Dog Training, Performance & Art
This is Grasshopper’s 2nd jam ever. We did an introduction to disc a few weeks ago that went pretty well. Since then we have done three team movement sessions with cookies (1 | 2 | 3) which included some work on front and rear crosses. There was a total of 17 minutes of work done in those cookie training sessions.
Disc Dog Puppy Training is a part science and part art form. The human is a trainer, handler, and athlete. The dog is a learner, an athlete, and a teammate. The game of disc with a dog is simple in theory – bite – drop – give and reward placement. In practical terms it can spiral out of control and become unwieldy and complex rather quickly. The disc dog puppy videos in this playlist feature tried and true training techniques arranged in a systemic fashion that teach all the skills you and your puppy need to learn to become a disc dog team.
Good Foundation is both efficient and elegant. If you can teach 9 Set Up Moves, Spin & Twist, Front & Rear Cross, AND a complete communication system that transfers directly to on field disc play in 5-7 minutes, have at it.
Team Movement is a great skill to teach to a puppy. It can be done in systematic fashion with cookies rather quickly. We have already worked to teach 5 Set Up Moves in 5 Minutes and created a communication system of sorts, now we’ll apply the same methods towards laying the foundation of Front and Rear Crosses.
This method teaches a puppy everything they need to know about Team Movement in 5 minutes and immediately translates to disc play. It delivers 5 set up moves for interior Team Movement (one of them being a Scoot) and is a complete communication method for all Team Movement. It is one of the first things we teach a puppy.
Zappa is a 17 week old puppy who has never played disc. This is a typical introductory puppy training session for us, meaning it is anything but typical. The concepts used are all standard: Working off the Drop, Attention for Next, Shaping Engagement, and Reinforcing with Action, but the application of them is based upon what the puppy gives and what the situation demands. Be sure to catch the voiceover or it won’t make much sense… I’ll lay out some more stuff below.
Historical footage recovered from our cloud archive, the Polkanado puppy learning the Hoop behavior. This was her first shot at the skill and you can see she got it right away. Now part of that is because she is not only super cute, but she’s super smart, but this simple 3-step Hoop technique we’re going to cover right here is extremely elegant and effective.
Teaching a puppy to back up through shaping and rear foot targeting.
Some dogs come out of the whelping box jamming and some need to be taught. That’s the way it is. The point is that disc dog development is not a race and the sooner you stop looking at rapid development and comparing your pups development with that of another dog, the sooner you’ll be on the right page…
