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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Water Work

I have briefly resumed our hunt trial training to begin water work!  It had been awhile since Zumi's last work with the real duck, and of course it was too cold for water practice then.  She has done plenty of toy retrieves in water last summer but nothing with formal rules about delivery (and really Zumi does zoomies with her toy!) and zero work on a retrieve being on the other end of the pond.

Luckily we have a small pond just behind our property.  Not the greatest pond, but if you're willing to walk through long grass and lots of ticks we can practice without ever having to get in the car and go for a drive!  

This past Saturday I took Zumi and her dokkens for practice.  Started out by throwing them in the water and then gradually progressing until it landed on the other shore.  Zumi needed lots of encouragement to get back in the water and not "run the bank" but she was successful!  I also learned she needs lots of practice with successfully keeping her mark after swimming.  If it landed anywhere at all in the long grass she had no clue where it was anymore after her swim.  

Day #1:

On Sunday I returned and this time took her dokkens and a real duck.  Her first throw of the dokken she was back to needing encouragement to swim back to me vs run again, but then she was solid!  And it's a pretty tiny pond, so easy to just run around!  I brought Adam with so he could drop the duck as I knew I couldn't throw it across.  Just a little bit of encouragement and then she rocked that too!

I think the biggest issue with her still is going to be willingness to immediately pick up a brand new duck in a new location.  We need to take her show on the road!

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More Birds

Training for a new sport is so interesting!  Maybe I'll never take this stuff very far but learning new foundations will always captivate me!

Vito has been the most fascinating.  When the pigeon I was using got a little torn, Vito turned into Savage Toller!  In this session I learned that I needed to stick with holds before re-progressing back to short retrieves.  I also eventually realized I needed to make the release cue very calm to prevent Vito from wanting to re-grab the bird as his "reward."  Fascinating stuff!

Later I got Vito back to the duck.  His first non frozen duck.  And interestingly enough Vito was a bit more hesitant again.  Not sure if it was due to the difference in size, taste, or just general conflict in knowing that I didn't want him to eat it!  I ended up having better luck with the bird on the ground again and doing short retrieves than doing holds.

Today's session I just focused on short retrieves.  Skipped the holds until the very end when I would ask him to sit after he picked it up.  A bit more wanting to pluck feathers came out but still pretty minimal overall.

And Zumi has continued to do great working with a real duck.  No issues at all picking it up and only occasional issues with holding it.  This last weekend was the first time we added in diversions while retrieving a duck and also introduced doubles with a duck and a dokken.
Biggest issue right now is her ever lifting butt!  Some sessions she remains insistent on completely standing and I have to go out and retrieve the duck myself until she is capable of remaining in a sit.  Thankfully she's never actually completely broken the stay and left without a release.

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A Retriever Match!

Day #4 of Zumi's bird exposure went fantastic!!!  Still started out with hestitant sniffing but that only lasted maybe 30 seconds before willing to retrieve the pigeon.  Switching the duck and again only brief sniffing before doing retrieves AND holds on the duck!!!  Good enough and with little encouragement needed from me that I actually took pictures too!

Vito too :)

 

Then the very next day was an "informal trial" basically a retriever match.  Apparently they do one every month in the winter.  I didn't hear about it until now and I didn't want to miss an opportunity to get Zumi in the hunt test environment.  I wasn't going to enter Zumi as she only had 1 successful day of retrieving a bird, but decided to when I got there.  Technically she was too old for the puppy class consisting of 2 singles with pigeons, but they let me enter FEO.  I wanted to take Vito but due to the cold weather and me not knowing about the setup/where I could crate him I left him at home.  Zumi is easy, she could just stay in the car crate like every other dog there!

I knew there would be a good chance she wouldn't retrieve the pigeon but I was hoping that she would bite it with some encouragement.  No such luck.  On the first single Zumi marked it perfectly and ran out with great excitement but then just started sniffing the bird.  She told me that she needs to learn each bird's story before she will pick it up.  I ran out into the field with her all the way to the bird and while Zumi remained happy and interested she just wouldn't mouth it.  The guy still had me do single #2 and somehow it went a bit better.  Still no retrieve of the pigeon but she mouthed it a few times once I went out there with her.

The judges let me take the pigeon and keep working on it.  It took a bit of encouragement again to work up from sniffing to actually biting, but Zumi would do retrieves of the pigeon on the sidelines.

After the first test I approached the nice judges and asked if they would let me use dokkens on round two to get success and build her confidence.  They hesitated but agreed!
Throw #1 went pretty well although she was a bit distracted by something on the ground and broke her line to see it before correcting herself.  Unfortunately then 2nd throw the gunner didn't use my dokken and used the pigeon.  I didn't realize it, thought he fixed it on a resend, and it took some time for her dokken to get out there.

Puppy Derby Round 2

So not exactly picture perfect.  But considering birds are so new for Zumi I couldn't really expect too much.  I am glad I went though and I am proud of her first real exposure to gun shots and being in such a new environment.  And while it was a bit scary to be a non-camo wearing, vegetarian, positive trainer, woman, everyone was pretty nice.  I just smiled, kept my mouth shout, and nodded a lot at well intentioned advice on doing "the program" and starting force fetching.  It was also helpful that I wasn't completely alone as another positive training friend was there with her young Labrador puppy.  Who actually did amazing!

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Bird Training

Zumi's 3rd lesson on retrieving a bird.  Since making it really high energy and fun helped her so much I went out with the same plan.  Started with the mallard as it somehow is less gross for me to hold.  Started out a tiny bit skeptical but in about 1.5min of play and tiny open mouths she was actually starting to want to retrieve it by the end (yay!) I then switched for the pigeon with the bloody head.


Success!  Very proud of the Duck!  I'm sure it won't be too many more sessions before I have to completely switch tactics and focus on calm impulse control instead of revving her up.

And Vito was a great dog for his 2nd session.  Had a few tiny moments of wanting to feather pluck or shake, but mostly was in thinking mode.  Proud of the Toller too!

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Zumi the Vegetarian

Zumi officially declared that she wants to be a vegetarian too.  I completely understand little Duck.  I hesitated a long time when I opened my bag of birds and stared down at the corpses.

Here is her first embarrassing session. I applaud her moral compass.

It caught me completely off guard based on her super eagerness when I attached feathers to a bumper.  It took her awhile to learn to take food and toys as a reward in exchange for giving up the feathers.
So I regrouped and did a 2nd short session with lots of rewards and the bird on the ground.  We ended day #1 with a few open mouths on the poor bird.

Today we went for a lot more play breaks and making it much more of a higher energy session after the 50sec mark.  Still concerned at the start but I'm happy with where we ended.  Still just occasional open mouths but more confident.  Fascinating how her how demeanor changed when I started to make it more energetic session with lots of breaks.  Or maybe it was just that we had a heart to heart of all the things she would have to give up if she really wanted to be a vegetarian dog.

Vito did not have any morality issues.

Feather plucker!

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Doubles!

Duckie has moved up to doing doubles!  Although her first time with Adam throwing the doubles this past Saturday was very exciting.  Glad I have a box to help remind her to sit.  It will certainly be some time before she's ready to work with real ducks.

Vito has progressed to some distance on his single throws and his first time doing the larger mallard.  I'm also constantly reminded how less of a foundation he has with right sided work...
Whistle sits are new but I think he's starting to get the tiniest hint.

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Two Tollers in Gun Dog Foundations!

Continuing to work on retriever training on the weekends!  Finally decided to start Vito.  I expect Vito to start slowly with enthusiasm but get higher and higher with the retrieves and then lose his mind with real birds.

Not sure why I thought it would be ok to start with a toy reward.  Since he hasn't done any obedience training for toys or food in months he was a bit over the top.  I regretted my decision but did some sloppy training anyway.

Today I then used food.  Still very excited but thinking.

Zumi is starting to get even more excited by it and thus we're working on impulse control.  Pile work is going pretty well with distance and so are "doubles" but thrown from me vs a helper.  Sometimes she tries to cheat and break before I release her but overall stays nicely with or without her little box.

Today I recruited Adam for her 2nd experience with another thrower.  First time was about 2 months ago and she was very distracted at where the duck noise was coming from and had a hard time marking the actual throws.  This time she had no problem with the marking but was way higher aroused!  

Casting work has been started as well.  Not really sure at all if we're doing it right.  Fun times!

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Zumi 16 Months

The Duck is 16 months old today!  Growing up!

Obedience training has remained the lowest priority although I've made it a bigger focus this last month and hope to continue on that path.  Mainly working on fronts and finishes at home and at the club once a week I'm working on adding pace changes to our heeling.  Signals and go outs are practiced usually at that time as well.  Last weekend I drove for some group ring time to a place Zumi had never been before.  She impressed me with her ability to focus immediately.  I even got to do some work with other people for leash hand offs and setups and she did x1000 better than I was expecting!  Other people are still hard for her but at least with a toy in my hand she knew what to do!

Agility training is pretty much just her weekly class and then another short session on the club that I use for running dogwalk skills and weave poles.  For the most part her weaving is going nicely on what is now a closed set of 12.  Her biggest challenge is collecting to stay in after making the entrance vs skipping a pole or two.  In the spring I hope to do a lot more with with my position and movement as we don't have too much practice with doing crosses after the poles.

RDW training is mostly maintained but I know she will need quite a bit of review in the spring.  When excited she wants to take out yet another stride to only hit 4 times and can be too high.
Handling afterwards needs quite a bit more work as well.  Recently I've added backside training and this blew her mind.  I don't even know how she managed to effortlessly squeeze her body through a jump facing the wall!


Gun Dog training has slowed down the the freezing cold we had recently but was resumed the last two weekends!  Working on adding distance to her sends, whistle sits before her toy, and using her winged bumper.

Zumi will mostly take her toy after the wing now, but she much prefers her toy thrown for it vs being able to tug on it!  Still, it's progress!  This was the first session I did wing vs dokken on a push/pull exercise for marking.


And here are our attempts at a whistle sit to interrupt her toy fetch.  We have a good stop now, but her sit seems to have disappeared.  I don't know if it's progress or not from our last session having very good sits but having a lot of anticipation on being told to sit out there!  Apparently her impulse control at waiting was also much worse this session!

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Zumi- Bird Love

Still continuing our gun dog training adventures.  The biggest struggle remains the use of actual bird wings, attached to a bumper.  We successfully mastered taking treats in exchange for the bumpers int the house. Yay!

Outside we are understandably back a step.  Bird outranks other motivators, by a lot.  Because she is a good girl and has a solid foundation, Zumi is still willing to do a nice take and hold outside.  Some minor mouthing is happening when learning how to move with it (just to her platform) and sometimes when releasing it to me.  I just calmly interrupt her and try again.  But as Zumi will only pretend, half heartedly at that, to play with her toy she is left with praise and getting to have the wing in her mouth again as a reward.

This was yesterday's session outside, her very first one:


Today we made slight progress in that she seemingly understands by "playing" with the toy she gets the bird again.  It is completely fake playing with the wussiest mouths and retrieves ever.  But I'll take it.  Eventually she really will need to play for real, both so I have an actual reward and because of the WC test for Tollers requires "tolling" aka repetitive fetching along the shoreline before each of the water marks.

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Wing Excitement

Continuing our gun dog class and working on finding a line.  Zumi already knows a look cue from her obedience training but I hadn't quite gotten to really teaching the concept like I will need it for the obedience glove exercise.  The look is solid, the actual send out  if there is more than one option not so much.  Kinda the same issue on the go out exercise to a lesser extent.

So I started working on the directed retrieve, or baby lining, with a dokken and a toy.  Hard!  But look how cute she is now at bringing the dokken to my side!

I also knew that training a sport where the dog has such strong natural instincts are much harder to do positively.  And I discovered my first glimpse into this concept when I bought some wings attached to a bumper.  Zumi's first experience involved quivering and in ability to take any treats when I presented it to her for hold training.  I kept it in my hand and trained exclusively with praise for just biting it, taking it away from her before she could anything else.  A very short session to prevent her from becoming too over stimulated.  Thankfully the 2nd session was already much improved and Zumi was able to think and take treats.  I did several real holds of the bumper/wing.  We will be progressing slowly before adding in more arousal.  I can only imagine the baby steps required when we get to an actual bird.

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More Gun Dog Foundations

Having a blast working on this new sport with Zumi!  I think we have mastered the whistle sit in a play context.  She will do a great sit in motion after running after me and even while tugging.

The whistle come has been started and I found out I suck at making repetitive pip-pip sounds.  I have been told I need to learn to use my tongue to stop it more than trying to to multiple blows.

I am currently thinking that I'm going to do all of Zumi's hunt training on my right hand side.  I know that I am going to have slightly different criteria on her field finishes than in obedience and am going to be way less precise about it.  While Zumi could easily learn to tell the difference between the 2 sports, I figure this will make it even clearer to her.  Unfortunately while I did teach her the side position when she was a baby, I don't think I've worked on it since she was like 4 months old.  I certainly didn't get to verbal only and real heeling on my right.

It didn't take that long to get a hand signal finish back with cookies.  Now we're working on doing it with added arousal (can't yet do a functional side with a toy in my hand) and with a dokken in her mouth.

Have also started place box training with Zumi.  Adam made a largish box that apparently Zumi gets to sit on.  Progress has gone faster than I thought with only minimal confusion trying to offer a down and a 2o2o, both confusion with agility obstacles.  

And as promised, here is the Amazing Corgi.  Way cooler than those tollers he says.

And if that isn't a win for positive retrieve training I don't know what is.  23 pound corgi retrieving the weight and size of a mallard on his first lesson.

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New Adventures in Training

I've decided to begin a completely new adventure in dog training for me!  A new instructor has joined us at FDSA and starting gun dog lessons!  When Vito first came home I thought it would be fun to dabble in it but without anyone to give R+ guidance my dedication didn't last long as I moved onto other sports.  Still not sure I will be all that committed with Zumi but I set myself a goal of getting her WC at least.  Certainly not looking to be a forerunner of the super, super, super small positive gun dog community.

Jumped right in and got my Dokkens delivered!  I am clueless and didn't realize how big mallards are.  All of the dogs were capable of retrieving it but it wasn't easy for the dogs to know where to hold it.

So then I ordered a teal, a puppy gun dog bird, and will started training with that first.

Much better.

Also got a shiny new whistle and starting to teach her the whistle sit!  Since I know Zumi is great at offering sits I know she wasn't quite getting the cue in this video yet.  I added distance and movement pretty quick to help give her more contrast on the whistle being the cue.  Note- not in the homework, if this was a stupid idea I only have myself to blame :)

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