Was wondering if anyone else experienced a backwards slope in your dogs in training? Like they do one thing with PERFECTION for so long, then suddenly it's like they just wanna do their own thing and forget how to do it.
Class on Monday was frustrating. Grady's been doing so well lately, but the last couple of classes, he's really showing his "dark side." But this past Monday, I was so frustrated.
He's had beautiful sit/down/stays - to the point that our instructor has put nervous dogs next to him b/c she knew Grady would not break a stay, look at the dog, or anything to make that dog more nervous.
Monday, we were doing 1 minute stays in a sit. We'd done up to 5 minutes in the previous weeks with no problem whatsoever. However, he broke THREE times in one minute!
Then when we did down/stays for 3 minutes (again, has done up to 5 minutes without even moving his feet), he kept trying to crawl towards me, get up, move around, roll over, etc. I had to keep correcting him many times.
The trainer kinda ticked me off too b/c even tho she knows he's had beautiful stays up until this past week....she came up to me and said, "you REALLY need to work on those stays!" as if we'd been having problems the entire time and that at 7 weeks in, we shouldn't be messing up this much. I had to remind her that he's done them perfectly up until now. So she says, "well I guess every dog has his day, huh." I kinda wanted to punch her in the mouth! LOL
His heels are beautiful and perfect. He could work a lil more on his attention during his heels, but for the most part, his eyes are locked on me the entire time we move. She catches him ONE time while he decides to watch the other dogs in the next ring over and again...."you need to work on his attention!"
She asked if Grady would work with her assistant to demonstrate slow and fast heels. He refused. He kept looking for me, pulling on her, trying to trip her off her feet trying to find me. He'd worked for her before, so no idea what his deal was.
We also did stands and stay for exams. He's done em perfectly before, but again, this week....he moved and tried to sit. And just getting him to stand was difficult cuz he'd inch forward then try to sit.
I know we have set backs, and I know they test us at times, but I dunno if it's b/c I was stressed (had to leave early the next morning for a business trip) and knew I had alot of other stuff to do, or if because it was a full moon, or what....but it just seemed we were doing this stuff for the first time. I kept my patience with him and tried to play with him during our down times, and made it fun....but he just seemed so disinterested in playing then when he finally got around to playing with me....he refused to stop and started barking his fool head off.
Maybe it was just an off-day for both of us, but it seems like the last class before this one, he started doing some of this, but was easily moved out of it. This time....not so much. The hard part is that next Monday is our 8-week test. If he doesn't do these simple things that he's done a million times, he'll fail the class and have to repeat it....even tho he's done it a MILLION times without any problems. We've got to work alot on it this week, but I'll be really disappointed if his lil mind-games he's trying to play on me (I know that's what it is) continue on when we have to be tested on it and he fails! He's been so good and the instructors have all said up until now....."watch the boxer do it" or "Grady, you show these other dogs how it's done" and now they're saying, "you better work on that or you won't pass next week!", it's just really disappointing.
I haven't been too fond of this trainer. She lets so many people get away with barking, lunging dogs (playfull, but still disruptive), I don't necessarily agree with her style (like she tells you to keep repeating the word "stay" if your dog is about to break - I believe you say it once and you mean it once, they break, you start over - otherwise, they learn the command as "stay, stay, stay, stay, dont move, stay, eh eh, stay, stay). I hope to not have to repeat it with her again!
Anything I can do to get him outta his head games by Monday? I went thru this with Rubi, but not right before we would be tested and told if we messed it up then, we'd fail. Other trainers gave you a learning curve - if they know you could do it, they usually chalked it up to nerves, etc. But I dont want him thinking that this is the way to act (he also tries to spend alot of his downtime trying to rile up the other dogs
) and especially not right before we end a training class and won't be back til either January or March.
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