[NAGDU] Overhead Obstacles? Too Much Avoidance?

[Tami Jarvis]

Lisie,

Good boy!

When my dogs are first learning a new type of obstacle avoidance, 
they'll sometimes go to extremes to get around it, so that may be what 
happened when yours crossed the street to get around the weeping willow. 
When they're more confident at managing the overheads along with what's 
on the ground, we cut things a lot closer and don't veer around as much.

When I'm teaching the dog to go around things, I'm usually on familiar 
routes with my cane, then the same familiar routes in harness, so I give 
a lot of guidance on how I want the dog to go around this or that and 
get back on course. Then when we expand our horizons, I let the dog 
decide how to get us from here to there safely. There's an in-between 
stage where the dog is starting to generalize what he learned in 
training to new situations and different obstacles, and that can be 
tricky for me as a handler as I try to figure how much help from me the 
dog still needs and how much help from me is going to cause a problem. 
Over time, we manage to get it all straightened out, and I can trust my 
dog to make good decisions.

So in the situation of yours where your dog crossed the street, if you 
know enough of the lay of the land to know that wasn't the best call, 
you could rework it the way you want him to do it. If you don't know the 
lay of the land, I would say go with the dog. There may be stuff on the 
ground that makes going around without crossing the street dangerous. If 
that's the case, I would teach the dog to turn around to cross the 
street at an intersection instead of getting into the practice of 
crossing at random. I also teach my dogs to go into the side of the 
street and stay out of the flow of traffic, then get back onto the 
sidewalk as soon as there is a safe way to do that.

hth,

Tami



On 07/30/2016 01:21 AM, Lisie Foster via NAGDU wrote:
> There are very few overhead obstacles where my dog and I walk. But, there are a few, mostly trees with branches hanging down over the sidewalk.
>
> For two days in a row, "Kennedy" (call name for the public as of now...I've just decided on it!) walked me into some low-hanging branches and we re-worked them like we would anything else. We finished with him skirting around them quite well.
>
> The next time we passed that place, he skirted the branches, then returned to our path. But, the next time, he insisted on crossing to the opposite side of the street, just until we'd passed the place where those branches are, and then he indicated he was ready to return to our original path! You'd have thought there was major construction there, rather than some weeping willow branches.
>
> So, what do you think I should do in this situation? Do I leave it to him to decide the safest way to proceed? Do I keep him going forward on our original route and make sure he avoids the branches? Do other dogs actually cross from one sidewalk to another to avoid something that minor, or is that something we need to work on?
>
> Thank you so so much!
>
> Lisie and "Kennedy"
>
> lisiefoster at yahoo.com
> Sent from my iPhone
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