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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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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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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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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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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Dumbbell Distance!

I think we're really making progress now with Zumi's retrieve arousal levels! 

I just started using a front foot target to have her wait on and that really seems to be gettign that weight shift back to prevent the foot dancing.  I've used a platform before without success, but I don't know why I didn't think of the perch!

Look at how far I can throw it now!


Her stand is coming along too.  Mainly we're working on anticipation issues now. 
I'm still using a bar in front of her and know I will need to for quite awhile.  Stupid retraining of styles! 

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Obedience Run Throughs

I have been trying to motivate myself lately to attend some obedience run throughs/open ring time with Zumi.  She needs the practice in not only training with a slightly more formal atmosphere, but feeling some of the stress in the air that usually accompanies such events.

One of the club holds the run throughs every Friday, I just haven't been motivated to drive the 40 minutes in rush hour so sadly Zumi has never been.  Until last week that is!  Yay for me!
I did 2 runs, one in the open ring and one in the utility ring.  And then yesterday I had the opportunity to do another run through at a closer location!  It was much quieter though, so while it was still great practice it didn't have that stressful atmosphere.

Run Through Set #1
Last week's run through started out with more ring confidence and play work before diving into some little bit of training.  Since Zumi was focused and happy I decided to move on to see how her dumbbell work would be in the environment.  I tried to be good and just do 5 foot throws.  And I'm very happy to report no vocalizing!!!  And giving me great eye contact too!  On the downside, she was really vulturing again and moving her front feet forward.


In the utility ring I decided to do more of a modified run through.  This turned out to be a mistake for her.  It wasn't bad by any means, but even with the modifications, she made more mistakes than I would like in that environment.

Good:
Signals were good! But I reset a turn.  Not sure if it was the pressure of a judge following or if it was due to my footwork as I told the judge I wanted just a short down and back heeling pattern and she added in a turn. 
Articles were great!  I used 5 of her lids and she nailed the nose touch alert even with the judge standing there!

Meh:
Gloves she didn't quite see it and ended up veering off of #3 to go to the side gate.  On the redo she nailed it.  I already know I haven't really practiced gloves with Zumi in pretty much forever.

Go out I started half way and she veered off to the stanchion to the right.  On the redos she did well. But needed extra help to get the jumps on the return.  An issue that was surprisingly common for her in training when I was actually training it...  I thought I had fixed it but it's also been a long time since I've done any directed jumping work.

Run through Set #2
Yesterday's event was pure open ring, no judge.  And it was pretty quiet.  I started my time in the Open ring with more of what I did at the other location.   But this time I had her toy left behind on the table.

I did 2 drop on recalls with her and on the first attempt I used just a hand signal.  Zumi slowed but didn't start to drop so I happily interrupted it.  As we raced playfully back to the other side Zumi got a little too wound up with barking and I had her do some sticky targets to calm her down.  I was pretty proud of her for how well she was able to the duration nose touch and relax herself.

The retrieve work was about the same as last week's run through.  No squealing, but moving her front feet.  I chose to walk out and set the dumbbell on the ground for her 3 short attempts.

In the utility ring I did more training again.  I noticed issues with Zumi heeling into a gate and quickly reset two times.  Something I haven't noticed at all with her in practice but will be trying to work on again with her.

Signals Zumi had issues with taking steps after I left her.  Another issue I  haven't noticed at all in practice!

Articles I decided to test her with her rings instead of the flat plates.  She scented and then just grabbed on the first rep, but then did 2 nice ones for me.  Didn't look too frantic at least but she did fumble the return on the last one!

Go outs were interesting.  No squealing, yay!!!  But she was doing a wide arch to her left.  If anything Zumi's issue has always been wanting to do a slight diagonal to the right, not an arc and certainly not the the left!
And then she was wanting to do a fake touch and immediately come back for the reward vs waiting out there for me to deliver the reward.  At one point she even offered a handstand to the gate.  What are you thinking Zumi?!!  Of course I'm not really surprised with the lack of confidence on this exercise considering it's one of the 3 big areas we've been working on (articles, go outs, retrieves!) with her arousal issues.

Funniest go out at 4:35!


My goal this year is to get myself out and about more with Zumi's obedience.  I just haven't been that committed to get her obedience skills really trained and certainly not in different locations.  I would like to make it to the Friday night run throughs once a month with her.

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Stand retraining

I officially decided that I am going to be retraining Zumi's stand at a distance.  Zumi has understood a verbal only stand cue since she was a puppy. 

She actually has 2 cues.  "Stand" which was supposed to mean kick the rear feet out and keep the front feet still.  And "Pop" which means lift the front feet in the air and land in a stand. 

Zumi added the flair of all 4 feet popping up in the air so I never really got to the stage of defining if I wanted her to walk the back feet out behind her when her front feet were lifted (like I traditionally teach the pop) or if I wanted the rear feet still so the front feet would pop forward. 

In heel position, she has a pretty solid verbal discrimination.  In front of me I let the criteria blur.  I didn't want walking, it had to be a true stand with 2 feet completely still.  But I let her kinda blur the style lines.  Zumi started adopting more of her "pop" style with less flair, so only the front feet lifting.  And since I hadn't defined that for her it meant she did it with rear feet still and front feet forward.  An ok style.

But since there never was any real reason to have a stand at a distance for obedience, I again kinda let criteria slide so that sometimes Zumi moved just a few inches with her back feet.  Not bad, but certainly something that would start to break down with the pressure of a trial.

So a few months ago I went about trying to fix that with a rear foot target to isolate her back feet, and/or reward placement with her reward behind her.  But while Zumi was doing very well, I was finding it really hard to see what exactly she was doing.  Did the back feet move a little bit or not?

And that led to me scrapping the whole thing and starting over.  This time I'm going for front feet still, rear feet kick back.  Much easier for me to see at a distance. 

Usually I would go to a front foot target, but that didn't go over very well with Zumi.  She's so used to rear feet criteria that her brain wasn't handling the switch.  Platforms are also just a big rear foot target for her.

A piece of broken pvc from a jump standard was brought into my house a few weeks ago for my jump bar in the TEAM tests.  It made a nice "L" and I adopted it for a very sad looking PVC box. 
My new target.

Here was today's session on using it.  She's had a handful of sessions already with the box to learn that I didn't want her front feet to move forward.  Zumi does make that error x2 here and I have her back into the box to eat her cookie.  I also make the dreaded "just one more" rookie mistake!

In February I am going to be teaching another session of my Stand with Me class at FDSA.  A class 100 % devoted to all things stand from teaching a stand cue to teaching the exam!  This session will be the first time I talk about getting a stand at a distance.  Preparation for the new AKC open exercise command discrimination!

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Pivot update

Zumi and I are still working on those pesky left pivots.  I think we are making progress although I admit it's super hard to see what her butt is doing without a mirror!

Incidentally, I discovered that she is way better at keeping parallel when I use a toy as a reward instead of food! Our house is too small to train with a toy though so those sessions are limited to at the training club and before her agility class.  

Here is our progress from tonight. Lots of butt behind still, but getting there!

We continue to plug along in our control around the dumbbell.  While progress is even slower, we are at least continuing to improve.  Zumi hasn't vocalized on our db send in awhile and I've even done a few very short tosses over a jump.  However, distance still needs to be very short or she starts vulturing again and has a hard time offering me that focus in order to be sent. 

I am continuing to only do dumbbell sends with a toy reward as for whatever reason that has been our biggest breakthrough!  

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2017 Year in Review

Another year ending.  This last year was a huge change in our household with the addition of a tiny human! 

Zumi

Zumi had a hectic year.  Several breaks in training due to her heat cycle, being bred, becoming a mother, and then getting spayed.  It was just sporadically broken up over 7 months!  

I still tried to train in as much training, and trials, as we could during our times together.  

Agility

In USDAA Zumi nabbed all 3 advanced standard legs she needed to move up to the masters level in all games.  I was grateful she did it before the puppies came!

In UKI Zumi kept searching after those 3 standard legs to get out of novice and into senior.  1 little thing kept popping up and preventing it from happening.  But finally the last trial of the year she did it!  1 from the masters heat class even to count towards her novice title!

I'm excited to get to play with the higher level courses in 2018!  My goal is to attend my first national agility event next year.  right now I'm planning for the UKI Open!

Obedience

In obedience, we had a bit of a setback.  Well, a big set back.  And all the time off certainly didn't help.  Zumi started having vocalization issues on her retrieves.  And then that spilled into go outs.  And I decided to go all the way back to the beginning with her scent article training due to Zumi's tendancy to just grab when she couldn't find the article right away.   

Looking back at old video, I can't see any hint of vocalizing on the retrieves last year, but it started to creep in the beginning of this year.  I didn't really pay notice of it until the CDSP trial in July where I put her in Open for the first time to see how she would handle it.  That, of course, was a disaster in terms of vulturing, and whining on all her sends away from me. 

And now we're still working on.  Progress has been extremely slow and frustrating.  

We did end up doing our first AKC obedience trial to get her 3 novice legs.  Due to her recent issues I I wasn't planning on it, but knew the provisional judge needed the numbers.  At least I'm happy to say that she's out of novice forever now!  I am hoping to show in Open after the new rules take effect, but at the rate we are progressing that's quite the stretch goal!

Vito

Agility

Vito miraculously earned his last Super Q needed in USDAA to earn his ADCH!  I was planning on this being his last spring/summer jumping 20in, so after he earned his championship title I moved him down to 16in.  He doesn't really seem any different at 16 vs 20/22 in terms of excitement, it's really just how he's feeling at the moment!

In UKI Vito also earned his championship IAC title.  A big year for Vito!

I don't really have goals of getting the performance versions of the championship titles so we will just continue playing in a very small number of runs per day and mainly do my favorite classes of the masters heat/challenge series in both organizations.  

Obedience

This was actually a pretty big year for Vito in obedience too.  It was the first year I didn't try an AKC with him at all, just CDSP.  And while Vito was Vito, he really did well for me.  I only did utility with him this year and he was happy in each of his runs!  We had some issues with the gloves in being worried about the stewards on the side, or just doubting his choice. But otherwise Vito was pretty darn consistent in every exercise!

Next year I want to continue to play in CDSP Utility and maybe even try doing 2 runs a day.  I still dream of going back to AKC, but I'm content to let Vito lead me.

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Dumbbell Progress?

It's been 2 weeks since my discovery of Zumi better able to handle sends to her toy vs sends to a food reward.  We don't work on it as much as I like, but she's gotten roughly 2-3 session a week on it.  

Baby steps. Tiny baby steps.

But at least I actually feel like things are going int he right direction again instead of getting worse!

I'm currently telling her wait and takign a step forward to toss the toy or db.  She'll still move that front foot to vulture sometimes, but not always and that's definetly improvement.

I'm still doing reps of marking the toy with reps of focusing on me before the db.  I'm also usually throwing the toy now instead of pre-placing it.  I figured since she's better with the thrown toy vs the thrown db (that's weird Zumi!) I might as well keep getting practice with tosses!

Distance is still a huge deal with her db.  I got 1 squeal release this week when I pushed the distance just a little too far.  Here are our 2 sessions this week:

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Problem Solving Vocalization

I've been continuing to work with Zumi with trying to clear up her confusion and get rid of the vocalizing on her mark and retrieves.  But even with going all the way back to marking a food bowl and sending from only 5 feet I still was getting whining on the release at least 50% of the time if I had her wait the 2-3 seconds.

Alternating the 2 exercises  - marking the food bowl, and focus on me before a retrieve-  did seem to help her be more clear with where to focus and when.  But the vocalizing just wasn't getting any better.

It was getting frustrating. I know it will eventually get there, but I wasn't finding the right answer for her.

And then I was playing with a toy after working on the 2 exercises and suddenly it hit me that Zumi never vocalizes when being sent for her tug toy.  I experimented and did the mark of a dead tug with success, even with 3 seconds duration.  Then I even pushed it and threw the toy out there, marked her, and still didn't get whining when sent.  Huh!  I then experimented even more and followed that up with a very short db placement and send and didn't get any whining at all!  Props to me I even quit when I heard the words "I'll just do 1 more" come out of my mouth :)

This was Zumi's 2nd session working on this new routine.  I see that she still moves that foot pretty much as soon as I say "wait" but there was no vocalizing.  Win.


I'm not sure if this good fortune will continue or if the arousal will creep back in with the new routine....


In somewhat related news, my online TEAM 2 class started yesterday!!!  We are also working on mark training and retrieves in that class, Zumi would fit right in!  I think there is one working spot left if you want to join us.

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Broken Training Sessions

Yesterday Zumi had a horrible training session.  A session in which I attempted to go back to basics in order to try and fix a problem that's cropped up with her go out training.  But it didn't go as planned.  I attempted to make it even easier and it still didn't go as planned.  Finally, I scrapped it so I could step aside and really look at what might be some of the root issues.  I left the session feeling frustrated.  A good sign that I should have stopped even earlier than I did.  And a huge blinking neon sign that I need to break things down even further.

There will always be sessions where the unexpected happens.  Times where you feel like you're spinning your wheels.  But they

So I sat down and really looked at the problems I've been having with Zumi's obedience training.  Mainly it's in 2 areas.
1) Retrieves
2) Go outs

Both are "sends" away from me.  Both have similar symptoms of vulturing and vocalizing as soon as she is released.  And both have gotten worse.
I have mainly been focusing on the retrieve portion and have written about how I wanted to tackle her arousal levels though adding eye contact as a criteria to be sent, paying attention to her foot moving as a precursor to vulturing and scootching, working on calm duration before the send,  and when she vocalizes going into calming mode before the next rep with cookie scatters, duration hand touch, and/or a down stay with frequent slow cookie deliveries. 

But while progress seemed to be going well, it has lately gotten worse.  And since the go out has similar symptoms (and causes) it has effected it even though I have not been focusing on it.

If I had to guess where I went wrong I would point to focusing too much on her foot movement.  I don't think Zumi is consciously aware of moving her foot out and thus resetting her for a moved foot added too much stress and uncertainty. I should have noted the foot movement as a symptom of her arousal levels and made things easier the next rep, but not focus on it itself.

So the retrieve started to break with now actually moving her whole body on some short tosses as her frustration level rose.  Her eye contact criteria actually still remained pretty strong though!  I did find that stepping out of heel position seemed to help Zumi relax a bit more, less muddied waters compared to heel!

And then it makes sense that Zumi's go out mark started to get worse with the emphasis I've been putting on eye contact with her retrieve.  And with the stress of the  mark starting to creep in this led to more vocalizing on her sends even though she was still fairly straight and her nose touch still strong

When I attempted to just work on the mark portion yesterday I got this awfulness:


And sadly that wasn't the only rep I did.

Today I broke it back down more and went back to marking her cookie bowl.  That was pretty solid.  However I also saw that she's not completely confident on the duration portion.  Zumi moved that front foot and sometimes did her squeal on the release even with the short 5ft send.  We will stay with marking her a food bowl or a toy for awhile longer.  And maybe even add in a platform.

Wish us luck.

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Stand Signals, Anyone?!

If you are at all involved in competitive obedience then you've been hearing all the hollering going on right now about the proposed change of position exercise for open in AKC.  Comments range from how impossibly hard it's going to be for the new dogs, to how much dumbing down we're doing to the sport.  Regardless of how you feel, I'm at least going to be training for it!

I guess I'm lucky that all 3 of my dogs have a verbal only stand and can do it at a distance.  I've even had fun doing some proofing of the stand cue while doing it with my back turned, lying on the floor, etc.  (Side note: TEAM level 3 also has a fun version of leave the dog, assume a weird position yourself, and then cue a position change, x2!)

But what I don't have is any type of signal to stand.  Yes my dogs can do a moving stand, or the stop in a stand position, aka signal exercise version.  But in both cases it's more of a moving "freeze" in position rather than move into a stand with a signal.  And regardless, heel position signals don't quite translate to now having to face the dog. 

So I need a new signal!!!  While the proposed regulations allow verbal and/or signals, I want to use every tool in my box to get that distance stand in a trial! 

I personally like all of my signals to start slightly different from each other.  This was drilled to me from others and I like the logic in knowing my dog knows exactly what I want from the second the signal starts versus needing it be completely finished.  But this also makes it harder to come up with new signals and not add confusion for my dogs!

So far I've settled on my left hand for the stand signal since I have slightly more signals on my right hand (down, come, finish right, take the right jump) than my left hand (sit, finish left, take the left jump). 

I'm currently experimenting with my signal starting coming in towards my body first so it looks the most different.  But of course that also makes it harder to see at a distance!

This weird wave of a hand signal is what I got so far. Very open to ideas!

I'm currently giving signal +verbal at the same time to Zumi as she's very twitchy!  If I do new signal, then pause and give the known verbal she will twitch in anticipation of wanting to do something, but then of course she doesn't know what I want so she waits for the verbal.  I don't like the twitch :) so I'm getting her used to seeing the signal at the same time for now.

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Zumi's Dumbbell Progress

I have been continuing to work with Zumi on being in a more calm, thoughtful mode before being sent on her retrieves.  We are making progress with distance of the throw and starting to do a little bit more proofing with my body language and other cues before being sent.  The new critieria I've been working on are:
- No foot movement as I give the cue to wait
- Eye contact before being sent

And the new criteria for myself is remembering I changed her cue from "Get it" to "Fetch" in order to be more clear with my marker/reward cues.

This is a session from Zumi this past week.  She is still moving a foot in wanting to vulture when I give the wait cue for the beginnign reps each session. I  try to reset when I notice this.

When I add in other cues she sometimes whines in excitement although she is able to listen and do what I ask.  Since this is a sign of over arousal,  I try to go into calming mode with cookie scatters and sticky targets.  You can see this at 1.31 in the video below:



Zumi still has a long way to go before she's ready to take this into a trial setting again!

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Obedience Practice

More obedience this week!
Zumi is being restarted on her article training as it's been about a year since she has last done it successfully.  She seemed to have a difficult time finding my scent when I was pregnant so I just put it on the sidelines.  I'm restarting with food on the article and went back to lids as she was WAY too retrieve happy.  I was able to originally teach her with a retrieve indication from the start as while she was excited, Zumi's retrieve drive wasn't nearly as strong as it is now.  I'm sure we will get the scent work back quickly but it definitely needs retraining.

Vito I planned on using a lot more food rewards in this session as I had been focusing a lot on working with personal play and any rewards off my body.  I'm wanting to work more on precision and proofing challenges with him now which would require more rewards.

I found in this session that Vito had a difficult time doing slow heeling with a right turn.  He thought it was an invitation to do his "behind" reward cue (it does look similar!) so I did some proofing to tackle that issue.  Then later on in our session I found an issue with Vito not sitting when cued on his go out.  Going all the way to do his touch trumped the value of the sit.  Personally I would much rather have that problem than the opposite!  I did some cookie toss sits to remind him of sitting at a distance before putting it back together.

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Getting Back to Obedience

I've started back teaching again for the obedience club since Netta's arrival.  Just one night a week but this also gives me time to train my dogs before class.  They haven't really done any obedience in months besides some tiny drills in the house.

Zumi has mainly been working on 3 things
1. Go outs- Still our main issue of not taking the jump on the way out.  She's great with cones and really has improved a ton with this issue over the year but it's still a real choice for her.
2. Retrieve over the high- Opposite issue of our go out :)  Zumi's super strong desire to fetch makes it hard for her think on off-centered retrieves.  She has no problem playing this game with targets and food all around the clock.  But must fetch as fast as possible!
3. Finishes.  A new problem that wasn't there before our long break.  Zumi has been cutting her left finish short and also seems to occasionally be confused on what her "around" cue means.

This is the first half of our practice session this week, focusing on the 2nd two issues.


Vito has still been working on our main goal of engagement and choosing to work.  Overall that has continued to go well.  He even seems to be sniffing less before we start work- a problem that cropped up after our experiment a year ago (with a lesson to me on how to structure it differently next time!).  So I've been adding in some more instance on precision for him, not just his free for all.  Slower heeling.  Active proofing to get him thinking on his finishes.  And still lots of reward for fast, fold back downs; a lifetime issue for Vito.

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2016 Year in Review

A little late but I thought I would keep up with my tradition and review the last year.  Obviously last year was a big one for me with finding out I was pregnant and then having a 2016 baby instead of a 2017 one.  But the dogs are the important one on this blog!

Lance
The Corgi of course is retired, or semi-retired really.  Lance will still compete in WCRL rally since the jump bars can be moved to the ground for him.  Lance did several trials this last year in level 3 and earned his level 3 excellent title with glee.  I have no interest in getting any of the combined level 1/2/3 titles with him so we will keep playing in level 3 for fun.  He was incredibly sassy this last year and let me know he can do what he wants now.  Mainly barking on not just the "backwards" type stuff of backing up in heel and the left pivots, but also just whenever he feels like it.  And of course some forging is coming back as well.  So happy!

We also played with a bit of nosework earlier in the year.  I wanted to give Lance something to do now that he's retired.  Lance had fun training it but he's certainly not a natural!  Unfortunately I dropped off my training by summer.  I'm going to try to re-motivate myself to pick it back up again as I know he will still have fun training for it.  I just have never liked scent work training personally.

Vito
Vito's year was mainly one big break. 2015 was the start to our obedience experiment and that continued through spring last year.  I've since worked on more jackpot training with him again but a ton more emphasis on true choosing to work without seeing any rewards up front or any real effort on my part to encourage him to start.  Vito knows when work is an option and doesn't need me to plead with him.  For the most part it's going extremely well.  Vito still takes quite a while to choose to work sometimes but when he does start his energy is very high.  I've started working more on precision again with Vito but it's hard as to truly work on that I would want to up my rate of rewards and do fun "drills" and I don't want to do that with Vito yet.  Maybe not ever again with him, who knows.  Vito needs the most work on motivation when he knows rewards aren't forthcoming, well and all the ring confidence work with people pressure too.

I did enter Vito in exactly 3 trials this year in rally.  Vito isn't really a rally dog but I knew it would be easier for him with teh extra support I can give and with way less people pressure.  The first 2 trials were WCRL and he was a very pushy boy!  Some distraction issues with the food bowls but he recovered and was even sassier afterwards.  The last trial was AKC rally at our club.  Sadly this did not go as well.  Vito and I finished the course and other than me choosing not to redo a sign he couldn't do with the judge behind us, he scored well.  But he was worried by that judge and with the higher pressure environment in general.  It seems as though our AKC goals will remain a once a year evaluation of where his mental game is at.

Sadly an injury plagued us most of the year and Vito didn't get many agility trials in.  Not much changed with Vito in agility.  Some really good runs where Vito ran full speed.  He even got 2 difficult gambles!  And then some mediocre runs where Vito just didn't feel like running fast.  Like the past years, he still seems happy in these runs and not worried, just not speedy.
I am currently debating about what height to jump him this upcoming year.  Vito is not old, just 8yrs, and isn't having issues jumping 22in.  But well he's Vito.  Vito only needs 1 more jumpers Q and 1 more Super Q in snooker to get his ATCH and I admit I want to try to go for it.  I know that Vito might not ever get that last Super Q and I"m ok with that, but I don't want to rule it out before it's time.  I'm also hoping that Vito will get remeasured to be under 19in with the new USDAA jump heights.  I've easily gotten him under 19 when I've measured him in practice and this would allow him to jump 20in instead of 22in.

Vito also did some nosework last spring and loved it like I knew he would.  We didn't get far but Vito is definitely a natural at the sport.  Too bad competitions with him are out as there is no way he could handle the strict trial environment of dogs waiting at the cars and not being able to walk around.

Finally Vito did a tiny amount of gun dog work in the spring.  Unlike Zumi, Vito was over the top excited by the prospect of real birds. We worked on taming the savage.  Mainly teaching Vito to take another reward in exchange for a calm hold on a bird instead of thinking he could rip into the bird as a reward...

Zumi
2016 was Zumi's trial debut in agility!  A few issues with greeting ring crew and general WaHoo! running past obstacles and not turning.  But overall I am thrilled with how she did.  She earned her starters title and moved up to advanced.  Unfortunately due to being in heat at the beginning of the season and then myself being on restriction ruining the end of the year trials, Zumi didn't get to trial as much as I planned.  At least there is plenty of time!

 In obedience/rally I first started Zumi in WCRL rally and earned her level 1, 2, and 3 titles.  Then in the summer I tried her in CDSP obedience and earned her novice title.  I was thrilled with her level of focus and precision she offered me.  Just a few issues that I know we're still working on in practice.  I entered her in AKC rally novice for 3 runs at our club this October to earn her first AKC title.  I was happy with her performances but she also showed me that the AKC environment was a bit too much for her right now.  While her focus and attitude remained high, Zumi was unable to do some simple tasks even outside of the ring that I know she knows well.  I was planning on entering her in AKC obedience this spring, but will now hold off a little bit until I know she's more comfortable.

Gun dog stuff was almost all done in the spring.  I introduced Zumi to her first real bird which was interesting.  Zumi is very hesitant to pick up any bird that she hasn't been properly introduced to first.  Then she is super excited!  If it wasn't for the "new bird" issue I would say Zumi is ready to pass her WC test.  Somebody kick the handler to get more practice in!

Disc dog was even less practiced. I did get to go to 2 seminar this year to work with Zumi.  A lot of fun!

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Getting Ready for Obedience Trials

I recently started another round of Ring Confidence at my training club and with a vacant spot in the class it was the perfect nudge I needed to have Zumi be a half student (only participates in the 1 dog at a time stuff, not the group activities I need to coach) and start actually prepping for obedience.  I have been training actual exercises and pieces of the exercises about 1-2x a week (with always thinking I'll train more!) but the real ring stuff that needed training I haven't done much with other than little introductions off and on (mostly off) for the last year.

So now I have a concrete route to achieving my goal of starting obedience competitions with her in the spring.  And Zumi has surprisingly blown me away with her success these last 3 weeks.
I don't know who has been training her as it certainly hasn't been me!  Maybe she's just growing up.
Today we practiced heeling up to and past a person with food and then handing over her super exciting dumbbell to a helper.

Things that really need to be worked on:

Squish- her waiting position outside the ring.  Zumi has a fabulous energetic release with immediate focus, but she's not always wanting to get into position (just wants to go!) and isn't waiting very long in it when I do get her in.

More people pressure.  It's my main focus in this class with her and it's going well, but I'm not taking the current success for granted.  Zumi LOVES people and at the same time is also secretly a sensitive and underconfident little girl who is sensitive to pressure.  We need all the practice with stewards/judges approaching, talking, and just being close!

Things I think we have nailed are:
Personal play/ transitions between exercises.  Zumi loves her jumping in the air and loves to play.  She also has very fast setups.

Delayed reinforcement.  I've stepped up our jackpot style training these last few weeks, really after being suspicious with that being a part of her focus issue at the agility trial in August, and it has been going well.  Zumi has no problem starting work without seeing her reward, and has no problem continuing to work without a high rate of reward and with the actual rewards at a distance.  It's a little early to tell if that's simply because her desire to jump and interact is so high, or if it's a bit of optimism that surely she will get a reward any second.  If it's the latter than her performance will start to dip a bit in the coming weeks and we will just build back up with a more clear understanding of the new rules.  Optimism is great, but it needs to be grounded in reality or it won't hold up in trials.

Ring Prep is my absolute favorite topic.  It can be super frustrating at times especially with Project Vito which has spanned multiple years, but I love helping others learn how to train for the little things and how to be a good handler for their dogs in the ring.

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Cougar's Last Week of Training

We're down to Cougar's last week with us.  She's 5.5 months old now and really has been an easy puppy.  Laid back, cuddly, and confident with everything.  Of course that self confidence does get her in trouble!  But Cougar really is starting to "care" and pay heed to our warnings.  Our house is never clean and Cougar doesn't pick up objects to chew on as much anymore.  She's starting to come the first time she's called.  And Cougar did finally tone down the constant wanting to play with Zumi.

Training wise the biggest feat I think I accomplished was getting Cougar to think around food.  My first goal with her was getting her to understand that staring at food did not ever cause it to land in her mouth.  It was all about moving away from food in order to get it.  I have no problems training with her food bowl on the ground anymore and she doesn't get nearly as stuck anymore with shaping.  Still a work in progress but I'm happy with her progress in such a short time!

Other tasks trained:
Heelwork: Great pivots on a perch and mostly is pretty good about doing tight pivots off the perch and a bit of side stepping on both my left and right side.  Does tend to cheat still at times and that pesky auto sit she had can get in the way.  I think I mostly succeeded in breaking that auto sit ;)  We tried some heeling backwards but she's not quite ready for that.

Fronts: Lured between my legs to teach her to come close, straight, and do a tucked sit.  We are now working on getting her position slightly less between my legs.  Cougar is working on angled fronts right now but struggles often.

4 Feet in a box: Something we played with early on but haven't done in a while.  A very hard exercise for Cougar!!!  We struggled with the big box, finally succeeded and never got the smaller box.  Controlling her back legs is hard!

2o2o: Cougar learned that back feet on an object pays.  She can back up to 3 feet to get into position but this is a very hard exercise for her and it makes sense considering how hard the 4 feet in exercise was.  Cougar has only recently started to learn coming forward into the 2o2o position on her box like she would for beginning agility foundations.

Out around a cone: Cougar is working on distance and can still get stuck staring at a cookie in my hand.  Her max is around 8ft but usually we are sticking around 3ft to build more confidence.  Just recently I started rear crosses on the cone and sending sometimes to 2 cones before rewarding.
I found it fascinating with Cougar that it has been difficult getting her to run on either the send or the return.  Even with me running away or throwing the reward she just happily trots after :)

Beg: Just started this last week!  Cougar likes it because she can stare at the cookie.

Reverse through my legs: I started this trick to help with Cougar learning to backup in heel position.  Cougar has a solid 1ft backup to end up between my legs and we're working on both distance towards me and maintaining backing up once she's between my legs.

Scootch: Cougar offered backing up in a down her second week with me and I ran with it.  We had a short distance built up but I haven't visited it recently.

Retrieve: Here is where we made the least progress.  When we first started she of course wouldn't move away from my food hand to interact with an object but we worked through that.  Progressed from nose touches (and quite a few paw attempts) to biting.  And she was just starting to get tiny holds and then we stalled out.  I think her teething played a big role here so I put this on hold.

Moving Downs: Just started!  I think yesterday's session was her 2nd introduction to the concept of lying down from a walk.  With the help of a food hand to keep her focused and I ended up pushing my hand slightly in towards her chest to get more of a fold back as Cougar wasn't consistently folding the way I liked.

Here is a long video of Tuesday's training session, just edited out the times I went to grab more food.

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