drop is not critical to performance of the form.

It is easy to cue the Drop as early as I need then reinforce that cued Drop with the Pose in front position. For the latent dropper it is equally as easy to wait until the dog arrives before cuing Drop, so that’s no big deal either.

Pose as Cookie

This can totally be dropped on the dog, but without good game play and game mechanics, the Pose as CookieA Cookie is traditionally thought of as a food treat given as positive reinforcement. In that definition, a cookie is a discrete piece of food reinforcement. In many dog training discussions, the idea... might be a bit difficult to condition. But with functional game play, all dogs quickly learn that the Pose actually IS the cookie, as it promises an active disc – it starts the opportunity process.

The Pose is a powerful reinforcer. Use it as the cookie for the cued Drop and lock the dog in, as a team mate, from a moment of success. Boom – Pow!