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Does your dog love agility but hate obedience? Do you (and your dog) find heeling boring? Not just for freestyle students, mentoring sessions are open to anyone who wants to improve their dog's attitude toward heeling. The purpose is to teach participants techniques that produce happy, attentive, and accurate heeling for obedience, rally, or freestyle. The goal is a dog that happily runs to heel position as a default behavior.
The approach taught is 100% positive reinforcement, basically clicker training using a word (or sound) to mark a behavior instead of a clicker. (Participants who train with a clicker are welcome to bring the clicker.) So, you can use the incredible power and precision of clicker training without having to learn to handle a clicker. The instructors will also mentor participants through food delay training, which is where many handlers who use start using positive training methods hit a snag in preparing for competition.
Please bring a very generous supply of high-value treats, a variety of different treats is recommended. (Or bring some favorite toys if your dog absolutely refuses treats). The 1-cup Ziploc containers are ideal because you can put a different type of treat in each container and bring three our four containers. Each treat should be small (cubes about 1/4 inch in dimension are ideal for most dogs). Suggestions are
- deli turkey -- sliced 1/4 inch thick and cut in small cubes
- hot dogs -- cut in fourths lengthwise, then slice thinly (you can get 80 treats from one hot dog this way)
- baby food meat sticks -- for those who want to avoid preservatives
- beef heart -- slice 1/4 inch thick and boil in garlic water, then dry in a warm oven and cut in small cubes
- steak or London broil -- cut in small cubes
- stick cheese -- cut in small cubes
Mentoring sessions are not a class in the usual sense; each session, we check where each dog-handler team is in the training process and provide feedback to help that team progress to the next step. Participants are strongly encouraged to listen to the feedback given to all the students. Mentoring is limited to 4 to 6 dog-handler teams per hour to allow time for each team to receive individual feedback.
Mentoring sessions are held at the Durham Kennel Club (DKC) training building on Guess Road. This facility is fully matted with 3/4-inch rubber matting and climate controlled. If you need directions to the DKC building, please see the DKC website.
Fee is $10 per session, payable to Durham Kennel Club. (Exact change or checks will be greatly appreciated.)
Schedule. Mentoring sessions are held on the weekends on an irregular schedule, an average of twice monthly, concurrently with rally nested coursework sessions (usually 9:45 am and 11:00 am). See the calendar on the DKC website for specific dates. Because space is limited, preregistration is required.
Contact Adele to preregister, e-mail preferred, whippets at nc.rr.com (replace "at" with the symbol and close up the spaces), or phone 1.919.596.0613 (leave message), with the following information:
- date(s)
- your name
- your dog's name and breed
- a brief statement about your dog's prior training experience (the first time you preregister for a session)
Instructor Shari Bryant started training for AKC obedience in the 1970s and has earned a high in trial at a sheltie specialty. Shari switched to clicker training in the 1990s, and for the last 10+ years, her primary interest has been freestyle. For the last 5 years Shari has focused Canine Freestyle Federation (CFF) freestyle, which is based on precision heeling and close teamwork with the dog. She has earned CFF titles through Level 3 and is currently training a whippet for Level 4 (the highest level) competition.
Instructor Adele Monroe obedience trained her first dogs in the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1990s, she made the switch to clicker training when she realized that she did not like what her Rottweiler's body language said about their relationship. She is currently training two whippets for CFF exhibition.
Canine Freestyle Organizations
Canine Freestyle Federation
Musical Dog Sport Association
The World Canine Freestyle Organization
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