One Third of a Dog

I realized I didn't get a chance to announce here that Grace is part of the family!  Well a third of her is at least!

My parents will be co-owning Grace as a potential breeding girl for her breeder!  Due to her puppiness and some complicated family matters, Grace is continuing to live at my house and will be for another few months.  

My optimistic plan is to continue training Grace in obedience and potentially show her in the obedience ring (and possibly agility) when she is older.  I am hoping that her foundations will solid enough by the time she moves in with my parents that the transition to less training time with me won't be much of a setback?!  

Grace has really grown up to a fantastic dog.  Very confident.  Super outgoing.  Eager to work.  Obsessive with cookies!

And so far not quite as gigantic as I had pictured!  Currently, she's 6.5 months old and the exact same weight and height as Zumi.

She is still a very clumsy girl and struggles with body awareness and unconscious drumming of her feet so many things are progressing slowly in her training. But I'm really having fun seeing her mature!

Right now the things I've been paying the most attention to are:

Marker cues: Pretty good with various food reward cues of coming to hand, chase a cookie, and reward from the dish.  We are just introducing a room service marker cue of waiting in place.

Chin rests/sticky targets: Not really on verbal cues, but an understanding of chin rests to my hand in front of her, chin rest to the floor, sticky target of the side of her face to my hand in heel position.  And she's doing well with learning to ignore my hand movements and touches in prep for exam work. 

Pivoting/heelwork:  Great understanding of how to move her body to be parallel.  Mainly working right now on getting her position further back so she's not forging.

Fronts: With a chin rest target she can pivot with me and side step and is working on short tosses.  

Position Changes: Using front and/or rear foot targets and right now all of her understanding is for front foot still criteria.  Of the 6 possible combinations, the only one not introduced is down to sit as I plan to do rear feet still for that.  This area is where we've had a lot of delays due to Grace's foot patters while waiting for cues or even in the offered stage.  But things are coming together and she's starting to get the verbal cues for sit/stand/down.  So far all the work has been in front of me, not yet in heel/side position.

Articles:  She has a fairly good understanding of doing a chin rest alert to a pile of metal lids.  Grace is a bit prone to giving up and guessing if she can't find the correct one quickly but we are seeing improvements. I've just started adding in canning rings as "distractions" and she's had 1 session learning to do a pile of canning rings and going to a retrieve alert.

Newer skills that I've started include:

- Go outs: Teaching a nose touch to the stanchion.  She really wants to arch to face the right side so I'm working against a wall and using reward placement to encourage her to stay straight as she touches.

- Marking: Transitioning from learning the cue/signal to look at food on a lid to marking an empty lid and nose touching it.

And I continue to wait for a puppy of my own!  The litter I was planning on had only boys and I know I do best with girls!  The wait continues for another potential litter but the mom was in a split-heat this February and wasn't able to be bred then...

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AKC Open

I'm a bit late with our AKC obedience trial report from last week.
Spoiler alert- things we have been working on were good!  1 Q.  But some stress.

We had 2 runs on Saturday in Open B.  Still experimenting with the B class with seeing how she does with not having heeling first and possibly having the retrieves separated.

I was very surprised when I arrived to see that Zumi was a lot more stressed than usual.  And by a lot I don't mean she was having a panic attack or was visibly worried to people who really didn't know her.
She sniffed a lot on our acclimation walks without encouragement from me. Usually I have to repeat my "go sniff" cue often and really encourage her to check out the grounds as I know she needs it but she thinks about wanting to work instead.  This was not the case at this trial!

Calmer in general.

The exact same location as the CDSP trial a few weeks ago, but the atmosphere is always different at AKC!  Or there's a possibility too of the weather effecting her.  It was cold, rainy, and I've been wondering if Zumi is developing some storm phobia with some weird issues she had last summer.

It wasn't enough that it effected her ability to do her ready to work protocol when I told her I was available.  And I hoped she would h

Trial #1
The first trial run had the cue discrimination exercise first.  Down-Stand-Sit.
Our first time doing stand at a distance in a trial!!  And since Zumi didn't want to lie down at her first AKC trials in open 6 months ago (for the "old" down get the leash), I used her "sad" (head down) cue that we have been working with lots of rewards.  I was super happy to see that she snapped down right away!  And no problem doing her stand!  Or sit.

Broad: Good.

Figure 8 and Heel:  Here is where she struggled.  Not horrible, but not great.  Mainly some lagging, especially with the figure 8.  The figure 8 needs to be a priority for our training going forward as apparently it's now a common area she gets a bit worried.  Especially after the child steward experience a few months ago.

Drop on recall, happy.

Retrieves: She stayed for both!  No dancing.  Squeal only over the jump, not on the flat.  And much better fronts!!!  And holds!

Stand stay/leash: Stood on cue!  Stayed! I think she may have taken a tiny step when I left??

So we passed for our 2nd Q in open.  Score not the greatest.  The judge was lovely and had quite a sharp pencil for everyone!

Trial #2
Different ring, different judge.
I was hoping she would be more comfortable but it was worse.  Heeling was laggier. Figure 8 especially was effected again.

On the positive side, she stood nicely on the cue discrimination (started in a stand) and on the stay get the leash.  We've been working on those stands with distractions!!  She did move a little bit though before I turned to face her before the cue discriminaton, no movement at all on the leash exercise.

Stayed on both retrieves, small squeal on the send again for the ROH only.  Nice holds.  Another win for training! AND I even had to do a rethrow for the ROH as I threw it too short and she called off!!!!  Came to me nicely and played while I waited!!!  Win for training again!

Nice transitions between exercises and setups!  Both trials!

What we failed on was exactly what she did at the CDSP trial- not staying in her sit for the drop on recall.  Just like the issue she was doing with the stands, now it just happened for the sit.
I turned around, saw her standing quite a way from where she was left, and threw up my hands to invite her to run to me.

Going Forward
I need to make it a priority to work Zumi in different environments, environments with pressure like AKC is for her.  Run throughs likely not going to happen as it's now almost an hour drive without traffic, and run throughs are of course during rush hour.

But what I can do is go to parks. Parking lots.  Home Depot.  Take Vito and the toddler too of course as they can't be left.

For the exercises themselves, I  know they aren't the main issue but training can still help both build value and replicate mild pressure to work though in a happy way!

- Figure 8's
- Stand stays
- Stays in general
- Retrieve calmness

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Zumi Obedience Update

Whew, it's been a busy last 2 months!

Here is where Zumi has been at with her obedience training.  Since the January AKC obedience trial where she moved on her stands or didn't stand on the fist cue, I've been trying to replicate that issue in practice.  My guess is it is a pressure issue with the judge.

In practice, I was occasionally successful early on with having someone exciting standing behind her, but overall she nailed it.

So I then moved to upping the excitement level and playing with rewards in front of her.  This did successfully replicate the problem of not standing on the first cue!

In addition to working on the stand, I continue to work on her db arousal issues.

Here's a compilation of a recent session with the stand and db:


This last weekend we had a CDSP trial and I'm happy to report that she didn't move at all on any of the 6 retrieves over 3 trials.  Good girl!! Still some squealing on each ROH, but not always on the flat.  She did do some mouthing of her db on the front, worse the first run of each day vs the 2nd run on Saturday.

Zumi did NQ in her run on Sunday due to moving on the DOR recall.  This was the first time she's done that to me in a sit, not a stand:



And here is Saturday's run where we did qualify!:



This weekend we have another AKC trial, the first since the January trial and it's at the same location.  This time I have 2 runs on Saturday.  Wish us luck!

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Grace 16wks

Puppy Grace is growing fast!  22lbs at 16wks of age! 

She is one nice puppy.  I am in love with how confident she is with absolutely everything.  LOVES people.  Loves climbing and stepping on things.  Great natural focus.

We are still working on potty training and not chewing things.  She hasn't been the easiest puppy in those regards, but at least she no longer will have an accident when crated!  Phew!

In training, the biggest thing Grace has struggled with is still feet.  She reminds me of a  miniature schnauzer (sorry schnauzers!) with how they like to "drum" when excited.  I don't think she's aware of her up and down foot movement at all and that's making it hard to train stillness of any type.  Even when her feet are on something she still moves them often.  My go to behaviors of chin rests, slow cookies and doggy zen work aren't helping much.  

So, for the most part, I'm skipping any work on position changes as even when folding into a down I don't like how her paw lifts up.  

Eye contact work with doggy zen games are also coming along very slowly as while she will offer looking it's with lots of that stupid drumming.  She's doing much better learning more active behaviors with the zen hand such as sending out around a cone or to a target.

And I guess since this is turning into the post of what is hard for Grace, I'll throw in retrieves too!  I was actually planning on teaching Grace the stationary hold first instead of my usual approach which teaches the pickup and movement to my hand first.  More so because it's a popular method and while I've used with a handful of dogs at work I haven't done the technique that much with puppies besides The Boykin.

Grace told me she wasn't going to be that puppy!  When I was trying to work on duration I just kept getting repeated crunching.  It's like she learned bite, bite again, bite again, "why aren't you rewarding me, I'm biting again!!"  vs bite and just keep your mouth on it.  So I went to slowly moving it away from her to try to get her to bite and really grip it as it's moving- a trick I've done often in the past.  Nope, lots of talented crunching while walking.  

Oh well.  Switching to teaching the movement piece first is going well.  She's picking it up really well and just starting to really target my hand.  I'll be going back to stationary holding pretty soon it looks like with how fast she's progressing!

The other big thing I'm playing with Gracie is the stuff from my Bye Bye Cookie class.  No emphasis on actually getting rid of rewards, just emphasizing that the reward can come from different places.  She's way more food obsessed than my other tollers and needs work on really thinking around the food!  Although looking back, I guess even puppy Zumi liked food more than toys so perhaps time just colors my perception!

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Rough Trials

This winter has not been especially great for Zumi's training!  Ice, fridgid temps, then snow dumps.  Excuses.

Obedience/Rally

Two weekends ago Zumi went to our CDSP obedience/ WCRL rally trial on Saturday.  2 runs in Open obedience, 1 run in rally.  

The first obedience run started a bit rough.  Not horrible, but a bit distracted on setups and some moving away from me.  We qualified, but it just wasn't a connected run.  

Oh and we had a rethrow again on the ROH jump that I didn't know about until we were waiting forever until Zumi finally couldn't take it and left me.  That's when I looked up and saw the judge was in the process of picking up the dumbbell.  She doesn't handle rethrows well to begin with, and having waited SO long with trying hard to not scream or leave early was just thrown out with her anticipation.

But overall I thought she had to poop. And I was right in that as soon as we went out she did poop.  

Then that didn't explain that her next run, rally, had similar qualities of meh heeling.  Not really distracted, just laggy.  

Her last run of obedience she seemed better.  Much more connected with me, more energy for sure.  But we didn't retrieve.  Not once. Zumi left me to walk several steps on the 1st retrieve.  So I called her back and was going to move on but the judge let me do it again.  Same thing, so I moved on without releasing Zumi.  Retrieve over the high, essentially my 3rd throw in the ring was the same thing.  I think it was a combination of a stressy day for her plus the added rehearsal int he first trial of leaving me without any cue on my part.

The bad news/good news is that I've been working on it with her this last week and have been able to replicate it.  If I let the dumbbell hit a wall so it makes an apparently exciting sound, she will start walking towards it.  So I've been having her lie down, I pick it up, and then come back to give her cookies and do some heeling before trying again. Not sure if that's a good approach for her or not!  I dont' want to create more stress with the exercise, but the same time I need it very clear that moving does not lead to a release....  Overall I'm trying to have more easy short reps than the ones I challenge her on.

UKI Agility

Then last weekend Zumi had a UKI trial.  And we had more issues with her startline/release.  This particular location seems very tough for her as I think all of her startline issues have started here.  This time it was worse as while she mostly actually stayed put (still difficulties with the initial stay after lining up, before I left), she ran around the first jump in her last run Saturday and 2 of her 3 runs on Sunday.  While Zumi has been known to do that, it's usually in a particular setup where I need to be at an angle on the lead out vs an approach like these courses had.

So not a great month so far!!!

I am curious and a bit scared to see how she will do the next 2 weekends. No trials this week. But I did end up entering her in an AKC obedience trial back on our home turf this coming weekend.  And then the following wekeend is USDAA at the location she usually stays well at!

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Zumi Open Obedience

Well last weekend Zumi has 2 more attempts in AKC Open!!  Spoiler alert, no Q's.  But quite a different dog than December's attempt with the lovely child steward!  No scared Zumi, instead a very very high Zumi!!!

The fact that our yard is an ice skating rink these last several weeks did not help.  In the little practice she has had, she has been back to squealing on her retrieves unless it's super close.  Quite the regression from where we had been at a few months ago.  So I was not optimistic that she would be calm and quiet in a trial setting.

This was also our first attempt at Open B.  I was hoping to see whether separating out the 2 retrieves from each other would help, as well as curious on how her heeling would be if it wasn't first.  She is a sensitive girl and doing the heeling with the judge and figure 8 pressure first isn't her favorite even if she can still do it well.

But Saturday's order had the retrieve over the high first. Apparently that did not help her!!  Whee!  I was impressed that Zumi was able to come back from almost running past me on her front to actually be decently straight! 

Drop on recall was good.
Cue Discrimination had a few steps after I left her on the stand, but better than October's trial.  No problem with stand-sit-down.

Heeling I was happier with.  Still some minor looking at the figure 8 stewards, but overall with me and happy. 

Retrieve on the flat was super high.  Squealing and then even dropped her dumbbell in front although she immediately grabbed it and fronted well. 

Broad jump she couldn't hold it together. Just had to walk after I left her.  Flashback to our agility stays which are supposedly fixed!

And the stand get your leash also had walking.

I'm not entirely sure if her walking is primarily an over arousal issue or primarily judge pressure. I'm assuming both, especially since she did this walking at our first attempt at open in October when she wasn't quite so high.

Overall I was really happy with this run.  Lots of stuff to fix but so many good things.  And good to see that her finishes were fixed too!

Sunday

Sunday was back to order 1 in the B class, so not really any feedback on what will be best for her.
She was a little bit more in control of herself which was good to see. But also slightly flatter.  The biggest thing that I didn't like was she had a hard time setting up for exercises.  Zumi's always had an issue of sitting too far back and this was a bit worse than usual.

Retrieves not much better. Lots of pattering and she even left before I cued the retrieve over the high as I was trying to really pause before sending her.
The worse was the holds.  Lots of rolling the dumbbell and I tried to wait her out before taking it because she had already NQed on the cue discrimination.

So cue discrimination she wouldn't do her down on the first cue. Usually this is her strength! 

Did do her stay before the broad jump at least.
But the stay on the stand-leash was worse.


Well we're skipping the next local trial. But we do have a CDSP obedience trial coming up in 2 weeks and then I'm looking at trying the March AKC trial

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Grace 10wks

Little Grace just turned 10 weeks old!  Things have been going very well other than the one crappy issue.  Pun intended.  As Grace is one of Those puppies who doesn't mind peeing or pooping in a small crate.

Her crate training has gone very well.  Her crate is right next to me in the bedroom or right near the action and she doesn't make a peep.  Even when she clearly has to go.

And it didn't help that after the first week she started to have some diarrhea issues! Ugh.
I got so sick of cleaning up a poopy crate and giving constant baths that I decided I'm done with the crate.  On the positive side, Grace loves her baths!

Until the issue is resolved we are only using an xpen to confine her most of the time.  At least that way she can have a bed on one and then wander over and poop at a different end. Hopefully preventing her from lying down in it and painting everything.

Despite the horrors of this issue, her potty training isn't going too bad.  She's one of the few dogs I'm choosing to use cookies with to reward her for potty outside, and we just go out a lot.  I always take puppies out a lot, and Grace is definitely going out more than just "a lot" most days.  There's no safe spot for her if she doesn't actually do anything outside and that's the most frustrating piece.  But she does seem to be getting it.  A few nights without an accident at least!

Netta's been very helpful in training her house manners too!  She likes to say "Grace!!" and then "chew bone" and runs to grab a toy when she sees Grace chewing something she shouldn't be!

She's been on some hamburger and rice the last week so not much training has been happening.  We have a bit of W/D I've been giving her occasionally as well, but things are looking better so hopefully we can resume training.

Mainly we are working on 2 skills
1. Put your feet on things.  2 feet on a perch, 4 feet on a platform, 4 feet in a box...

2. Learning to wait for her food dish cue.  My goal is to get her food bowl to the floor when I'm training and have Grace ignore it as I grab handfuls to train from.  Right now I'm starting this with the food bowl high and working on picking it up and setting it down in different locations.  When Grace turns to me I reward her lots but I'm not yet having any eye contact criteria.

As it gets lower, if she goes to it I try to quickly use my food hand to stop her and reward her for stopping, then move the bowl higher if that location still seems to hard.

I'm just starting to do some occasional reps of teaching her "get it" means run for the cookie tosses, keep ignoring the dish.

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2018 Wrap Up

2018 was a busy year!  The baby became a toddler.  Adam started a new job in the spring.  And we moved, not once but twice! 

The yearly video!


Zumi
Zumi had a big year.  We traveled in agility for our first overnight trip to the midwest UKI cup in Wisconsin, and then our bigger trip just last month to Florida.  She didn't do that great on paper, but I thought she handled the exciting environments really well!  We still have a long way to go in agility for my handling to keep up with her and for continually fixing her startine!

In obedience, we continued to work hard on fixing her arousal issues with her dumbbell retrieve.  And mostly we were successful in practice.  Unfortunately, after over a year of work she *can* still squeal even in practice.  So while I didn't give up on my mission to work on it in practice, I decided that I was going to be OK with knowing she would squeal in a trial and take the points for it.

So we started trialing in AKC Open this October and Zumi has done 3 days of trials now.  I discovered that she actually doesn't always squeal in a trial on each retrieve!  And discovered some exercises that weren't as solid as I thought.  Zumi's down from a sit was broken.  And her stand stay was a bit broken when left near a judge.  While I thought she's done really well at her shows, we have just 1 Q to show for it.

Vito
Vito finally hit the big 10!!  Double digits for the Toller! 

Vito still is running in agility, just at 16in in UKI and 14in in USDAA.  He's running well and earned his UKI championship in the select class this year.  Mostly he's down to 2 runs a day and often just one day of a trial.  He could do more physically still, just a combination of money and well Vito has always been a happy couch dog vs agility dog. 

He also did some CDSP obedience again this year at handful of local shows.  Overall doing very well and happy on most exercises.  The gloves remains an issue, primarily if sent to the side that the steward is standing on.  But I'm thrilled with how happy he's being and how he's mostly nailing his signals! 

Lance
First half of the year was pretty similar to the last few years.  Some fun coming out for a small handful of WCRL rally trials and barking lots.  Very sassy.

The move from our old house to my parent's basement in April was hard on him.  Lots of stairs and while I tried to carry him often it was difficult to do consistency.  I already was carrying the child up and then another trip for any dishes/laundry and the corgi was just doing the stairs more often than I'd like.  He really seemed to feel the impact.

And then in August, shortly after our final move, he suffered what is likely another disc issue in his back, just not as severe as the original one that forced his early retirement several years ago.  While this one wasn't as bad, his recovery from it hasn't been as great either. He's still sassy and still hides any physical issues really well when out and about at work or if I bring him to visit others at a trial.  But at home he's having a harder time with finding the motivation to get up out of a dog bed to go outside.  Unfortunately, he also likes being in the basement at our new house. At least it's only a half set of stairs down and then he waits at the bottom to be carried back up.

I'm not sure if he's going to be doing any WCRL trials in 2019 or if he's officially retired.

Fosters
We started out the year with Pippa, the goldador.  We had Pippa for 6 weeks, 6 weeks longer than I wanted to!   Her goldeny personality did not mesh well with me!  She's a good dog though and will hopefully make a great service dog someday!

And this was the first year we've had a puppy in the house in awhile!  In April we picked up Splash the Boykin spaniel puppy!  Unfortunately, due to medical reasons (growth plate issues) he was career changed from the service dog program and we found him a home shortly after we moved into our new home this August.  Splash taught me a lot about management to prevent a puppy from ingesting things!  And it was interesting working with a spaniel's focus outside! 

Then we had Speckles the tiny terrier for a few months while he waited for a client to be their hearing dog. 

And now we have a puppy again!  This time little Grace is not a service dog in training, just an opportunity for me to start a puppy and see how she grows out for her breeder!

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Puppy Grace!

Puppy!! 

 Not my puppy, but I do get to start her for a few months!  The definition of "few" isn't worked out yet :)

Her name is Grace and she's from Zumi's breeder.  Actually, she's a puppy from Cougar!  Cougar is the little mountain lion I had for just over a month when she was around 4 months old, 2.5 years ago!

Cougar puppy!

Grace is a pretty calm, snuggly puppy, but has actually surprised me with her puppy spunkiness too.  Cougar was quite low key for just 4 months old and so far Grace seems a bit more animated.  It'll be interesting to see how it progresses!

The first 3 days have mainly revolved around crate training.  Crate training is the one thing I just hate about puppies!  Grace has quite a large lung capacity and had no problem screaming or whining for hours, but at the same time she's actually quite relaxed.  

Grace will eat treats at anytime, and doesn't look remotely panicked in her fits.  Just upset!  

Most of the time we've worked on the xpen as an easier introduction to being crated.  She really is progressing quickly and I expect that in 2 more days she will be completely fine crated or penned.  Easy puppy. And she's apologized for ruining Netta's nap!

 I've also slowly started the process of having Grace learn to wait patiently while other the other dogs get "trained."  She gets to wait in her xpen while I drop in cookies and do super easy stuff with another dog at mealtime.  Lots of cookies for Grace, nothing exciting happening with the other dogs.

Since I don't do station training with my dogs, they just get to roam around while another is trained, as long as they don't get in the way, the plan will eventually be the same for Grace.  This skill is a big priority for me as I feel I can't devote even my tiny mealtime training with the dogs until the new kid has the rules down!

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UKI Trial- We can qualify!

Last trial of the year!!! And Zumi's first trial back since the UKI open. 

Saturday was apparently the best trial she's ever had.  4 runs, 4 qualifying scores, and all beautiful.  She ran fast and clean.  I've never felt so excited as I did on Saturday!!!  We actually qualified in a jumping round!!
Here's jumpers and "agility":



But our startline sucked.  Walking on the first run up a few feet before stopping and sitting when I looked back.  The rest she didn't walk but major vulchering to the point of lying down and squealing. 

The sad thing is I know exactly why we have this issue and I know how to fix it.  It keeps cropping up, I keep fixing it, but then I let it slide again and surprise surprise.  I need to make it a priority.  I don't let her actually break before my cue in practice, but I don't emphasize pausing before my release and I'm sure she's gone on my inhalation and movement many times.  The good news is that it always starts rearing it's head in practice vs it being a "trial only" issue of over arousal.

Sunday was not so well.  More startline issues, worse than Saturday of course!  And while errors were all my fault, there were lots of errors.  We managed to run clean in the last of 5 runs, others all off courses, usually multiple!

Here's our standard/agility run!



Vito came along on Sunday for the Masters Heat challenge runs.  Such a good boy.  He always makes me feel better about my handling :) 

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TEAM 4 Baseline

I decided to seize today's nice weather and Daddy napping with the toddler to actually train my dog!  Win for me!

I decided to look at the TEAM 4 test behaviors to train some new things and yet still have a ton of carryover for our AKC Open prep work.

We haven't officially put anything together yet for this test but I was confident that she had the foundations necessary for it.  Indeed looking over the test items today it was more so the putting together of the various chains that were new for us, not the skills themselves.

So I decided to take a baseline.  Run through the test and see where she was at:


1. Send to target with distractions, position changes, recall.
Send to target between distractions went well!  I know Zumi can struggle with this and we've done quite a bit of work on it in the past.  3 position changes on a single cue, check.  We've been working those cue discriminations for open and it paid off here. I just have to remember to pause longer!

Recall on a hand signal only- oops.  Zumi "knows" this but apparently not well enough to do it out of context.  Recall signal after a go out and with her toys out just wasn't there.

2. Big figure 8 around distractions.
This one surprised me!  Zumi left the distractions alone fairly nicely.  Well I guess she did almost try to steal one after the exercise finished from the previous exercise!  But the big problem here was stopping as we heeled!

In her defense, we have been practicing our moving sits, moving stands, and moving downs recently!

3. Retrieve and pivoting away.
This one is just so hard for Zumi!  She squealed, but did ultimately turn with me both times.
And then spat out the dumbbell, likely due to all the snow in her mouth!

4. Moving stand, drop, return to heel.
Good girl on the actual exercise. But a lot of auto marking ahead before we started!  We'll  have to work on doing heeling starting out towars the go out area!

Here we took quite a big break.  I'm not sure what grabbed Zumi's attention but she clearly wasn't ready to work.   I thought it might have been the 2nd retrieve item the way she was searching but I'm just not sure!  Either way, I tried to be patient as I told her to take a break, and then yet another break when she wasn't really ready again.

5. Backup-position change- broad jump
This was the exercise I was the least certain about.  I'm sure I've backed her up in front of a jump but not enough to have her think!  I was actually surprised that she did catch my cue eventually and back up vs just jumping!
Didn't sit on the first cue though!

6. Articles.
Good girl!  I've actually practiced articles a small handful of times the last few months which is much more than usual for me!  She had no problem in the snow.


I was pretty pleased!  Big takeaways to work on are:
- recall signal with distractions out and after a send away.
- pivoting away from a thrown item with more confidence, less conflict.
- actually heeling, not stopping!
- backup cue when in front of a jump.
- heeling starting from the go out spot.

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Open Obedience

Well we went to the AKC obedience trial today!  Zumi was entered in Open A for her 2nd trial.

I was both happy and worried when I saw that the steward for Open was a child.  A lovely young girl who did a great job stewarding all day!

It's just that Zumi wasn't well socialized to kids and she's very nervous by them.  A recurring them in some past problems we have had with Zumi working in both agility and obedience trials.  A problem that is purely my problem, not a fault of the club and certainly not a problem that she was there stewarding.

I was optimistic that since the girl was older we would be fine.  I could keep Zumi in "drive" and hopefully have her not even notice her.

That didn't' happen.  Zumi saw her right away as we were getting ready to enter the ring and started worrying.  She recovered really well as we got to run to the heeling setup spot and heeled relatively well.  Some lagging. A few glances to the steward table, and a brief moment where she cut behind me to heel on the wrong side.  But trying hard and playing with me before the figure 8 setup.

Then a little worse.  Zumi needed to sniff the girl and did some ducking away.

At the start of the cue discrimination, she was still a little worried and not able to focus on my first cue to stand.  NQ.

But then I was really proud of how she pulled it together!
No squealing on the first retrieve!  Just a tiny squeal on the retrieve over the high.

She did her down from a sit for the stay, complete with a "sad" chin rest!

Lesson learned for me.  If there is a child steward, even an older one, I should just pull.  Zumi tries hard, but she can't quite handle it.  And it's certainly not worth pairing that stress with a trial!

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Obedience Training

I happen to have entered Zumi in an AKC obedience trial this coming weekend.  Apparently, I didn't really plan well with training time.  Looking at the calendar, the only practice we've had outside of my small living room since the October trial was one. The week after.

I get the building once a week before teaching classes.  But my night is Wednesdays and then it was Halloween, leaving to travel to Florida without me a few days early, staying another 4 days with friends driving her back, then the Thanksgiving holidays.  That leaves this Wednesday as our 2nd practice in over a month.

Unfortunately, it's shown with her arousal in retrieves again.  I just doodle on little things before dinner, mainly fronts and finishes.  The occasional retrieve has had more whining and even worse, back to some jolting forward on the throw. 

Zumi really needs her ball reward for dumbbell retrieves, not food!  The higher value ball reward actually helps to calm her excitement for the dumbbell as well as more satisfying victory laps to relieve some energy.

At least I feel like I'm tackling her other issues that showed up in the trial.

Down from a sit for the stay exercise was almost non existant in the trial.  She needed a 2nd cue on all 3 trials, even with a stupid hand point.  So I practiced added a little more excitement to the down, getting her used to hand point as I almost never do it, and adding in her "sad" chin rest to the ground to make it more of a trick. Plus "sad" is more down than down and it never hurts to teach "more"!

And then her finishes.  This isn't just a trial issue as it certainly shows up in practice.  On the left finish she usually is great, but sometimes can be a little wide.  So I'm doing left finish + side step.

And on the right finish, we do consistently have the problem even in practice where she doesn't come far enough, tucks her butt behind me.  It's why I rarely do it in a trial.  For this I started doing lots of cookie tosses forward before she fully completes the finish.  Also mixed in some right pivots so she has to go further than expected to come up to heel.

Here was Saturday's session on the down and finishes:

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UKI US Open

Zumi and I headed down for our first agility championship event, the US Open, last week.  While I had taken Lance to the AKC obedience invitational I had  yet to do any type of big agility event before now!  Vito's car anxiety kinda limits how far we usually go.  But Grandma had Vito and the toddler all week to let me fly down to our first big event and Zumi hitched a long drive down with friends!

She even got to hit the beach the day before the trial started to run with border collies!

The event unfortunately had us in the group where our very first run of the weekend was the official "Round 1" national run.  I expected Duckie to be really high and a little whee! with obstacle scoping and handled it with layering a jump in order to get further ahead for a blind. 

Zumi had other plans in apparently being just the tiniest bit lower in arousal than usual and a little sticky.  She got the layer in the sense she didn't come in, but she also didn't take the jump on the other side.  I really wish we had a do-over after seeing that this bit of stickiness was a constant for her runs! 

Overall I thought she did an incredibly great job with the environment. She held all her stays over 4 days and 9 runs.  She ran fast.  And except for the very last run of the weekend, we actually had zero "off courses" that weren't just a skipped obstacle in the sequence. 

Mainly it was just me struggling with maintaining the amount of connection with her that she needed.

I can't wait until next year!  And hopefully I'll actually get some regular training sessions in with a slightly older child once the ground is thawed again!

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10 Years

Vito is officially a double digits dog.  He's finally 10 years old!  Vito has been going on about 14yrs old for several years now, going grey at the age of 5.  There have been numerous moments over the last 10 years where I didn't think he would ever make it to this age.  I thought for sure we would have to say goodbye to Vito at a young age. 

Yet we made it.  And he's taught me more than any other dog will ever teach me.  Has launched my passion for creating ring confidence in dogs.

And I truly can't imagine loving another dog more than I love Vito.

Vito's 10th year also marks the 10th anniversary of this blog. I started this blog to chronical my training journey with a new puppy and my adventures in discovering dog sports.  It evolved to include many more puppies from dogs I puppy raised to be service dogs, fosters, a returned puppy, a Zumi, and much more stories.  It hasn't always been kept up over the years but it's still kinda kicking after 10 years!


Happy belated Halloween from the crew and my mini kling-on. 

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Zumi AKC Open!

Well we did it!  Zumi and I entered our first AKC trial in a year, our first time in Open, and my first time with the new rules last weekend.  2 attempts on Saturday, 1 on Sunday.

My goals for her this last weekend were
1. Confidence.  Zumi is my sensitive girl and while she's even half of what Vito is in terms of anxiety, she is sensitive.  The AKC atmosphere isn't easy for her.  So I was hoping for heeling that was energetic and the ability to not worry about the judge.

2. Duration :)  aka not anticipating anything.  The retrieves were my biggest worry of course.
I had officially given up on not getting squeals on her sends in a trial environment. Practice is actually going very well, but it's also still very easy for me to replicate a squeal if I wanted to!  1.5yrs of working on the squeal and we haven't yet made it.  So I said it is what it is, we will keep practicing on not squealing, and we will start showing too.   I was hoping for eye contact before I sent her, and no actual anticipation.

And I'm happy to say that both goals were met!!!  Zumi had perfect ring entrances with energy and focus on me during the leash removal, transitions, and I didn't catch any worries at all with the judge!

Heeling/8- Her heeling wasn't super drivey, but she was right with me on all 3 heel patterns.  We had a minor issue on the figure 8 in the first trial with a small lag the first quarter, and a bigger issue on the 3rd trial with it. 

I was also an idiot during that trial and went left with her on the figure 8 when I should have gone right.  I always go right.  Right for drivey dogs, because why not!, and right with more laggy dogs because I want them to practice getting up and going.  I might get a lag right away, but I tend to get better recovery.  Going left I think stressed her a little and then we just didn't get our get up and go on so she crossed to my right after the first loop.

Cue discrimination-  All very solid in terms of position changes!!!  I even did one trial with signals only!   We did discover a minor issue of walking on the stand stay after I left. Well minor on trial 1, major on trial 2- basically no stay at all, and back to minor on trial 3.

Drop on recall- All beautiful.  Well on the 2 she stayed.  Because clearly related to the other exercise, Zumi didn't want to stay while I walked away.

Retrieve on flat-  All eye contact before the send!  Some without dancey feet!  And 1 of them had no squeal (trial 2)!!!!

Retrieve over high- All with eye contact!  Trial 3 had no squeal!  We had some punching on the fronts though :)

Broad: No problem cutting the board and I generally stood in the middle.

Sit stay: No issues. 

Down stay: did not want to lie down on the first cue.  all 3 trials needed a 2nd cue. I even gave an exaggerated down signal on the 3rd trial and nothing.   No problem with me leaving and getting my leash though.

So 2 NQ's and 1 should have been NQ but ended up a Q.  The last trial I screwed up and blurted out "down" as I gave a hand signal to lie down.  Well actually it was my hand that blurted up as I planned on the verbal.  I immediately recognized my mistake.  When I talked to the judge after the show I thought I was discussing that error and she told me it was considered a substantial deduction, but not an NQ.  But I realized when I got home that I think we were discussing different things.  I'm pretty sure she thought I was asking about the repeated cue to lie down on the stay-get your leash exercise, not the accidental double cue on the drop on recall!  Oh well.

Trial 2, I thought this was her best one!

And Sunday's trial.  Our worst one.

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0 for 10

Zumi had her last UKI trial this weekend before the US open cutoff.  And actually her last UKI trial before the big event.  I was hoping for those 3 stupid jumper Q's and the trial scheduled lent itself well those opportunities!  Between the master heat jumpers and the regular jumpers, she had 2 jumpers Friday, 3 jumpers Saturday, and 1 Sunday.

Spoiler alert, it didn't happen. Not once.

Apparently, Zumi has some weave pole issues.
Mostly not entering.  Either entering at the 3rd pole or running alongside the poles like she doesn't know what to do with them.

We had several would be clean runs that ended with weave pole faults.  :(

And then we had one run on Saturday that had a mini meltdown where Zumi went off course right before the weaves, went off course after the weave and then as she returned to me and I tried to keep handling she couldn't do anything.  Wouldn't jump.  So I took a few seconds to have her jump in the air and reconnect with her and then she finished strong.

sensitive girl.

The last run on Saturday I chose to do a NFC, aka toy run.  It was a jumpers run and I rewarded her weaves (which she nailed just fine) with a ball. Did some more things, then had her weave again when she also did just fine.

Sunday she only had speedstakes (no weaves) and jumpers (weaves) but she could weave just fine.
She must have been feeling sassier as she broke her startline on speedstakes and my handling to try and make up for it was too late.  And on jumpers she had a beautiful run and then took an off course tunnel right at the end before the weaves that no other dog took.  Avoiding weaves? or just unlucky?  She nailed the weaves with her new made up course.

Overall I'm really happy with how she handled on the courses this long weekend.  Lots of beautiful moments.  A few crappy handling moments on my part, but overall

I guess we have some training to do.

I can't say we've done much agility training at all in the last 2 years :(   Obedience has suffered as well, but is still generally easier to do tiny bits at a time, even with a toddler needing to climb you.

And in semi related news, I am going to try to commit myself to a running program if I can squeeze it in or can make it work with a stroller.  I'm not a huge fan of running but would like to not be so out of shape!  No issues with weekend trials, but I'm thinking about those long, long courses that could be present in November!

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Zumi TEAM 3

Zumi earned her TEAM 3H title!  It's been difficult to make time to practice any element, let alone the whole thing so Netta accompanied us. 



Level 3 is so much fun!  It's really where all of the foundation behaviors start to come together and you actually look like you're doing real obedience!

In the "H" level, Zumi is limited with rewards (just the distraction reward by the retrieve and then the very end) and it's supposed to be at a place you haven't submitted before.  Well outside our house is both new in that we just moved(!) and new in that I haven't had to do an outside one yet.    As we go into the 4-6honors level we will have to visit new parks or training centers to film!

TEAM 4 will actually be great prep for AKC open!  It will have work on focusing and being calm after a dumbbell throw (as you have to pivot away from it, throw a 2nd one, then pivot back!).  And has quite a bit of position change work that should help the new cue discrimination exercise in open, as well as figure 8 work aroudn distractions, and a broad jump.

The biggest thing we will be focusing on this next month, besides TEAM4, will be Zumi's drop on recall.  Apparently we are goign through a bit of anticipation issues right now with Zumi dropping or just stopping on the recall, before I cue the drop.  A very normal phase!  Just one I wasn't expecting as I thought I worked through that last year!  Apparently when you don't really practice it much at all and the dog isn't 100% solid on it then problems come back ;)

I have decided that I'm going to enter Zumi (well if we can fix the DOR!) in our club's AKC trial the end of October.  Her arousal with the retrieve is pretty darn good in practice now.  Not 100% but close to it with not vocalizing or pattering her feet.  And I'm honestly not sure I will ever be able to fix it for a trial environment.  We will keep working on it and keep shooting for reaching a 95%+ in practice.  And then I'm ok with the "it is what it is" mindset for trials.  At least that's where I'm at right now.

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All the Things

Wow, life has gotten busy and summer is almost over!  Here are the last month's happenings!

We sold our house, moved out of my parent's basement where we had stayed for just over 3 months, and moved into our new house.  It was kinda a disaster but things are finally coming together now.  Lots and lots of cleaning.  New floors in the basement.  Appliances that work.  Fenced yard and a potty yard.

The Boykin finally got adopted a few weeks ago!  And yes I did manage to teach him a hold, and a stand, in case you were wondering about his progress :)  I even started working on moving from a stand and hold to a sit and hold for fun!  And more importantly, his new family just adores him.

And now my current foster is a cute litter terrier, Speck, who hopes to be a hearing alert dog!  Aside from some minor terrierness fun, he is an incredibly easy dog to live with.  A welcome change from Splash's high level of training and management needed!

Oh and I got a chinchilla for my birthday!  Meet Kix!

Training wise, still not doing much with my own dogs :(  

Zumi has been able to do more TEAM work though this last month and I'm happy to say she earned her TEAM 3 title and I'm waiting to hear back on her TEAM3H title!  Level 3 is really fun!

I've done a few agility trials with her the last few weeks in attempts to finish up the last 3 jumpers Q's she needs to pre-qualify for UKI's championship, the US Open.  Unfortunately, we seem to be cursed with beautiful runs and then a dropped bar, or I miscue a jump and get a backside instead, or don't get the backside, or...  So still 3 jumpers legs needed and just 1 trial left.  Between the masters heat series and the normal championship level runs we will actually have 6 chances over the 3 days for a needed 50% Q rate.  Which is still 100% higher than our current Q rate in jumpers.

On the other hand, Vito earned his UKI championship title for the "select" division last month!  The IWACs!

The Corgi has struggled a bit these last few weeks.  We're pretty sure he either slipped another disc or has swelling, or something going on with his lower back.  On the positive side, he already started improving in a week before he had his vet appointment.  And he's certainly feeling better being on carprofen!  He's on a bit of rest right now and then we will reevaluate things next week!

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Problem Solving a Stand

I've been working with Splash the foster Boykin spaniel for several weeks now in reinforcing standing.  He was dealt a very bad structure (early closing growth plates) and standing is not something he naturally wants to do.  Splash very much wants to sit. 

So I've been reinforcing just waiting in a stand a lot.  A lot.  I  hate auto sits in how it makes pivoting so difficult!  And we've come a long way in Splash at least learning that waiting in a stand pays. 

I thought a higher reinforcement history for standing would make it easier to actually teach the action of a kickback stand.  But we still struggled with my usual methods.  He has an awkward body and I just wasn't communicating what I wanted well.

Back to the drawing board.  I decided to introduce the idea of a rear foot target to get a kickback stand.  I know many people have taught a stand simply by capturing the beginning of a dog backing up.  It hasn't personally been my method as I really like the picture that front feet completely still offers but I thought I would try to blend the 2. 

It was a fascinating progression over several sessions!  But now Splash will offer a stand with a front foot target, no rear foot target needed.



While Splash will also now offer a kickback stand without any target, I'm finding I still want a front foot target as he has some tiny backing up in there without it.  I'm not sure if that's because of the initial rear foot target work or because of his structure.

Right now we are working on actually getting the verbal cue attached before going back to getting rid of the target.

On a side note, Splash is available for adoption for anyone local to Minnesota!  He has been career changed from the service dog program due to his legs.

And on another side note, registration for my Stand with Me class at FDSA opens tomorrow!!!  We can talk anything about stands from teaching a stand in heel or at a distance to getting a dog comfortable with an exam!

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