Gladiator Dog (canine freestyle)

[furtech]

Here's a great canine freestyle routine (dog-dancing) involving swords, dramatic battles and over-acting. Not sure how accurate the fighting is, but it's as good as any sixty-year old Italian gladiator movie!

EDIT: Plus, a cute video on how to keep your cat from eating your food. This is a real training clip (by amateurs), but the cat is adorable.

Comments

[furtech.livejournal.com]

The thing that isn't clear to most audiences is all the grind-work that goes into any routine.

You begin with individual tricks: high-stepping, twirl and twist (spin direction), bow, etc. Clicker-training has been invaluable for this.

Then you find a piece of music you like and want to do a routine to. Now the grind work begins: you break down the piece into musical beats/phrases (much like you would do in animation), and begin to design your performance by assigning each trick your dog knows with that segment. That's one of the things that makes the Gladiator routine so amazing: it's -four- minutes long! That's 240 seconds of routine that had to be broken down! Mary Ray did almost a -five- minute piece, to a song from Chicago!

Now you practice each segment, then start to practice the whole piece, then with music. The dog hardly notices the music: his attention is on the human performer. Imagine practicing the whole piece through, time and again, so that the dog knows pretty much what order things come in. The human uses very subtle hand and body motions to cue the dog, sometimes a prop. Some cues are more subtle than others...

Then the big humiliation: you try this in front of a small audience (like your freestyle club). First time in front of distractions and even the different sound of a building (usually with dogs around as further distractions) and loud noises like applause. The result is usually less than stellar. So you practice more and more. Teams that do this in front of big audiences (like Crufts or big TV show audiences) are amazing!

I got to try to ad-lib a simple routine in front of a freestyle seminar audience with R0ndo and a big handful of cheese. We did well, considering, and I managed not to trip over him.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I know a lot of work goes into these sorts of things. I just wasn't sure if they practice it so much the dog remembers the act, or if there are cues (even though they've practiced a lot!)

I wish I could have seen you and Rondo ad-libbing! (Even better, wish I'd taped it for blackmail posterity!)

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a combo of practice and cues. When R0ndo and I tried it, my "cues" were me waving my arms around flinging bits of cheese everywhere trying (somewhat successfully) to get R0ndo to twist. At least it showed me this activity was within the realm of possibility...

And yeah-- I'd love to see what we looked like. Not! We -were- the "Special" entry that day!

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Oooh-- I just found a Mary Ray demo on YouTube! She's going through basic routines with one of her dogs at a seminar. You can see her less-subtle cues here (as well as treating). I love how during one of the walking exercises her dog has to give her kisses!