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From: Wolf Den
Date: 11/1/00
Time: 9:59:30 PM
Remote Name: 199.247.51.36
Re dogs slacking off when they hear the motor rev. I have found, with new dogs being trained by ATV, that if the ATV is run as much as possible in neutral both with and without the motor running, in various circumstances (sometimes the motor is running on a hill, on a flat stretch, etc. sometimes not) they do not learn to strongly associate the motor with an ability to slack off. Need an ATV you can turn off and on in neutral to pull this mind game off sucessfully, and a trail/road you can run in neutral much of the time. Its just an annoying noise behind them. With my dogs that HAVE learned to associate the motor with going faster and slacking off, I do the same thing now. Sometimes I rev the motor on a hill and they, upon hearing the motor, assume they are going to go faster and get help, and they do, but from each others, not the motor. Sometimes on a completely flat stretch I'll turn on the motor and the dogs reaction is to run faster, but they don't get any help from the motor, and still they pull harder. As long as no one tells 'em the difference I get alot more out of ATV training this way than if the dogs know they can slack off all the time with the motor running. I seem to have my Alaskan's fooled with this, but so far the Eskimo dogs and Sib's aren't willing to play.