I think my dog makes fun of me....

Some of you might remember a blog post I wrote last december about my then 4½ year old female ches, whom I have clickertrained to follow my movements - like taking steps back and forth or just shifting her weight - which is of great use in the conformation ring.

Recently we were brushing up on her direction work (we do field trials and hunting). At a direction i know where the dog has to go to find the bird/dummy, but the dog doesn't. So I have to be able to send her out in a line, stop her and send her either right or left.

Now I know she is good at this, so even though it had been a while since our last direction session, I sent her on a long, rather difficult direction, over a wetarea and some shrubbery. She got too far to the left, so I stopped her to send her to the right.

When I use the whistle stop I want her to sit down. But she prefers to stay standing. i want her to sit, because 1) she does tend to run off at the slightest movement I make if she is standing, which means she might go off in a wrong direction and 2) for reason #1 it means loss of point at a field trial if the dog doesn't sit down.

Ok, to cut to the chase. I had her stopped, but she was standing. I cued her to sit with the whistle. Nope. I shouted "sit" and gave her the handsignal. Nope. Ok - I cued her to "attend me" which I, for some obscure reason, once upon a time, ended up training with the attend cue being a stamp of my foot. I stamped and she looked at me, I gave the sit cue. I couldn't see her hindend, but I could see by the movement of her front that she was moving her hindlegs. Sometimes when she doesn't want to sit down (e.g. if she is standing in a puddle) and is cued to do it she will sort of bend a bit in her hind and then pop back up. Ok, "attend" cue again (stamp) and "sit" ... then I got distracted by my husband (he is taller than me and could see the dog over the scrubbery) breaking out in laughter. Annoyed I cued sit once more and finally got a half sit, which I rewarded by directing her to the side and she got the dummy.

A bit annoyed I turned to dear husband and asked what he found so hilarious.

It turns out that everytime I stamped my foot, so did she...stamp her hindfoot, on the same side....(*grumble mutter...* "smart*** dog")

Christina and the teasing chessies

btw...yes we are training the stop-sit cue at less distance again....