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PUBLISHER'S COMMENTS
Building Blocks for Performance won the 2003 Radio Systems award
for "Best Dog Training Book"
AUTHOR'S BIO
Bobbie Anderson is a successful exhibitor,trainer, and former AKC obedience judge whose involvement in the sport began in 1970 with a miniature Schnauzer. Anderson has since become one of the foremost ranking dog trainers in the country. She has put over seventy AKC titles on dogs, including five Obedience Trial Championships, three Utility Dog Excellent, twelve Utility Dog, and seven Tracking Dog titles, and over eighty-five High in Trial wins. She accomplished this with multiple breeds including Shelties, English Cockers, German Shepherds in both obedience and conformation. Libby is also a resident of Oregon.
AUTHOR COMMENTS
There are many wonderful methods for training puppies. My goal with this book is to offer you training methods and techniques that will help you to build a solid foundation of behaviors in your future performance dog. While the methods in this book will work with any dog, they are designed especially for owners and handlers who intend to raise and train a puppy for competition in obedience, herding, agility, tracking, lure coursing, flyball, or any other competitive performance events. The methods I will teach you apply to puppies from six weeks to one year of age. In this book I assume that training begins when the puppy goes to a new home at eight or nine weeks of age. Behaviors are shaped by repetition and by building each lesson on the previous one, step-by-step. Whether you start with a puppy that is eight weeks or five months of age, the same principles apply. The length of time a puppy trains will vary depending on his temperament, energy level and so forth. A training session for an eight or ten-week-old puppy may be two or three minutes several times a day. A five- or six-month-old puppy can usually work for ten or fifteen minutes once or twice a day.
First, you will learn how to build a trusting relationship with your puppy. Second, you will learn how to instill enthusiasm, motivation, and an unwavering desire to work.
Training dogs for competition is a journey that can be simultaneously exhilarating and exasperating. Fortunately, good dog trainers, like good cooks, can learn by imitating their peers. When given the proper ingredients and guidelines, almost any sound puppy can grow into an adult dog that is capable of some level of competitive success. My hope is that this book will help you succeed in these events by improving your training techniques. Most of all, I hope to make training and showing fun for both you and your puppy. If there is no joy in training and showing—what’s the point?
Within these pages you will find a combination of philosophy and training techniques that I have accumulated during my thirty years of training dogs. This ideology has helped me to put over seventy AKC titles on dogs, including five OTCHs, and more than eighty-five High in Trails. As you read you will no doubt come across some ideas that you absolutely love, and others that seem questionable or downright nutty. That’s okay. As you build your own mosaic of knowledge, it will be your job as a trainer to sort through the myriad of training techniques and pick those that work successfully for you and your puppy.
I invite you to read, apply, and test the ideas and techniques presented. Choose those that work for your individual puppy, and remember, no two puppies react alike. Come on, let’s get started building that future winner!
Bobbie Anderson
REVIEWS
"Bobbie unveils ten essential building blocks that will turn a puppy into a highly motivated, enthusiastic, confident performance dog. Step-by-step methods and how-to photographs will help you give your puppy that winning edge. You will learn to build a strong bond with your dog, motivate your puppy, get the maximum benefits from praise, understand and use compulsion and correction. Use play to instill specific behaviors, set goals and develop a plan for competitive success, and make training fun!" (Sheltie International, Dec 2003- Jan 2004)
"The professionalism sparkles out of every page. I give the book five tail wags." (Wayne Koutsky, Borderlines)
"The principles discussed can benefit everyone who wants to do things better with their next puppy." (The Cassette/Summer, 2002)
"Bobbie unveils ten essential building blocks that will turn a puppy into a highly motivated, enthusiastic, confident performance dog." (Sheltie International, Dec 2003- Jan 2004)
"These are not hollow, quick-fix measures, but solid, enduring methods designed to work across the board." (Clean Run, August 2003)
"If you think that competitive dog training is all about rote drills and coercion, this book will change your mind." (Deborah Wood, B.C. Newsletter Great Reads)
"…this would be a great book for breeders to recommend to their puppy buyers, especially those going to working homes." (Nancy Light, Evergreen GRC)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
Why Puppies Do What They Do
BLOCK ONE: Build a Strong Relationship
BLOCK TWO: Make Training Fun
BLOCK THREE: The Finer Points of Motivation
BLOCK FOUR: Maximize Praise
BLOCK FIVE: Compulsion and Correction
BLOCK SIX: Maximize Drive
BLOCK SEVEN: Laying the Groundwork
BLOCK EIGHT: Teach Basics Skills
BLOCK NINE: Build a Plan for Success
BLOCK TEN: Be Demanding
EXCERPT
If you want to be a good trainer you need to do three things: Train, train, train. There’s no way around it. There are no short cuts. A substantial part of learning to be a proficient trainer is learning how to play with your puppy and how to incorporate play into your training regimen so your puppy views training as fun. I can already hear owners wailing, For heaven sakes, I know how to play with my puppy! If that’s the case then you have my permission to skip this chapter. However, if you want to know how to use play to create a happy, motivated dog that is focused, attentive, and eager to work in any competitive arena, then read on.
There really is no limit to the fun you can have with your puppy and the behaviors you can instill when you teach your puppy to learn using play. Play creates fun; fun creates focus; and focus maximizes a puppy’s propensity to learn. The more your puppy focuses on you, the more you will be able to teach him. The more you play with your puppy, the more he will want to be with you. You will become the most exciting aspect of his world. Subsequently, your puppy will be more attentive to learning and less inclined to wander off and find his own fun or trouble. Equally important, interactive play develops the most compelling aspect of competitive obedience attention.
Furthermore, play is essential when it comes to establishing a strong bond and a trusting relationship between you and your puppy. A puppy that trusts you will be more open to learning because he has no fear or anxiety, two things which inhibit learning.
Fun and games are vital for stimulating circulation and building strong bones and muscles and a strong heart. Play nourishes and energizes a puppy’s mind and keeps it active, healthy, and alert. As puppies grow and mature, play is the perfect prescription for releasing stress during training sessions and while on the campaign trail.
PUPPIES POSSESSED
Puppies spend countless hours playing with their littermates: running, freezing, stalking, pouncing, and crouching in preparation for mock battle. Suddenly, they tear off in opposite directions, twisting and turning and running in all-out sprints as they body-slam and somersault and playfully nip each others ears and necks. At first the play is friendly and good-hearted. As the puppies grow, the ground rules quickly change and the play becomes more fierce and competitive. The puppies are not only establishing a pecking order within their litter, they are also honing their natural prey instincts. These include playing, retrieving, herding, and hunting. As a trainer, you can capitalize on these natural instincts and drives to instill the specific behaviors that produce an enthusiastic and motivated worker.
Like humans, puppies are individuals. Some puppies are born gregarious, happy-go-lucky and ready for any activity at the drop of a hat. The sight of a Frisbee, ball or tug toy is enough to whip them into a frenzy. Naturally, it takes little incentive to get them to play. Other puppies, particularly toy and non-sporting breeds, do not have a strong play drive. Nevertheless, do not abandon using play to teach specific behaviors to these dogs. It will take more work on your part to activate the prey drive in breeds or individual puppies that lack a strong play drive. (See page 74 for tips on increasing low play/prey drive.)
There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and the genetic lottery can produce toy breeds with strong play drives and herding and hunting breeds with little or no play drive. However, every puppy has something in his life that he really loves maybe its a furry toy for a Beagle, a squeaky toy for a terrier, a raccoon-scented cloth for a Coonhound, or chase recall games for Siberians and Whippets. In the breed ring, finding that something that turns a dog on is often referred to as pushing a dog’s buttons. Basically, its anything a toy, a ball, a specific noise or tone of voice to which a puppy will respond. If you have a puppy with low play drive, then you need to find that something that excites and stimulates and drives your puppy to the brink of madness. Then use it only to incite play.
If I had a dollar for every time someone told me, "My puppy won’t play!" I’d be a wealthy woman living the life of luxury on the French Riviera. There are owners walking among us who are absolutely one-hundred percent convinced that their puppy will not play. Here is the typical scenario. An owner brings their puppy to class and spends the better part of the time moaning about how their puppy won’t play. I take the puppy, tweak him and say in a high, squeaky voice, "I’ve got you! You silly boy,"or "Look at you!" Quickly, but gently, I will grab at his feet or tap his feet with my foot or bounce a tug toy. Within ten seconds the puppy is playing with me a total stranger.
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