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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Gambling Problem

I have a Gambling problem.  Agility gambling, that is. 

A gamble requires that your dog must be able to work away from you, and that you must be able to teach your dog to work away from you.  I love to watch well trained gamble dogs - they know what directionals mean and can "go on" and "get out" and have lots of drive for the obastacles and the game. 

I really don't like the whole gambling process.  Choosing the opening sequence and making sure you end up in a good  position for the closing sequence is very difficult and stressful for me.  I like the courses that are numbered, and you just follow along, no thinking required.  (Well, except for Snooker - but Snooker is fun).  I have a lot of trouble rewarding my dogs away from myself, which you need to do in order to teach your dog distance.  I can make excuses and say that Bernese are too "velcro" to be good gamble dogs, or that because my dogs are not very toy motivated, they cannot learn distance.  But those are just excuses.  Teaching distance is a lot of hard work and unless I make it a priority in my training, it ain't going to happen.  

One day, I hope I can write a post about how much I love Gambling.  But for now . . . 


3 comments:

  1. Kim I've been there, Jane used to be stuck to my leg like velcro - and not move off more than a foot, even Kaleb - same thing, and Gyp still would in most cases work in with me, you are right, it is just a lot of work and practice - I use my goodie container for J & K, you'll get it!

    Maggie and Bos have some good distance basics, don't get too discouraged!! Maggie is just a little rusty!

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  2. Kim you are awesome. I love that you always try to figure out how to fix something rather than just use excuses about your problems. I don't think that your dogs CAN'T gamble- I just think YOU don't like it. I can attest to the power of positive thinking..I finally manged to get out of starters snooker by changing the way I think about it...

    get your goodie container out, and get back in the swing of things with Maggie. You'll do fine!

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