Working Champion Israel‏

[Elaine]

A friend sent the following question and a link to this video...


This is a near flawless performance. Can your dog do that????????????????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Bxch_XA50&feature=PlayList&p=41085F01781241


So I sat with a cup of coffee and watched the whole thing. Spoiler alert… it is boring as hell (unless I missed something at about 6 minutes in, when I went for more coffee.

Gotta say, I really don't see the value in this type of thing. I can’t help but think that the dog’s neck and spine have to be adversely affected by being trained to hold so artificial a position. It looks like it hurts, I’d imagine it does. And, worse, it reflects a very poor level of communication between two creatures working side by side. At the upper levels of training, the communication should be subtle, so that the animal does not have to wrench himself into a contorted frame to merely receive a signal. If a rider held a dressage horse in so twisted a frame, they’d probably be charged with animal cruelty. I was also thinking how artificial the "event” was. Seems to me that any form of obedience competition should be based on evaluating function in real world situations. Performance should be evaluated in the ultimate “out of the ring” unscripted situation. That should be the test. The dog in the video anticipates the entire event, and almost every step of it. I would like to see a dog moving in a more natural frame, with his head forward, observing both the environment and subtle cues from the handler, evaluated in a situation where it is suddenly confronted with a group of running horses, or some novel threatening/enticing stimuli, and then tested on whether the dog – in an unscripted – unpredictable– novel – even threatening situation - that pumps the adrenaline, - will still respond to the handler... now that would be a test of communication between dog and man.

[dobielvr]

I watched for about 2 minutes, jsut most of the heeling pattern.... I understand when everyone says that the dog can't know what you want unless he's looking at you for clues, in fact I think that's how they pick up on your subtle clues, by looking at you with 'attention'. However, this dog is in an unnatural position, and is both forging and crowding, bumping his handler so she has to practically get out of the way. It would be nice to see him back up a step or two and 'watch' his handler more from the side and not try to stare directly at her face. It is easy to recognize the amount of effort that went into training this dog though, and it is flashy - its not uncommon at all to see this style at obedience trials of upper levels.

[RaindanceIGs]

This event is almost identical to AKC Open & Utility obedience with exception of the weird A-frame type thing. I agree though about the unusual position the dog holds himself and since the front half of him is practically in front of his handler almost the entire time I imagine in competition over here in north america that would be penalized (although I could be wrong). I'm not sure I totally agree about lack of communication between dog and handler, the handler's cues are extremely subtle, not sure they could be even less subtle. For the 'moving sit' and 'moving down' I never even saw the handler give a signal - if she even gave one - maybe it was verbal. As far as unscripted stimuli - well that's not really what competition obedience is about. It's the same exact routine every single time. Does it prove anything in regards to the dog's function? Not really, other than the owner's dedication - and possibly willingness to work although I'm sure we've all seen dogs in competition obedience get qualifying scores even if the dog didn't look like it actually cared about pleasing its owner or not (but they're probably not going to be getting perfect scores).