Nala- Pivoting in Front

Nala, the service dog trainee, has been here longer than initially expected.  She passed her eval with me with flying colors and volunteered to keep her with us until another dog needed an eval.  She's my practice dog for Netta learning how to pet dogs nicely ;)

Since Nala is just turning 11 months old she's still very puppyish and even going through another crazy teenage stage right now.  A bit more testing on the rules at home than she was earlier!

We've been doing some training with her here of course.  Admittedly not a ton.  At least with Yummy I had more pressure since she was "in for final training" with me. Nala is just a pup still.

She has pretty good pivots to my left and right side now.  And I've mostly gotten rid of Nala's habit of wanting to come out in front of me to get her reward.  The dogs always have such a strong history of everyone always feeding them in front and hardly ever at the side!

So this week I started working on pivoting in front.  While Nala started out her pivot training in front of me, as I moved to pivoting at my side I always find the skill disappears.  The dogs get so excited about trying to pivot into heel that they aren't able to remain still in front even if I manage to get them there!

This was Nala's 2nd session with being re introduced to front position.  I am mostly trying to "catch" her with my treats to remain somewhat centered and prevent her from trying to get to my side.  Since Nala mostly gets rewarded on my left in heel position I try to focus my efforts on moving clockwise to have an easier time balancing out her movement.

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Nala Walking with Focus

I admit that I usually don't have to do much with the dogs I've raised to get nice "attention walking" or heads up heeling.  Having focus on me is always a must have before I begin any actual training with a dog each session.  I don't want to have to fight with a dog in trying to be more exciting than the environment, so I just don't.

Through our play sessions, all of my dogs have easily learned how to keep their focus on my eyes or shoulders even while moving.  They don't want to miss out on anything!  Then it's just a matter of getting that focus as part of our criteria when doing formal heeling or our less formal attention walking, but the foundation of focusing while moving has already been taught.  I don't require any of my dogs to keep their eyes on me 100% of the time when we're going on our neighborhood walk, but they can be called upon that skill when needed.

Nala has been a fantastic 9 month old puppy for me.  Very easy going, eager, and just a bit sensitive.  But she has really struggled with learning this skill.  Of course, she gets the typical level of distractability that any puppy would have, but even when "focused" and wanting to work she naturally dips her head any time we start moving, on or off leash.

As a future service dog, the ability to give eye contact while moving can be crucial in navigating crowded areas.  Nala does a great job of general "loose leash walking" but she has a long way to go in learning to focus on her person instead of getting excited to greet people, or sniff the shelves, or...

I am currently teaching Nala that it IS possible to keep her head up and still move! Rewarding UP has helped her quite a bit.

I've also found that Nala is a bit different from all the other dogs I've worked with, in that she has had an easier time learning to focus up when walking forwards than backwards.  I think we finally reached 6 steps of walking forward without a head dip vs backwards walking is still about the level she shows in the video from a few weeks ago.  Very slow progress, but progress!

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Trials, Training, and More Dogs

I've not been so great at updating the blog lately!  Let's give a quick recap of things I've been working on this month.

Zumi
Zumi's been working hard at learning to give me eye contact and not start the vulture before being sent on retrieves.

She also did an AKC rally trial last weekend, her first two times in advanced.  I was eager to see if she would handle the environment of AKC better than her last trial all the way back in October.  The great news is that I didn't see any of the small stress signs I saw back then!  Her run on Saturday was everything I could hope for.  She did struggle with doing the halt-call front exercise but that was not a surprise to me.  While Zumi does have a beautiful pivot to front, I've noticed that lately she's been doubting the verbal cue and just twitching instead.

On Sunday's run her focus entering the ring and even ignoring a delightfully chatty judge was excellent!  However, she seemed to think that the "fast" sign meant that we were suddenly doing agility and she should look for something to send to.  I called Zumi back as she started to take off, but as soon as she returned the lightbulb went off in her little head and she proudly went forward again to do an "out" around a sign.  Other than her creativity, I was happy with her focus and clearly confident performance.

I hope to enter another AKC rally trial next month as a stepping stone to getting her ready for AKC obedience.  Our club's trial is in October and I'm debating about entering Zumi in novice obedience then, or just continuing our rally route for a few more trials.

Vito
Vito has been working on his fronts with a retrieve item.  Something that's never been 100% and has steadily declined over the years.  I cringe as he always comes in close and straight and then right as he begins a sit he suddenly decides to shuffle back a half step.  I  have no idea why.  He never does that without an item in his mouth of course.

I'm trying an experiment with him involving a chin rest.  It would be an easier experiment if the way I teach their retrieves didn't involve an automatic drop into a held out hand as an informal delivery option...  But we are making progress.  Mainly he needs to learn how to target and then do a tucked sit vs the rock back shuffle.

Nala
And this week we got a visitor!  Nala is an 8 month old Labrador puppy!  Another service dog in training of course.  She needed an evaluation and some training as she had really been struggling with life behind bars.  Nala was in our prison program, but it was determined not to be a good fit for her.

So welcome Nala!  I'm not sure how long we will have her for, current plan is a few weeks.

Zumi is in love. She lets Nala get away with all sorts of stuff she never lets other dogs even think about.  Sadly for me, this means they have been playing in the house.  Our house is so tiny that I really prefer the dogs only wrestle or chase outside.  Especially with a crawling baby now!  This usually isn't a problem since my only player is Zumi and her play style is usually more chase than wrestle. Well with Nala she's been more open.  I'm hoping that things settle down once the novelty wears off.

Nala is proving to be a very sweet, gentle girl yet still extremely puppyish!  Between Nala, Yummy, and another lab foster we had last week, it's becoming clear while labs are such great family dogs.  The dynamic between them and Netta is very different than with the other dogs.  I'm still doing a lot of management and making sure Netta isn't grabbing them, but I swear the labs are almost begging to be poked by a child.

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