Intro to BAT Course

Lesson 7: Pause to Practice

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HOMEWORK

  • Practice leash skills on walks
  • Leash Skills video (explained below)
  • Take the time to write up an assessment of your video (for yourself or to discuss with your fellow students in the group)
  • “Assess This Video” (explained below)
  • Continue having 3 treat parties per day (at least 3 weeks total)
  • Practice Find It
  • Optional: purchase a basket muzzle if you plan on doing up-close work at some point and your dog has bitten, air-snapped, or otherwise has warned you that she may bite.

MORE LEASH SKILLS PRACTICE – WITH YOUR DOG

Work in a safe area with the leash on the back of the harness. Practice with your regular leash on walks whenever it makes sense to do so.

  • Using a short leash (6 feet / 2 meters):
    • Handle
    • Slide
    • Slow Stop
    • Relax the Leash
    • Mime Pulling – Your dog isn’t the student here, you are. When you practice mime pulling, give your dog some ‘hazard pay’ by pointing out some interesting spot to smell or tossing the treat on the floor ahead of you when he moves away with you. This also has the side benefit of making him more responsive to mime pulling.
  • Using a long line (12-15 feet / 4-5 meters). Move away from your dog and walk back as you shorten and length. Also set up situations where your dog will move away and toward you, at various speeds.
    • Shorter
    • Longer
  • Put it all together to practice each of these skills with a long line as your dog does “Sprinkles.”  Try to follow your dog and stay out of the way. Only use the ‘control’ skills when needed (Slide, Slow Stop, Mime Pulling).
    • Handle
    • Slide (use only when you need to get the dog’s attention)
    • Slow Stop (use only if the dog is headed somewhere where he should not yet go)
    • Relax the Leash
    • Mime Pulling (use only when you need to get the dog to come away immediately and calling hasn’t worked)
    • Shorter
    • Longer

Here’s a tip to get good video to watch later, it to a short clip to share for to your peers to discuss in the ABBA Facebook group. Work in a small enough area with your tripod in the corner, so that your dog will not stray too far from the camera. You can also set up some stations with smells (treats under cones, etc.) so your dog will move in more predictable ways.

ASSESS THIS VIDEO

Watch this video again and note (for yourself) the times that each of the BAT Leash Skills listed above are used. For the control skills in particular, why do you think they were used at each point?

For example, you can’t see it with the camera angle, but at 0:10, we used mime pulling and verbally called Archie to move him away from the trigger. He had clearly gone over threshold. Later there’s an exception to the rule of not doing a Slow Stop when the dog is moving away from the trigger. You should wonder why that was done, because it’s not for the dog – in this case, it was because he was headed toward an off-limits area (students were testing and could not be disturbed).[/s2If]