The Dogs Are Really In Charge

Lance NADAC

>> Tuesday, September 4, 2012 – agility , lance , NADAC , trial , video

The Corgi wanted to share that he too had agility this past weekend. Friday afternoon we went to a NADAC trial where I told him he could do just one little day of an outdoor trial for me. The weather was gorgeous that evening so I thought he would agree.

Weavers I found out his answer. Twice on the first set out of 12 he popped out and I finally said screw it and continued on. The next set of weaves he looked at it and then turned the other direction to take an off course hoop. That got a Lancifer! so he came back weaved fine, and did his last set just fine.

Touch n Go was next and the first time since our little re-re-re-re....train of the contacts in a trial setting. I was just looking for some kind've effort in stopping on the contacts, in any position! (Technically he now has a 4 ON for the aframe and back to the 4 on the floor for the dogwalk, although he has been throwing in his super old 2o2o every now and then; but who can keep up!.) Lance made me laugh by stopping just above the yellow on the aframe, and with a plea he came down a few more steps! The first dogwalk he was confused and stopped 4 on, I told him good enough. The 2nd dogwalk he did a cute little hop into his 4 on the floor. This was the only run I got on tape.

Tunnelers he had fun and qualified despite having to run outside.

Crazy Toller at USDAA!

>> Sunday, September 2, 2012 – agility , trial , usdaa , video , vito

This Labor Day weekend I took the Toller and I to a USDAA trial. It has been 2 months since our last agility trials!

And oh my goodness, what a comeback we are making!!! Vito had zero stress about anybody in the ring and was super pumped about going in and each every run. Sometimes he has made me work really hard to get him engaged with me even warming up, but not this weekend! I think there were times I even had that obnoxious dog while waiting to go into the ring. Yes, I think his toller screams could be heard by everyone. Even when I seemed to screw up and take him out way too early for each run, my problem morphed into how to keep the red dog from beating me up rather than how to keep his focus.

The runs themselves were ok. We qualified in 4 out of 6 runs and he even covered for me on mis-timings in gamblers and some late front crosses. On Saturday he got progressively faster with each run! Sunday wasn't quite as speedy but he remained excited to be there. I think we're at the point where his difference in speed, especially notable on the weave poles, is more to do with thinking too hard rather than anxiety :)

I also tried my hardest to talk to him this weekend. I gave verbals for many jumps and cheered through courses. But then I watched the videos and I can still be WAY more obnoxious out there! It's so hard to change!

Adv Gamblers- Q
We had fun doing the dogwalk twice. Both hits were nice but he wasn't really running. I also hesitated when I misplanned the buzzer by 2 seconds and Vito barely recovered any speed to get the little gamble. But he's a good dog so he sent out anyway for a Q :)

Adv Standard- Q
I had to do a late front cross of the dogwalk since we don't have any turns and the good boy barely called off the tunnel. He recovered speed faster this run and finished up nicely for our first advanced standard Q. Sadly there is no video.

Adv Jumpers- NQ
I ran right into the ring and started immediately since I let myself be distracted by a conversation. Vito enjoyed it and had his best run of the day and his happiest jumpers run of all time! Jumpers is not usually his favorite without the contacts and tunnels to break it up. He knocked a bar though :(

Adv Gamblers- Q
Vito didn't like my repeat of the tunnel and this slowed him down so he had barely any speed going through the chute. He turned to me before exiting and took a tumble. He seemed ok coming out so I paused a bit to rev him and kept going. Vito did one of his best teeters in a trial on the gamble! This earned him his first Advanced title!

Adv Standard- E
I thought he was jumping with more difficulty than normal on this run and he knocked a bar in the beginning. He has never downed automatically on the table in a trial, and this time he barked at me when I finally told him to down :) But that sass didn't transfer to the weave poles. I then didn't hold my little cross long enough to keep him off the dogwalk so we just did it twice and skipped the little part with the chute.

Adv Pairs- Q
Super delay before this run but Vito just got more and more amped waiting! I wish the weave poles weren't second on our half. I did a very late front cross in the serpentine :( After the finish jump Vito just shot out of the ring and ignored my calls to come. He ran to where I put his ball and then brought it back to me! Apparently I have to stash the ball a little further away in the future! I still can't believe my "good dog" did that.
We also got a standard fault on this run, but I can't for the life of me see where on the video. It's the last run in the compilation video if anyone can spot it.

Runing and Stopped

>> Monday, August 27, 2012 – agility , running contacts , stopped contacts , video , vito

Two months ago I decided to add a stop to Vito's dogwalk contact. Vito LOVES his running but we still don't have turns off it and he would often shorten the last stride if I couldn't convince him we were just running straight into nothing. Turn training just wasn't happening without regular access to train on a dogwalk. Ignoring the issue has worked really well for NADAC :) but not so much if I'm still thinking of doing some USDAA with him.

There seems to be a bandwagon of people doing both running AND stopped dogwalks now and clearly I'm always one to be a part of the hip crowd! I'm just really hoping that having either pure extension or pure collection on the dogwalk will make it simpler for both of us.

Vito already knows a 2o2o, kinda. He has one for his teeter but I can't say he's ever really done one at speed. Of course the main challenge to our turn training was the same: lack of equipment. But once to twice a week we've been training. Starting with a flat plank and slowly adding speed before it via a tunnel. We then moved to the dogwalk doing just the down plank and there we have remained. I think our problem is that I'm inadvertently rushing things. I'm perfectly fine with taking things slow but because of our limited practice times it feels like we have been doing this forever when in reality the number of sessions have been few.

New training plan: help him out more. Vito does NOT need to be thinking in his training. I need to re scale back to getting rid of my handler motion. I also need to make up my mind if I'm to reward him when he misses the 2o2o but does stop off the board. Currently I'm about 50/50 whether I reward it or not. I'm torn between setting black and white criteria for him or rewarding his effort and trying to keep his attitude up and brain out.

Lance Cambridge Obedience Trial

>> Sunday, August 19, 2012 – AKC Obedience , lance , obedience , trial

Utility- NQ
Lance seemed a bit off when we went in the ring and set up for articles. Distracted or stressed not sure which one. We NQed right off the bat as I sent him flying for the pile only to find that he didn't actually fly out. He took a step and then looked back at me confused. I resent him and he brought back the right one. On the 2nd article he again didn't seem to know what to do and looked back at me for a second but this time he flew back out on his own.

The other exercises were ok but his offness continued as he didn't forge, not even much on the moving stand! Crazy.

Open-Q
Lance still wasn't his spunky self but it was a pretty nice run. And the best part is that he held both his stays again!!!!

Cat

>> Thursday, August 16, 2012 – luke

I swear this is all my cat has been doing for the past month.

Yes, just sitting in a box. I think his new hobby borders on obsession.

Annoyed kitty.

You can't see me!

Bubba 7mo- Difficulties of a Stand

>> Tuesday, August 14, 2012 – bubba , how to

Bubba turned 7 months old this week!

Most skill work is going fantastic. Drag this heavy laundry bag- no problem! Close the drawer- I'll slam it! He's even managed to learn some more controlled behaviors such as a nice hold of the dumbbell and a decent stay.

But one behavior that has managed to elude us and leave me scratching my head is a verbal kick back stand. He actually has a decent stand stay where he will even resist movement while a treat goes slowly to his butt and back, but actually purposefully assuming the stand position is a no go. Since this is not the first time I've taught a verbal only stand this perplexes me.

Lance learned it pretty crappily through a treat lure slowly pulling him forward. He now has a kick back if he focuses really hard :) but at a distance it's still moving the front feet forward.

Vito I have no idea how I taught it but he has an awesome verbal stand even at a distance. I think I still lured but I was able to bring the treat to his chest to get the kick out versus step forward.

Chuck was the first dog I tried using his perch work to capture a stand. I loved the simple brilliance of it so much that I used it again with Fiona. Default on the perch is to stand, lure a sit/down and just wait half a second before that butt rises and you can click! It also sets the criteria from day #1 that the front feet don't move.

At work I've experiment with a high hand touch (made more famous recently by Susan Garrett's video) to get a jumping stand. It was super fun for the dogs but I found it harder to transition to a stand at a distance and from all sides of me. I've continued to use it though for many of the dogs.

I'm sure there are other fun methods out there that I'm not familiar with and I LOVE trying ways of teaching! With Bubba I've attempted all the ones I know and have apparently failed. So far the perch work has led to the most success in that there have been many days where he reaches a 80% success rate on all transitions of sit-down-stand. But then the next day he tries to guess before I even open my mouth and rapidly flings himself through 3 changes before I can stop him. Needless to say I've dropped the clicker for this exercise and we work on eye contact before each and every treat, working heavily on just being still! I think the problem is that he's so eager to MOVE that he doesn't care enough whether his guess is wrong.

Having a verbal only stand really doesn't matter for Bubba's training. Since the liklihood of him being a mobility dog is extremely low, and the chance of him being one for a complete quadriplegic is zero, I'm really just doing it to torture myself. Ah well, there's a good chance Bubba may be going to prison this Friday for a week or two while we wait for one of the older dogs to come in for final training to take the trip down. We will see if the prisoners are ready to deal with a crazy bear for a bit!

Fiona's Next Stage

>> Thursday, August 9, 2012 – fiona , service dog

Good bye Fi Fi!

Fiona left me for good today. The tiniest Labrador has completed her service dog training and was matched with a middle school teacher with type 1 Diabetes. If all goes well Fiona will be going to school soon!