Iron Hold Obedience Retrieve

This course’s focus is the first part of the retrieve exercise in obedience trial, we will work on the grab, hold and movement with the dumbbell. Before we go into details, accessories, first exercise, we need to go through the rulebook. Rulebook for FCI obedience consists of guidelines and point systems for each exercise. We will analyze what needs to do to score 10/10 for retrieve exercise in class 1. For the upcoming six weeks I want us to focus on:

• Shaping “calm” and “strong” grab and hold behavior.
• by calm I mean: one movement of grabbing and closing mouth on an object. What we don’t want is: chewing, correcting the grip of the dumbbell in mouth (rolling with tongue).
• by strong, I mean: with the strength that makes it impossible for a handler to move dumbbell while the dog is holding it.
• Shaping grab from variety of dumbbell positions: – our hand – both our hands – nose height – ground height but with handler holding it – on the floor
• Building distance
• Variation in handler position
• Adding movement to grab and hold behavior (final behavior heel set-up)
• Object generalization
• Delivery and release to hand
• Adjusting correct reinforcement protocol for your dog and retrieve behavior