[nagdu] overhead obstacles

[Tracy Carcione]

Ben is pretty bad at overhead obstacles.  I've only had one dog who was
really good at them.
My preference is to have the dog go up close to the overhang, then to duck
under, if possible, or go around if it's too low.  If he stops too far
away, I hup him up a bit.  But often he bashes me with the branch, and we
have to re-work it.  Then he gets it.  If it's a route we take regularly,
he'll probably remember next time, and stop or go around.
I think my Amba would look at shadows on the ground near where we'd
encountered overhangs, and go around the shadows, instead of looking up to
try and judge if it would hit me or not. I think high overhangs are quite
a challenge for dogs, because they don't usually look up high.  I'm 5.6,
so I get whacked by branches pretty often in the summer, especially when
it's rained and they're hanging low.  Yuk!
Tracy

> 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
>
>
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