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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