Spark training session

I finally got around to recording one of Spark's training sessions.  It's a great chance for me to see where we are at in training and then I have a record that I can look back on in the future.

The video is our whole session from start to finish.  13 minutes long.  Spark is working for her lunch. I do most of my training for the dog's meals. When I am out in public in more distracting environments then I will use yummy food treats for training. 

One thing I really love about Spark is how food motivated she is. She is absolutely CRAZY for food.
  If we are sitting on the couch eating something, she is frantically running back and forth trying to figure out how to get up with us.  She barks at us and paws the couch. She REALLY wants that food!  For most people this would be a problem.  For me I'm just happy she is that food motivated.  The manners will come in time when she gets more obedience in her.  But for now I am encouraging the love of food by giving her little samples of all sorts of things.  She has had turkey, ham, apples (a huge favourite of hers!), cheese, peperoni, carrots, bread and many other items. When Spryte was a puppy I never introduced her to anything. All training was done for her kibble. Then I took her to a dog show at 6 months of age and another exhibitor gave her some chicken (after asking for permission), Spryte took it in her mouth and then promptly spit it out!  She didn't like it and didn't want it!  I was shocked. What dog spits out chicken???  She did eventually eat it and now she is a food crazy hound too.  But I wanted to make sure that Spark was introduced to lots of stuff from a young age.

Food motivation is important to me because 90% of my training sessions involve using food as a reward.  I like using food. It's easy, you can get several repetitions in, it doesn't exhaust the dog or me and it keeps them in a better state of mind for learning.  When Spryte was a puppy I spent tons of time building toy drive and I have a dog who loves tugging and playing.  But even though I spent all that time building it, I find I never use it. I just don't enjoy training with toys.  And people will argue that you get more speed and drive with toy rewards, but I just don't agree.  I have dogs who are so crazy for food they will run their little hearts out for the chance to earn a piece of hotdog or chicken.  So I decided with Spark that I would work on her tugging, but I wont stress about it.  It will be a game we play together but likely not a reward very often.

So in the video we are working all our skills mentioned yesterday. I am luring everything because I do not enjoy shaping. When you shape things there is too much room for error in what the dog learns, unless you are excellent at shaping and I am not. I want a certain kind of down, the stand should look a certain way, same with fronts, etc.  It is far easier for me to just show her what I want and fade the lure over time.
 In the video you can see that she really likes "front", several times she tries to come to front when I haven't asked for it.  She spins left, easier than right.  Hand and plate targeting is good, but she often tries to cheat and not actually make contact with the hand/plate.  Circling around the pole is lousy. After watching the video I have decided that she needs a way thicker pole to work around, I think that would make it more obvious for her.  The nosework is good.  She is starting to stay committed to the source even when I tempt her with food near it.  Her stays are excellent, allowing me to walk away and circle her. At the end of the session we play tug for a bit.
 I think that is about it.  Long winded post, but I guess I had more to say than I realized ;)  Pictures are from a couple of days ago.