Is it me or him? (K9 Freestyle related whine)

[Wonka & Nilla]

If you can't bear to wing it on the day then try sparking his interest now, and one day in a couple of weeks time do a dummy run with no treats at all and see what happens.

In the spring/early summer, when he was dancing a lot and doing demonstrations almost weekly, I'm sure he would have gone the whole way through without any treats... I just never made him do it without treats. He'd get one or two mid-way and then a bunch at the end. I guess I thought I could pick up at that point again, but I think a combination of factors are making it so that I really need to take a few steps backward before I can work up to that point again.

[Pugasaurus]

One thing that really helps with my dogs is to teach them to target my hand. When I teach heeling, I hold the treats in my left hand and dispense them from said hand in the first throes of training this new behavior. The left hand is the good hand since a gazillion treats come from it. Once the dog is fluent at heeling I slowly taper the treats off. By that time, just looking at my left hand makes the dogs excited and I maintain that excitement by randomly rewarding them with said hand. And by then, the dog treats my hand like a target stick and will gladly follow it anywhere, which works out heeling and later on for cueing the dog for freestyle moves. Then we work on teaching dog to target right hand.

It helps too to gradually and randomly fade the treats so that way the dog is not as able to predict when he should be getting one.

When Beavis starting missing visual cues was when I knew something was wrong and sure enough, he developed cataracts.

[Newsie96]

My only piece of advice is to relax. If you're stressed, chances are, he's picking up on it. I know when I'd get frustrated in class, it was a a done deal. But if I was excited and the training was light and no pressure, Murphy was totally on.

Also, do little bouts of training. Your dog will tire easily if you over train him. Good luck! And don't be so hard on yourself. You're my hero! I only wish Murphy could do what Wonka does!

[Snifter]

In the spring/early summer, when he was dancing a lot and doing demonstrations almost weekly, I'm sure he would have gone the whole way through without any treats... I just never made him do it without treats. He'd get one or two mid-way and then a bunch at the end. I guess I thought I could pick up at that point again, but I think a combination of factors are making it so that I really need to take a few steps backward before I can work up to that point again.

Sounds like you know the answer. It's just hard doing it. Good luck!