Sue Ailsby and her Giant Schnauzers enjoying the winter in Regina , Saskatchewan in the early 1980s . “ A newspaper photographer stopped me on the lake and asked if he could take a picture of them pulling . I said sure . He said OK , I ’ ll just stand here ( 5-feet away ) and you tell them to go . I warned him that he was too close , but he insisted . We knocked him right over . After that he decided maybe he ’ d stand 15-feet away to try it again .”
the class and her not using a choke chain and talking to the dog as if he knew something never really presented itself to us . What we were seeing was not jibing with what we believed , yet we never thought we should ask her a question . A similar thing happened to me when I had a Portie ( Portuguese Water Dog ) I wanted enter in Novice Obedience . About a month before the trial I put her in a Ready to Trial Open Class to get her used to working with other dogs . I suddenly realized she didn ’ t know how to do a broad jump . Back when I had decided I wouldn ’ t train Obedience anymore I had given away my broad jump . So , just for the sake of the class , I asked the club if I could borrow their broad jump and bring it back next week . Everybody in the class saw that she did not know how to do a broad jump the first week . I came back the next week and she was doing the full-length broad jump . There were people there who had been talking amongst themselves expressing the fact that they had been training the broad jump for two years and their dog still didn ’ t know how to do it . So in one week , I went from no broad jump to a full broad jump and nobody in the class asked me how I did it . Not one person .”
Sue describes when she first attempted to clicker train one of her dogs to do the broad jump .
“ We were having a CKC meeting at my training building and I was there a half hour early so I could open the door for people . I was hanging around and I thought I ’ d see what my dog and I could do with a broad jump . At this time I had never trained a broad jump using a clicker . I was too lazy to go and get all of the boards so I was just using two that were nearby . I set the two boards six inches apart and I clicked the dog for looking at them , walking towards them , and so on . I spread them apart a little and we did it again . And then I was shaping her to jump over them . And I spread them apart again and got her to jump over them until she ’ s jumping more than four feet with two boards , with me sitting about 10 to 15 feet away . I was all excited because she knew how to do the broad jump . So I went over and got the two other boards and put them down , thinking we can do a whole broad jump . “ Okay , jump !’ She jumped and landed between the second and third boards proudly . Ta da ! I was stunned . I was not expecting that to happen . She was jumping almost five feet before . And now she can ’ t jump 36 inches over four boards ? That ’ s ridiculous ! I was standing there trying to figure out what was going on , and she was standing there proudly and expectantly Ta da ! Then she got mad . She started pacing around grumbling as if she ’ s muttering to herself “ I just did an amazing thing and I don ’ t even get a click for it ! There ought to be an 800 number for this kind of abuse !’ And then she looked at me , and she backed up , and she ran and she jumped all four boards . Now , if you can think about that , she did exactly what I taught her to do , but that ’ s not what I thought I was explaining to her . I didn ’ t understand when I saw the mistake that I made , but the dog recognized the mistake and corrected it . Before I could think “ oh , did you think I meant two boards ?’ She said “ Wait a minute , were you talking about the full distance and not two boards ?’ And then she asked me if that ’ s what I was thinking .
48 Building Better Trainers Through Education Photo : Sue Ailsby