Something Whimzy has taught me this past year is the difference between training and practicing. Believe it or not, I view them as two totally different exercises. Training is when learning takes place, where as practicing is like a quiz. (Then of course you have trailing being that wonderfully addicting do-or-die test we take over and over, but that is a different story for another day).
So with that being said, I've started to see with Whimzy what needs to be trained and what needs to be practiced. It used to be I would go to practice, fail at something, think about it, then train the skill or element accordingly. Now, I'm not sure if I've just coming to understand Whimzy and her needs as a progressing athlete or if my eye is more developed from years of agility, but I'm finding pieces before I practice that I know I need to train, I know what is going to go wrong, I know why, and I know how fix her understanding of the picture I'm showing her. Isn't that what handling is in the end anyway? Conveying the right picture at the correct time to tell the dog what it should be doing and where it should be going. The past, present, and future commands all in a single snap shot for our dogs to dissect and make decisions using the information shown. When we train we teach the dogs to read specific movements and body positions to mean certain things about the flow of the course. Practice is then the application of those cues in flow, and for the dogs to understand how to pick up on our body pictures at speed.
Something I've come to ask myself while training or practicing is: Can you picture it?
Can I see what I'm showing the dog and how it will make sense to them, what they should be reading. Because well if I can't picture a specific cue or directional from my own body then chances are the dog doesn't know what's going on either.
Sorry rambled, just thinking allowed.
Practicing and Training with Miss Whimzy:
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