Stuart Mah Recap
How did the semiar go with Stuart
I guess I do owe you guys a recap
The seminar went well. He's a really nice guy, and he does an awesome job explaining things. He's really big on making you answer your own questions, which I think is a great way to learn--instead of him always telling you the answer.
There were about 10 dogs in the seminar, and he takes "long turns" with each dog. He set up about 2 mini-courses that worked different skill sets. He doesn't number anything, so it really took a lot of brain power to remember the course. Lots of circling back around, etc etc...
Unfortunately for us, the courses were based very strongly on obstacle focus. If anyone knows Stuart, his big theories are obstacle vs. handler focus and how to put your dog in one, and bring them into another. Bentley has almost zero obstacle focus. He won't take an obstacle unless he knows that's what we want. We're lucky in that it works in some cases, but we have been babysitting patterns that he should know by now. The thing that struck me the most was that Stuart kept saying that your dog has a responsibility. Every time Bentley dropped a bar in a trial in the past, I would say "Oh, it's because I rear crossed him and messed him up". Stuart's answer was that it shouldn't matter what I do. Bentley's job is to get over the jump without knocking the bar. He has to take responsibility.
One particular set up that illustrated this was a course that started with a pinwheel. Of course, we babysit Bentley through the pinwheel or he will miss the center jump. Stuart made us tell him to "Get out" (loud, fast talking creates drive and obstacle focus...a quiet and calm voice like "easy" should put a dog into handler focus). If he didn't get it, it was his responsibility to recognize that pattern. Instead of me going farther towards the center jump to "help" him, Stuart brought the jump in closer to help him take responsibility for the entire pattern. The same was true when we had a tunnel set up straight out, and a jump next to it, around the center of the tunnel. He asked us to send the dog over the jump to the tunnel. Bentley, Mr. Handler Focused, would take the jump, then turn around and bark. First, it was critical that we tell him way before he even took the jump. Second, we did the same thing and moved the jump closer to make him take responsibility.
Another thing that he reiterate (one of Pati, his wife's, concepts) is to never do the same thing twice. Even if you are teaching a skill set like a pinwheel, always do it differently. From the dog's perspective, if you do the pinwheel once correctly, why is he doing it again? He is thinking that he did it wrong, and should try again--something different. So change it up a bit. Could be something as easy as going on to one more obstacle, or going the opposite direction.
Stuart also talked a bit about training and skill sets and how they should be taught. I found it very interesting. He drew a pyramid and sectioned it off into 5 sections starting at the bottom (the bottom being the biggest section getting smaller as it moved up). The bottom was obstacles. Teach the dog obstacles first. The second was skills. The third was handling, the fourth was sequencing, and the top section was courses. He said that he had a 14 week puppy that he was working through obstacles and skill sets (no bars of course) knowing left and right, recognizing pinwheels etc...
I left the seminar feeling a little overwhelmed because there is so much stuff we need to work on. The biggest thing is to get Bentley in obstacle focus. For him (as opposed to some of the obstacle focused dogs that would just take whatever random obstacle they wanted) Stuart recommended not pulling him off an obstacle if he takes the wrong one in practice. It is better for him to try an obstacle, any obstacle, than wait around for 100% permission from us. He described Bentley as "too polite" and that he needs to try things on his own.
I think that we are going to try to set up a private seminar with him this summer for Lexi. I feel that we are far behind with her, and it would be a great opportunity to get some good points in the right direction.
I hope this helps someone else-and feel free to ask questions, I'll answer if I can!
