Competitive Obedience Training for the Small Dog Read online

  Because the go out is taught inducively with treats, most young dogs really enjoy this exercise. The dog is taught to go to a target, a small shelf on the dog’s eye level that is nailed to the side of a ring standard. In training, the target standard is always the one in the middle of a line of two or four baby gates. The treat is always placed on the shelf and never on the floor.

  To introduce the go out, bring the dog on leash up to the standard and let him eat some treats from the shelf. Then take him back about three feet, step forward to point out the shelf, step back, command “Go” and let the dog get the food. Rapidly increase the dog’s distance from the standard at successive practices, and eliminate the leash as soon as possible. Do, however, continue to follow the dog out to the standard each time he is sent so that you can release him there after he gets the food.

  A cue word or phrase (such as “See it?” or “Cookie”) should be introduced early in training. The cue word is used to focus the dog’s attention on the fact that he is about to do a go out; it is given just before he hears the command to “Go.” In the ring, this word will be used quietly as you move with the dog from the Moving Stand to the start of Directed Jumping.

  The food shelf is initially placed in front of the baby gate, then later

  moved behind the baby gate.

  After the dog understands that he is to run out and eat the food on command, add the turn and sit. Barriers, such as the broad jump boards on their sides, are placed on either side of the target standard. The barriers not only show the dog where he is to go, but they help him turn tightly and sit straight when he gets there. Start out with the guides fairly far apart; with time, bring them closer and closer together.

  To teach the turn and sit, follow the dog on the go out and allow him to eat the treat. Then, enticing him to turn around with another treat held in your hand, call his name and tell him to sit. Immediately block any forward motion. Continue to follow the dog on each go out; block his movement, if necessary, until he does not attempt to come forward on the sit. You can then begin to stop farther and farther back until, without having to move forward at all, you can give the “Sit” command from the opposite end of the ring.

  When the dog will do a full length go out with a nice turn and sit, the food reward is switched to a shelf that is nailed to the half of the standard that is behind the baby gate The dog will learn that even if the treat is not readily visible, he can still reach his head through the baby gate for his reward.

  The dog is now taught to sit before he gets to the food. When you first introduce this concept, again follow right behind the dog on the go out to reinforce the sit. The dog will discover that he will not get the food every time he goes out. While there will not be any food in the obedience ring, you still want the dog to believe that the food is always there…and maybe he will be allowed to get it on his next go out!

  Food go outs may carry some dogs through their obedience careers. However, the competition dog who will be shown 25 or more times per year may need more of a “backup” or reason to go out than the food provides. For a dog like this, you can use the dowel method. Like the food, the dowel is always presented to the dog on his eye level so that he never searches for it on the floor.

  First, the dog is taught to retrieve the dowel as if it were any other retrieve object: from your hand, off the floor, thrown, and then placed. The dog is then taught to retrieve the dowel when it is attached to the baby gate standard. The best product to use to adhere the dowel is “Dap,” a blue putty-like substance that will stick to the standard, yet allow the dog to easily pull the dowel off of it. (Thanks to Kay Guetzloff, who originated this unconventional use of Dap!)

  The dowel go out is introduced as a straight retrieve: the dog runs out on the go out command, grabs the dowel and returns with it. Multiple dowels should be attached to the standard so that the dog can be sent more than once. This should be a fun retrieve! Drop to one knee and happily encourage the dog to run back with the dowel. Should the dog fail to retrieve, give him a failure-to-retrieve correction to the dowel.

  When the dog is reliably retrieving the dowel from the standard, follow the dog out and command the dog to sit before he reaches the dowel. As in the food method, guides should be added on either side of the standard for the turn and sit. When first adding the turn and sit to the go out, the handler should tell the dog to sit only once or twice per training session. Later, the dog will be stopped and told to sit more often than he is allowed to get the dowel.

  In this method, the dog has only two choices: sit on command or retrieve the dowel. If the dog veers from a straight path, he is verbally stopped, taken back to the center and sent to the dowel again. If he stops short and sits before being told, he is corrected to the dowel. As in the food method, the dowel is eventually moved from the front to the back of the standard and behind the baby gate so that it is not visible to the dog until he reaches his head through the gate to get it.

  The dowel method has a “backup” to it because it is taught as a retrieve. However, with this method the dog is more likely to develop a corner go out problem in the ring, confusing the go out with the Directed Retrieve. This problem can be helped by using one cue word for the go out and a different cue word for the Directed Retrieve; in the ring, these cue words will remind the dog which exercise he is about to perform. To reinforce this, put three gloves in each corner, give the Directed Retrieve cue word (make it something simple you won’t forget, like “Glove”), and then send the dog to retrieve. Immediately take the dog back to the spot for Directed Jumping, give him his go out cue word, send him on a go out, and then repeat the sequence.

  The dog can also learn to concentrate on the different cues and commands if you put gloves all over the ring and then cue, command and send the dog on a go out through the gloves. If the dog veers or tries to pick up a glove, he is gently corrected to the dowel. Be patient with any proofing; if you lose your patience, you will succeed only in further confusing your dog.

  The secret to great ring go outs is to train your dog in as many unfamiliar places as possible, with your dowels or food in place before you get the dog out of the car. You want your dog to think that the food or dowel is always at the end of the go out, even though you may stop and sit him several times before he gets it.

  In practice, send the dog to other “backgrounds” as well, such as brick walls, garage doors and tennis court nets. Don’t hesitate to shorten distances in strange places, and don’t overreact if the dog makes a mistake.

  Use fun matches to your advantage. Put your dowel or food out before you go in the match ring; don’t “wait to see what the dog will do.” Be prepared!

  THE GO OUT ACCORDING TO BARBARA

  The go out is a very abstract concept. Dogs deal in concretes, not abstracts, so the more concrete you can make this exercise, the easier it will be for the dog to learn.

  Why do go outs usually fall apart in the ring? The dog does not go far enough. Why? Because he doesn’t know where he is going! It is painful to watch: The dog leaves the handler’s side purposefully, but begins to slow down as questions (Where am I going? What am I doing? What is the meaning of life?) enter his head. He knows from experience that if he looks to his handler for help, he will be corrected. So he slows and stands, bewildered, in the middle of the ring…and another Utility performance goes down the drain.

  To have a good go out, you must give the dog someplace to go (as far as he can, to the end of the ring) and a route to follow (the middle mat between the two jumps). The idea of “go as far as you can go” is introduced by having the dog go to a solid wall. A garage door is perfect, but any wall into which a small nail can be driven would be fine. Determine the middle of your wall, and hammer a nail at the dog’s eye level into it, leaving about one inch of nail exposed. Clip a wooden clothespin across the end of the nail; this is the shelf on which you will place the dog’s treat.

  Place the treat on top of a clothespin clipped to a nail.


  Bring the dog to the wall off leash. Holding him back by his collar, step forward and encourage him with what will become your cue phrase – such as “There it is!” – as you set the world’s most wonderful treat on the clothespin. Release the dog with your go out command – “Sic ‘em” is a good one because it’s so silly – to dash to the clothespin and eat the treat. Step up right behind the dog to release him, put another treat on the clothespin, and repeat. Put a few more inches between the dog and the clothespin each time, until there is no doubt in your mind that the dog knows the meaning of the cue and the command.

  When you have worked your way five feet back from the wall, it is time to 1) add a signal to your go out command and 2) define the highway. Your signal will always be your left arm thrust straight ahead, along the right side of your dog’s head. (Sure it looks snazzy to just stand there and, without a twitch, say “Away” as your dog runs straight out to the other end of the ring. But you can legally help your dog by giving both a command and signal in this exercise, so why not do it? Snazzy often doesn’t qualify.)

  At first, the “highway” is always defined. You can use a strip of matting, carpet runner or tar paper. For barriers on either side of the highway – or just to define the route – you can use broad jump boards on their sides, chicken wire or rope. For really small dogs, several yardsticks or folding rulers on either side of the mat work fine. Eventually, after the dog has done enough go outs, he won’t need a visual highway. He won’t veer because he has never been allowed to; he will have internalized the fact that the shortest distance between point A (where he is) and point B (the food) is a straight line.

  Continue to work your way back from the wall, using the cue, command and signal each time. Sometimes follow the dog and release him at the wall after he has eaten the treat; the rest of the time just stay at the spot from which the dog was sent and release him “long distance” to run back to you.

  When you have worked your way at least 30 feet from the wall and the dog is confident in what he is doing, it’s time to add the turn and sit. Leave the dog with a “Wait.” Go out to the clothespin and pat the wall at the dog’s eye level, encouraging him to watch you by using the cue word. This time, however, do not put a treat on the clothespin. Return to the dog and send him. Follow him out, give him a chance to realize there is no treat, and then call his name and command “Sit.” As soon as he sits, produce the treat from your pocket and give it to him with a “Good sit.” Put food on the clothespin, take the dog back to the start and send him again; this time let him eat the treat and release him. Spend enough time close to the dog when you are teaching the turn and sit to prevent him from moving forward. The dog will soon realize that the faster he sits, the faster you will produce the treat.

  When the dog understands the turn and sit, begin to vary the number of times the treat is there (which means release) and is not there (which means turn and sit). The dog will realize there is no point in looking for the treat if he hears his name and the command to “Sit.” He will know you have the treat, and that you will either run out to give it to him or release him to come back to you for his reward.

  When you believe the dog has the go out Big Picture, you can start changing the background. Use baby gates, moving them back and forth across the end of your highway, so that sometimes the clothespin is clipped onto the gate and sometimes onto the stanchion; the dog will be right as long as his go out is straight. You can clip your clothespin to a fence or tennis court net. You can even practice in your house by clipping it to a curtain.

  In addition to the background, vary the distance of the go out from about 30 to 70 or 80 feet. The typical ring go out will cover about 40 feet; working with different distances will help develop your dog’s depth perception (which in canines is pretty poor) as well as his confidence.

  Only after several hundred repetitions do you occasionally send the dog out when there is no clothespin at the end. At that point, it won’t take your dog long to understand that this is a continuation of the treat/no treat idea: if the clothespin is not there, he will hear “Sit,” and the treat will be delivered by you.

  When the dog has a solid understanding of the go out, you can start sending him out between the high and bar jumps. Start with the jumps 30 feet apart; they are there only as a distraction. If the dog decides to detour and go out over a jump, move closer to the target for your next go out, then work your way back again. When you are far enough back that the jumps are once again between your dog and the target, verbally praise the dog with the command word – “Good Sic ‘em!” – for ignoring the jumps as he does a go out. If the dog is still determined to go out over a jump, you will have to put him on lead and, holding the signal and repeating the verbal command, gently correct him straight forward as you run with him past the jumps and to the target.

  As the dog gains confidence, move the jumps closer together, to a minimum of 18 feet between the inside posts. When putting the Directed Jumping exercise together, the last thing to be added is the dog’s return over the jumps.

  To help the dog discriminate between the go out and the Directed Retrieve, scatter gloves in every direction and have the dog go out through them. After the dog has learned the Directed Retrieve, you can occasionally alternate a glove with a go out. When your dog can retrieve four consecutive number one or number three gloves and then do a straight go out, you can be confident he understands both exercises.

  Although the go out is not an exercise in itself, you should continue to treat it as such throughout your dog’s obedience career. A jump doesn’t always have to follow a go out. You can set the dog up at the far end of the ring and just practice jumps, or end the exercise with the turn and sit. Occasionally a dog will start creeping forward on the sit because he is anticipating a jump. If this begins to happen, spend several practice sessions with a new word added to the end of the go out command: “Zipper, Sit! Stay!” Run out to reward the dog and end the exercise. Do not reintroduce the jumps until the dog is solid on the quick sit and stay. This is another example of the training maxim: If the dog is anticipating a pattern, break up the pattern and train the parts.

  Regardless of his competitive level, and even if you are concentrating on other exercises, have your dog do two or three go outs as a reward at the end of each practice session. Remember, motivational go outs always have food at the end. Even when you are working on the Directed Jumping exercise in its entirety, the dog should find food at the end of his go outs 75% of the time.

  When practicing in a new location, if you have any doubt at all as to whether or not your dog will be able to successfully perform a go out, help him. Before sending your dog, walk to the other end of the ring and point to the spot where you want his go out to end up. Always be ready and willing to help the dog; a where am I going? crisis can take weeks to repair. A good go out needs — like so many other obedience exercises — a self-confident dog. Teaching the mechanics of the exercise is only part of the job; building the dog’s confidence in his ability to do a go out is the rest!

  STILL MORE METHODS

  There are as many ways to teach go outs as there are trainers to think them up. Some of the following methods are inducive, some are not; some methods start out inducive but turn compulsive as soon as there is a problem. They are presented here so that you can smile knowledgeably and say, “Yes, I’ve heard of that,” when somebody recommends one for you to try.

  You know your dog better than anyone else; can you come up with yet a better way to teach your dog the go out? Don’t let the idea intimidate you. Have fun with it!

  • Probably the oldest method of teaching the go out is to use a pulley. It is pure compulsion. A long line is threaded from the dog’s collar through a pulley on the opposite wall and back to the handler, so that the dog is compelled forward when his handler pulls on the line.

  • Running out about 40 feet with the dog, then making him stop and sit, is a method that will help get the handler in shape even if it fai
ls – as it often does – to teach the dog to go out on his own.

  • Bill Koehler popularized the method of sending the dog out to retrieve one dowel from a set of dowels partially hidden under the far edge of the farthest cross mat in the ring. The dog is not expected to retrieve on a go out if he hears his name and the “Sit” command. If he stops and turns too soon, he is given a failure-to-retrieve correction all the way out to a dowel.

  • The target-on-the-ground method has a lot to recommend it for trainers on the west coast, where ring barriers are often chains or thin ropes strung high over the heads of the dogs. Because there is no “end” to the ring, a dog is taught to get a treat off a target, such as a small plastic lid, on the ground. The target is moved farther and farther away as the dog becomes proficient in running straight out to find his treat. The dog is then taught that when he hears his name and “Sit,” he doesn’t need to continue going for the target because the treat will be coming from his trainer.

  • If the Utility ring setup for outdoor shows always includes a middle support post for a chain or rope, the dog can be taught with a treat, or even his favorite toy, stuck to the post. The treat or toy is then phased out as the post becomes the target.

  • If there is not always a center post, a piece of heavy wire, bent so that it has hooks on both ends, can be hung from the middle of a rope stretched across the end of a practice ring. Treats are impaled on the wire’s bottom hook. The rope and heavy wire target are progressively raised; eventually the dog will be required to turn and sit “under the treat” which will then be retrieved for him by his handler.

  • The target-on-the-wall is an indoor variation of the target-on-the-ground. Here the dog’s treat (typically in a ladle) or his favorite toy is hung on the wall opposite the dog. At first it is at a height where the dog can get it himself, then it is progressively raised as the dog is taught that he must turn and sit under the target. The treat or toy will then be retrieved and given to him by his handler.