Yes I like the idea of games, (Absolute Dogs) it seems to make it a simpler in a sense, and kindof more fun when we're training. I came across Tom and Lauren's way of training some months back, but have just recently started thinking more about it and using a couple of the games. Any helpful hints or ideas to help with this would be great, if you want to share...
Well, it’s not rocket science. Most of their games are simply repackaged versions of things people might already do, but presented in a way that makes it into a game, keeping fun and energy highly. I don’t mean this in a derogatory sense; I pay for membership of their Training Academy just to help me with ideas and keeping things fresh, so even though there may not be anything massively new in what they are presenting, I still think it has value. Anything you do with your dog that is fun will build on your relationship and encourage proximity. The more the dog is rewarded for being with you (be that through food rewards, play or anything else he likes), the more he will choose to be with you. A couple of the AD games that work on this would be: Middle: teaching dog to come between your legs - once you have a solid grounding with this and your dog loves it, you can start introducing some control by dropping treats, throwing a ball etc and teaching your dog to stay in middle until released. You can also introduce movement where you can walk backwards and forwards and turn in circles with your dog staying in middle. Magic hand: simplified, this is dropping pieces of food from your hand for your dog to catch. Doing it standing still to start and building to do it while walking at heel, backing up, turning etc. Movement of your hand should result in the dog moving under it so you can position them. Ping pong recall: they repackage this one as “funder” by having the dog run between your legs. Either turning and bowling food or chucking it between your legs, it’s a great fun game. Toy switching games. Whipit games Racing to toys. Joyful stays. So nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary, but rather than just playing blindly, the games have purpose. Rather than playing a game to death, you keep it no more than three minutes to keep energy high. Rather than it being approached as training, it’s approached as games, so is fun for you both. You work on concepts (proximity and focus being massive ones) which really do translate into real world applications.
