[nagdu] overhead obstacles

[Tami Kinney]

Julie,

Congratulations! You're the first person I know to ask how to deal with 
the problem of your dog's being too safety conscious. /grin/

I have to confess that they mysteries of training a dog to watch what is 
overhead to a human still escape me. When Mitzi was young and we were 
doing long leash walks, I would make a deal about things overhead and 
use the top of my cane to indicate them to her. Then I made a real good 
effort when she was first in harness training to go through what I had 
come up with as a reasonable process for training her to avoid overheads 
in harness... She made it very clear that I am stupid or something. 
/lol/ It finally occurred to me that that was because she was already 
doing that. Huh. So when I started taking the puppy Zay around for some 
solo long leash training just for general safety, I brushed an overhead 
and made a big deal about it with my cane and said ow a lot... Then we 
traveled that route again with both dogs and I missed the overhead 
because I was paying attention to Mitzi just on long leash, and I kinda 
said something and praised and all.  The next time I took the puppy 
solo, guess what? Nary a brush of pine needles. /lol/ That doesn't mean 
the puppy monster is trained, but I was amazed that she picked that up. 
I also showed her a grate in the street, deciding to start by just 
asking her to look at it and be aware of it. Then I had some major 
annoyance because any time we would take a walk, she would show me every 
single street grate and examine it thoroughly. /lol/ Somehow, she seems 
to have figured out that we go around them, so now she does that and I 
can follow her. I don't just follow the pup with the confidence and 
trust I do Mitzi, but it is fun to watch the youngster pick up the ins 
and outs of the business from big sis. /smile/

So I guess the only thing I can suggest is to perhaps go out for some 
leash work with your cane to find overheads, then indicate to him how 
you want him to take you around. Or perhaps how you want to go around 
them, what kind of approach and clearance you want for yourself. If that 
makes sense... Then he can use those brains of his to figure out how to 
guide you around with that clearance and approach in harness.

As far as I know, that is how Mitzi and I did it, and that seems to be 
what is happening with the puppy. Which is nice. I like to take the dogs 
out to walk, DD does not, so being safe and relaxed with the pup is a 
good thing. /smile/

Working out how to have one dog guide while the other is on leash so 
that I'm not doing the two leash and one cane action is still tricky for 
me, but we are back in the big city where I don't have all that walking 
luxury... So we all go to walk the dogs somewhere else, which means DD 
has his own mnster and I have mine. /lol/

Good luck! Let us know what you figure out.

Tami

On 06/15/2012 07:14 PM, Julie J. wrote:
> 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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