Position

Here is some information about getting your dog set up.

Establishing Position is very important for several aspects of the game:

• Safety
• Practice Workflow
• Flow

Tugging is a treat reward for discdogs. It does several things for us. It attaches prey drive to the biting of the disc; essentially a way of back chaining a catch. It also lends itself to back chaining a retrieve to the hand as the game often starts and stops with both dog and handler touching the disc.

We need to learn to hit our dog in stride with the disc, making the big leap (or the safe leap in my case with Leilani) all but inevitable.

Getting a dog to leap everytime means putting the disc in the right spot, at the right distance at the right time. That is not a terribly hard thing to do once you've figured out where and when that spot is. The problem is that most people never learn where that spot is, let alone when, and many people don't even know there's a spot.

Another thing that needs to happen with our game is that our dog must be able to drop a disc when asked. Whether it's at our feet, out there 20 yards away, or while standing on my back.

Getting a drop on the run is extremely important in building routines.

Directional Feeding is a drill that we use here at Pawsitive Vybe to teach our dogs how to drop discs on the run, away from us, and to give the handler an opportunity to learn how to compute and execute a proper lead time for the big leaping grab. Disc placement by the handler and disc management by the dog can be worked or learned at the same time.

If the reward always happens in front of the handler, that's where the dog will be. If the reward always happens 40 yards away, that's where the dog will be. If the reward always happens on the left side, that's where the dog will be.

Dogs gravitate to where the reward happens.

Bob Bailey said something to the effect of Mark for Behavior and Reward for Position (hat tip to Julie Jenkins). It's a very effective training tool if the trainer takes advantage of it. It's also a tremendous liability if one doesn't understand it. Not many people playing disc with their dogs understand this concept.

- round, through, weave - front, heel, side

Working position with Positive Reinforcement. Tyce shows us how non-operant drive impacts the ability to position. Contrasted with Leilani's ability to target in the presence of Frisbees, Tyce shows us the importance of self control in Drive. Notice the difference between the empty handed target and the lure with the disc. We're working on fixing this. Stay tuned to see a Tyce with self control.