Freestyle anyone?????

[DaVinci]

DaVinci and I have been training in frestyle for about 4mos. We did a short routine at our first ever pet expo and it went really well. We are praticing every day cause we are doing a demo at the county fair in 2 weeks and then we are performing for the nursing home and the adult day service in Aug.

Does any one else do freestyle. DaVinci still like his treats. i want him to just listen to the commands. Does anyone have any tricks. I give him a treat only after he does the step three or four times thinking that he will do it with out the treat but he wants to know you have one in your hand that he is going to get some time. Any help would be appreciated.

[Maxy24]

Stop showing him the treat and start doing some of the moves with the treats hidden. Have the treats in your pocket and pick his favorite move to do so he is more likely to do it without seeing the treat. Cue him to do the move and give the treat when he does it (only make him do it once until he learns he does not need to see the treat). If he will not then try some basic obedience stuff and choose the easiest command he knows, once again don't show him the treat. Hopefully he'll do it. You might need to rev him up first by getting excited or pushing him around in a playful manner. If he still does not listen walk away and ignore him, try again later.

He just needs to know that even though he does not see the treat he will still get it.

[DaVinci]

Thanks I will try that. He does do High, wait, heel and right heel with out any treats. I guess it will take more time to get the commands downs. There are 23 moves to teach. Right now we are working on over cause he has to do this one in agility too thought it would make it easier if we practiced something that he has to do on a weekly basis at class.

[corgipower]

I want to know more about the freestyle you're doing! I want videos!

[lizzybeth727]

There are some awesome videos on youtube, you can probably get them just by searching "dog freestyle". They can sure do some amazing moves, it's very inspiring if you're interested in teaching "tricks."

[corgipower]

Originally Posted by lizzybeth727

There are some awesome videos on youtube, you can probably get them just by searching "dog freestyle".

Oh, I know. I wanna see a chazzer doing freestyle

[DaVinci]

We should have a video from the pet expo I have not seen yet. DaVinci and I are beginners. I want to do competitions with him tho. DaVinci will only be a yr old in two weeks. So we are still learning. I will post a video as soon as I have one.

[GoingNowhere]

ooh, I'd love to see a video! Freestyle is very interesting to watch and even more amazing when you think about how each of those little steps needed to be trained and worked on.

[DaVinci]

It is a lot of work. I live on a small farm with many pets as we have rescues here plus horses, goats. and fowl too. I wish I had more energry to work with him but after working all day and spending time with my son sometimes I'm too tired. DaVinci is easy to work with as he is so smart. He is a wonderful dog I'm so glad we found him.

[Dekka]

I would love to compete.. it is a lot of fun (done some demos) but there are no places around her to compete in.