Last week, we launched a new feature for Train 'Em Tasks. For the longest time, I had been kicking around an idea of tutorial videos to help people do dog stuff at home. I started to get questions about the how of dog training and dog sports...and I would try to explain via email or private FB messages how to do various things. The longer I do Train 'Em Tasks, I am learning that not everyone lives in an area like Southern New England where I have access to several dog training facilities within an hour's drive of Tasks HQ. Most people do not have regular access to instructors or training facilities and they are left to try to learn things on their own. Or others may not have the funds to attend classes. And others may have other reasons that classes may not work for them. Once I figured all of that out, I decided that the tutorial videos were something that we needed to do.
I videoed our first one last week and posted it on our
Train 'Em Tasks YouTube Channel. I decided to start with AKC (American Kennel Club) Rally Obedience Novice because that is a popular dog sport and most dog and handler teams find it fun and doable at any skill level. I will also post the videos here with some written commentary as well as the actual exercise description featured in the videos.
I will say one thing...we did get one comment on our
Facebook Tasks Page which I feel should be addressed due to possible viewer expectations. One person felt the first video was tedious to watch. In this video. Lars and I demonstrated and talked about the Start and Finish signs found on an AKC rally course. I also talked about basics of setting your dog up into heel position and how to correctly place your reward for your dog.
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If someone is pretty experienced in obedience or rally...some of these
videos might be too basic for them to watch. My target audience are
people who are new to the sport/dog training but want to do rally and
don't have access to intro to rally classes. If you have lots of dog
training experience, some of the Train 'Em Tutorials are going to be
rudimentary. But, with that being said, I still encourage people who are experienced to check them out. Just maybe, there could be something in the videos that you might find interesting or helpful. I'm in the camp of we can always learn something...I, by no means, know everything and I'm always looking for new info to help me become a better handler. :)
Here are the actual exercise descriptions for start and finish:
Sign #1:
Start: Indicates the beginning of the course. The dogs does not need to be sitting at the start.
Sign #2:
Finish: Indicates the end of the course - timing stops.
The next video we'll do will be Sign #3 which is the Halt sign. We're going to try to do these twice a week if we're not too busy and weather allows. Like I mentioned on the video...if you have questions or problems or comments, please send them to me and the boys. We might do some troubleshooting and problem solving videos too based on questions, problems, or comments. I think this will be a fun project for Tasks and it will help put faces and personalities behind the Train 'Em Tasks products too.
