[nagdu] overhead obstacles

[Julie J.]

Monty and I have been struggling for a while now with overhead 
obstacles.   I need to figure out a game plan and get on it.  He's 
stopping too far out so I don't always understand that he's stopping for 
a tree branch or whatever.  I'll tell him to go forward or around or 
whatever and his responses vary.  Sometimes he'll refuse, sometimes 
he'll go and I run into the branch and sometimes he'll do some really 
amazing intricate guide work to weave me through the mess.

I've been trying to get him to work up closer to the obstacle so I can 
reach it and know what's going on, but it's not been exceptionally 
successful.  So I'm open to ideas, suggestions or anything anyone has to 
offer.
How exactly do you guys work overhead obstacles?  Do you go off the 
sidewalk and around? Or duck down and go under? Or backtrack and go a 
different way? Does your guide stop for an overhead or does the dog 
automatically lead you around it?

He's not ignoring the overheads.  We are just having difficulty in 
understanding each other, which leads to me giving confusing directions. 
  I want to get this worked out before I really mess up his previous 
training and he stops indicating them all together.

For the new folks, I have owner trained Monty so I have no trainer or 
school to call.  Monty is exceptionally safety conscious and works most 
obstacles from a distance, which is fine when he takes me around without 
my additional direction.  I also will be using clicker training to fix 
this snag since I feel it is probably my issue and a miscommunication 
rather than blatant goofing off on his part.

Thoughts?
Julie