Send aways

[BBP]

Can anyone recommend a good training video for teaching send aways? My dog training school is great but I don’t really get this bit or how they are explaining it and both dog, partner and I were a bit frustrated today. I’ve found some written resources but ideally I really need a nice well broken down video to help me to understand. I’m pretty sure we need to go back some steps.

 

[CorvusCorax]

For which discipline?

It's something I backchain, I send to a ball on a pole for speed but lots of others use a touch point. So reward for standing on the point or the dog self rewards and gets the ball (some people use a remote ball dropper so they control the reward) and introduce a command only when I am happy with the behaviour.
Difference is the sendaway point is always in the same place, I know in other sports, it can be anywhere.

 

[BBP]

They talk about it as a discipline in working trials. I’m not really a dog person so not sure how it varies between disciplines. So puppy happily did training of going to a mat with a treat laid on it and lying down on it, but they are now asking me to send him away to other objects like tyres or barrels and we don’t understand what the drive is meant to be for him. I feel like there are foundation bits of training missing but it’s one thing I don’t think this particular trainer has explained very well to be how to build his drive to run straight to an object/point.

 

[CorvusCorax]

If he's used to the mat I would put the mat near the marker you want to send to and send from a short distance. Eventually lengthen the distance and replace the mat with something smaller (a smaller piece of same mat etc) that can be transferred anywhere.

 

[BBP]

That’s a good idea, thanks. (And I’ve been assisted in this by a beagle and terrier discovering his mat in the park just as I was about to send him to it and running off with it, tearing it in half for me!)

 

[satinbaze]

A working trials sendaway and an obedience sendaway are very different. Working trials will be to a point in the distance usually in a hedge or field boundary and normally something natural . In obedience the sendaway is in reality a send to as there is always a marker and other markers for the dog to run past, an obedience sendaway is much shorter than a working trials one.

 

[Moobli]

This may help

https://www.workingtrials.info/abou...articles/330-control-agility/206-the-sendaway

I trained it with a small cone and a ball (my dog is very ball driven) but you can use food in the same way. I hung the ball on a cone, let the dog see it and then stepped back a small distance and sent him for it, over time I increased the distance and once he was running out confidently I added the down when he arrived and rewarded.

 

[CorvusCorax]

There's any number of ways...ball on pole, run around a pole, bowl of food, touch pad, clacker board.
As long as there is belief that a reward is coming once the dog arrives at the point it had been sent to.

If you want to start with small elements rather than train the complete exercise, I also send to a ball over a short distance from heeling or throw the ball and down the dog before he gets to it and then release but your control needs to be good. You can also do this to food, touch pad etc. So it's a similar picture.

 

[BBP]

Thought I’d update this, I’ve not done too much with the dog as he’s been with my partner, but I started teaching the bonkers black pony this evening and he got the idea really quickly! Okay so we haven’t mastered the down yet 😄 but he heads off to his marker (baited with carrot) and then runs back when I call him. Think he may be out competing my collie in the trainability department!