Winter training.

[Josh W]

Just thought I would start a discussion on what people have been doind to keep their dogs in tip top shape over the winter. If you have watched any of my dog intro videos you would be able to see what I have been up to. Has anyone been doing any frisbee training outside? Has anyone done any dog training outside? Just curious. jjw

[urge2herd]

I've watched your vids...the dogs look great! Your set up in the garage is awesome.

We've been playing, but not a ton. I try to take everyone to the park at least once a week just to get them out. We are meeting w/another person up here tomorrow for a playdate. We've scheduled a few, but the weather has been bad, or it's been sub-artic. I find in the snow it's harder for the smaller dogs (Tyde) to do a lot of jumping. Plus he's really got to work to get through the snow if it's not packed down, so we've had to alter our throwing a bit.

I played at the house w/Tag and Tyde last weekend. My roommate has an ACD, and we played w/her too. I was just doing to do D/A but at the last minute decided to have Tag do a back vault as he came back; it was beautiful! Tyde is vaulting now too, but his take-off timeing is so altered by the snow that it's harder to do.

As for indoor training, I've got the pups doing a ton of ground work stuff. Steele will touch me a lot more then Rhyme will, so he's working on jumping into my lap/arms. He WILL have a dog catch LOL. I might start teaching him how to at least get onto my back, this weekend. Maybe Rhyme too. I've been experimenting w/a lot of the new ideas on groundwork things w/the pups. Since their mental slates are so clean, it's easy to try new things w/them and not screw anything else up.

Honestly Tag, Tyde, Reckon, and Mia have been focusing on obedience. We pretty much took all of last year off, so we need to get back to that LOL. I don't think this will be a huge year for us in disc....not a lot of "new" stuff anyway, probably not a lot of traveling either.

Good discussion!

[Josh W]

Getting outside to play frisbee this year (at least in Rochester) has been almost impossible. We had a 1 inch layer of ice on top of a 1 inch layer of snow then all that was covered with more snow. I tried to run Sammy once in the front yard and after two throws her feet were bleeding. Melissa got a little mad about the blood spots on the carpet so I have not tried again. Good thing is my dogs love playing in the garage.
My pups have to earn their food and all of them are now hand fed. Usually we work on ground stuff with the clicker and food till their rations are gone (Military style around here). Once the food is gone I try to put what we learned to a disc. The hard part I have been finding is how focused the dogs get when I am using the food opposed to when the disc comes out. When the food is out I have complete control of what is going on. I get good eye contact and the dog is focused and really pays attention to my posture and how I move. As soon as the disc comes out my dogs turn into A-D-D dogs. They seem to think they have to impress me with their skills so I will throw the disc. This is the one area of my game that I have improved 100% and think it will really show this spring (keeping my fingers crossed).
One of the biggest benefits of this winter has been the bond and trust I have built. This also shows in the disc play and really help build the drive. The drive is so far off the charts that if I put a bowl of food and a disc next to each other the dogs would bring me the disc and leave the food alone. I am hoping that this will be the case when spring comes but who knows what will happen when the dogs see wide open space to run.

jjw

[Jgrenell]

Well the 2 times I have been at your house JW is about the extent of my official winter training. Been doing a lot of thinking however. Clicker training with Nova has been going well. Jen has been doing that. Other then that I have either been working on my house or working on Videos.

jg