Augusta's Training Notes
Our Francis Metcalf Mondio and French Ring Seminar will be hard to top. Four days of learning and polishing trial routines, practical methods of training the exercises for the young dog and filling in holes in the older dogs, selecting and developing super puppies were only some of the topics we covered. Francis is clearly infected with the Ring Virus and he shared stories and insights with us on the field and around the campfire.
I had the chance to finally figure out how to fix Jesse's guard. The answer
was that it wasn't broken. She had been taught an "obedience" guard,
eg, stay there until recalled. No matter how much I tried to "fix"
the vigilence problem, the more she tried to tell me how she learned it. Francis'
travels to France had given him the opportunity to watch and participate in
training and he was able to bring back that knowledge and apply it to my French
Ring I
female.
Francis' skill in teaching small details of the Mondioring program is etched in my memory while watching him work Laura Harris' Ludo. In working the program for mondio Laura and Ludo had trained around chairs for the defence so that Ludo was sure that climbing on a chair was part of the exercise. Francis knew to look for this training mistake and he then carefully worked Ludo repeatedly by the chair with a combination of simple interuptions and bite rewards until Ludo made the decision to continue the escort pass the chair with 4 feet on the ground. Had a trial helper noticed the mistake it could have been a costly one.
Another interesting detail is how Francis teaches the basket. He considers
the basket a part of a recall sequence. It is the spot the dog returns to when
"cued" by the decoy. The decoy's cue is his freezing when the dog
bites and then starting to move away. At that moment the dog should "hear"
the basket calling him. In working the dogs on the basket, Francis also made
it very black and white for the young dog when it was acceptable to bite and
when it wasn't. He moved exactly along the perimeter of the circle until he
wanted to let the dog bite at which time he moved his leg deliberately toward
the dog and inside the circle. For the dog he was working, this repetitive move
with no other variations helped it discriminate between the cues to stay on
the basket and the cues to bite.
I could fill a book on all the information we gleaned over the weekend. If you are training Ring or Mondio, I can't recommend anyone more highly than Francis. His teaching and coaching is easy on the ego and every dog came away more confident and clear in the work. He has a logical and practical system of building the exercises and proofing the dog that should fit well with everyone's training program. He was able to work the puppies and older dogs, weak and strong dogs equally well.
Thanks, Francis. We want you here again, soon.
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PS There may be tapes available. I need to view the quality of what was taped first and then I will post on the Mondioring list whether there will be some for sale.
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Sharon's Metcalf Seminar Notes
Before training Francis uses a "ritual" of going through the gates
to prepare the dog. The gate can be as simple as two chairs
and the collar and leash is removed or the removal is mimed when the dogs are
not ready to train without.
For each exercise there is a set of "cues" at the set up, presentation
and with the voice.
Likes to always make left turns unless he needs to "loosen" the dog.
In the jumps, he trains three ways seperatly and then together. First for form
then obedience and then drive. On the long jump,
the hurdle was placed within the jump to get the dog to bring height.
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