Group Training events & Glorious Imperfection

How do you know if you're ready?

It's not even wanting to be perfect! Just being READY to perform well, would be nice! Right?! To not embarrass one self! 

This article is about the amazing benefits that come from a Club training day or group training experience. But it's also about getting over the need to be ready, fully prepared or perfect before going to such events. 

My new pup Harry is 13 months old already and we have a lot of holes in our training. I'm not perfect, Harry's training isn't perfect and neither is our order of doing things - not because I don't know better or have the experience of doing it correctly. But because of life - family health issues, work, etc. 

Funny though, I'm really grateful for this state of our team, because it gives me the chance to see how that's ok and FIXABLE! And hopefully, this share will give you that, too!

So, I wanted to share an experience I had this weekend, in case you are caught in the loop of needing to be ready or perfect BEFORE you do stuff - like show up and play at a Retriever event. 

"But don't you ruin your training or your dog if you do stuff before the dog is ready?" 

Well, that's what I want to talk about.

How to Hack the hard parts of Group Training events

Our local club is awesome!! They always set up a mock Hunt Test with all the fixings, for our club training days. 

So you got your judge, a big triple mark set up in the field, two blinds, a hard one and an easier one. Plus and live flier and enough people for a big gallery and parking area. The bonus is the Hunt Test atmoshpere! That electricity in the air, and the inner pressure one feels when strangers are watching them!

Harry, my youngest Golden, and I went - even though I knew we had 7 specific weaknesses in our training that would make it hard to perform to standard on the training set up. They are listed below along with the hacks we used to get through them. Why? So we could practice all the things in that high frequency hunt test atmosphere and practice building our ability to "Think in arousal". 

After 14 years experience, I have learned lots of ways to hack group training so you can still get all the good stuff, even if there's lots of holes in your training. 

What's up with the atmosphere? Why is that important?

The exciting atmosphere causes dogs (and people) to get over aroused. They can't think as clearly and meet criteria. Whether it's acting like a spider monkey in the holding blind, or getting lost in the bird rack on the way to the line - or even better, breaking to get a mark. And when that happens with strangers watching and judging you, it's easy to get embarrassed, or frustrated with yourself or the dog.  

What happens when you're embarrassed of frustrated? We Re-Act to that embarrassment, and take actions to offset that embarrassment, instead of taking actions to create pro-active training. Actions that help the dog calm and re-focus, so you can try the criteria again. We can't train a dog not to feel and react to the atmosphere from the beginning. We have to train through it. 

How do you "train through" something?

What is happening when the dog goes off script? Especially at a group event with people all around you. The dog and you are getting distracted. The guy ahead of you is yelling at his dog to sit, while his dog is jerking the leash toward another dog. The marks are going off and you hadn't seen them from this angle before! That looks totally different. You never saw that patch of water on the way to the bird, before this. But it's almost your turn and well, how should you do that? You're not sure your dog will take the water! 

Meanwhile your dog is wondering why you're in the tiny holding blind this long, when there's all that noise, plus, there's obviously a female dog who just left this spot to go over there and if he could just please follow that trail??? And hey, there's like 20 dead birds on the rack up there! They're just right there!!!

The only thing there is to do is get back to center. Being present for the dog in the moment. Seeing that this - all of this distraction and excitement - is the training opportunity. And learn that it's ok, we can refocus, we can do easy behaviors to earn treats - like just being in the holding blind area, or sitting on cue, or focusing on me. We can hang out here until we calm down. Once we do calm down, we can do some harder behaviors that take some thinking, like position changes to down and stand and sit, left paw vs right paw targets, and staying in a sit, while I move backward. 

The goal is learning that you can both recover. You can withstand the excitement and re focus to hear cues and do behaviors to earn rewards. That is what "training through it" means. Ride the wave, accept it and then recover and move forward. 

 What about the Hacks? How do we hack group training if we have big holes in our skills?

As positive trainers, we have the luxury of Training Through things! Yay! And that tool is what allows us to participate in a big event like this, even if we have holes! 

Like what? Well... let's use Harry's holes as an example. If you want to see them, watch the video above!

What we had to hack:

1. Loose leash walking - going toward the field to get in line

 Wow, that was harder than I thought. We haven't done enough loose leash practice at home or elsewhere. 

Hack: Did a big walk around parking area to release energy and get acclimated to the sights and sounds and smells. Once we got settled, we did some loose leash walking circles for treats.  Key factor: As we walked toward the field, if he extended to the end of the leash, I gently stopped my forward motion. And then waited for him to make the choice to come back toward me. That got rewarded with forward motion. 

2. Holding Blind Routine

Harry got lots of exciting marks, before I ever trained any holding blind skills! Therefore, he can be a wild crazy pole cat in the holding blind at times. Don't worry, I started training it, but we're not there yet!

Hack: Even if your dog has never seen a holding blind, you can still manage them.

Hack #1 The mat! If you've trained your dog to magnetize to a mat or platform, bring it! And put in the holding blind. Bring the highest value treats on earth to reward being on the platform. 

Hack #2 Hold the collar. Not the leash. You can keep your dog from going wild by crouching down and gently holding the collar, with your other hand helping quiet his body. Capture a moment of stillness, then release him - both of you walking out of the holding blind. And go back in for short moments. Ask for sits, or heels, or foot targets / nose targets. 

Hack #3 - wait until last. Be the last person to run your dog so you don't have to wait in the holding blind very long. Hang back. And only go to the holding blind at the last moment. 

3. Heel position for marks!  - not sitting 6" in front 

Harry likes to front foot me, and get real focused on the gunner. My training plan for that will create amazing heel position and steadiness for marks with lots of layers!

For now, when it happens, I Take a step or two backward and ask for heel again, or wait for the dog to find you. Or do the collar grab game (ala Susan Garrett) and then cue the heel position. 

Below photo is the classic "front footing"!

4. Steadiness for marks

Yeah, it's super important, and we are doing specific training for this at home. But we haven't taken our drills to the level of arousal here at a group event. 

So, the goal was to prevent breaking and then get some conscious effort to offer steadiness before I release him for the mark.

Hack #1: Our hack was to hold on loosely to his collar. He still got to make the choice, but holding the collar was insurance.  Yes, he did buck like a rodeo horse in one instance. 

Hack #2: Take your training mat to the line with you. A target he has been magnetized to can really help create clarity for steadiness. 

5. Marking - and choosing your own way to run the set up

They set up a big triple marking set up,  but Harry's not quite ready for that! So how do you choose what to do?

Hack #1 - Run each mark as a single, running all three singles in a row. 

Hack #2 - Run the most difficult mark (maybe the middle one,) as a single, then run the two outside marks as a double.

Harry was very over excited for our first mark and ended up running right over it and past it for about 50 yards. I already knew he was a good marker, so it didn't worry me too much. 

Hack #1 Let him run and hunt and figure it out - which he did .

Hack #2 - Have the gunner from the station come out and help the dog by calling attention and walking toward the bird. 

6. Double Marks and Line mechanics

Having three gun stations in the field is a good opportunity to run a double with a young dog! 
Harry can definitely run doubles, but our line mechanics for doubles is not quite polished yet, especially in this environment of excitement. 

Hack: Instead of trying to get him to sit at heel and pivot with me, being steady for a double mark, I simply held his collar and helped guide him from the first mark to the second one. 

Again, it's something we need to train and level up! But we weren't quite there in time for the event. 

The experience of running the double was much higher value than any challenges it created. 

Things NOT to hack!

There are some things I chose not to do! Things I knew would cause more challenge than benefit. 

One of those things was Honoring at the event. Because of Harry's lack of training on steadiness, I would have to restrain him during the Honor. And with the working dog running a triple with a live flier at the end - that's three gunshots, three duck calls and three bird landings! Way Way too much excitement to work through. And I knew Harry would be bucking like a rodeo horse, possibly barking and whining. All for what reward? Nothing that could match what he just watched. 

But again, we can easily work up to that systematically with layers and strategic introduction of temptations and arousal levels. 

So, my friends, I hope this helps you, as much as did me! Admittedly, I used to be that person, who thought I should be fully prepared first. And then when over arousal happened with my dog, I would get embarrassed that I didn't know anything and my dog was hopeless. I was that person who took actions out of embarrassment instead of actions to create calm and re-focus on the task. Not that I'm perfectly cured from that, either! But it's a lot more fun and a lot richer experience to know I don't have to be perfect and I can still participate with what we do have!

I hope you have that, too!