The Obedience Experiment Conclusion

For those who followed Vito's experiment last winter/spring I never really posted it's conclusion.  Last update in April was 5 months in.  I did another month before ending the experiment, kinda took another few months break, and resumed obedience training in August.

The experiment of taking away all his food/toy rewards wasn't all unicorns and rainbows.  It certainly didn't have the results it had when I did it with the Corgi but nor did I expect it to.  Unfortunately the dogs who I think can benefit the most from really building up the value of personal play and choosing to work are also the dogs who will really struggle with it.  The dogs who naturally have great "work ethics" are likely going to excel whether they go through a learning stage like this or not.
Vito can come off as a high drive working dog, but it's purely obsession that masks his naturally low energy, low work drive.  His experiment was painful.

The last month (and remember it was still extremely few sessions each month) I tightened up Vito's freedom by keeping him on leash.  He still had full control of whether he wanted to work or not, but less choices of what to do during his time.  We would walk together around the training building and let him sniff all the things, but then I would stick to one spot.  It didn't bother Vito at all as he was still pretty darn content to lie down and watch the world.  But I do think it helped.

Actually we did have 1 downfall of doing this experiment.  Vito got in the habit of being able to sniff and explore the area before working.  Acclimation is a GOOD thing, but Vito was past the point of needing to directly acclimate in the working area vs just outside of it.  All the sniffing and crumb finding he practiced for months was quite the rehearsal.  If I had done the on leash exploration earlier in the process I think it would have helped.  For the most part, 1 month back now into jackpot training and criteria for choosing to work outside of a ring, then full focus in the ring, and Vito is back to not checking out of work to explore.  Except weirdly enough the exploration kinda seeped into agility training at home.  I never quite using toys in agility but all summer Vito runs out into the agility field when it's his turn with happy helicopter tail exploring the yard, searching for a non existent ball, for a few minutes until he runs back to me ready to work.  It's a bit odd.

I do think the pros of this experiment are still many, even for dogs like Vito.  Vito's personal play skills increased.  His value for his dumbbell increased.  He fully understands choice in working or not working and it was thrilling when he did work even when he knew there was no rewards.  Even now with the introduction of rewards back into training- still never on my body- we can go quite a long time before a reward.  It's a bit more like the rewards are a bonus than the sole reason for choosing to start work.
Precision is still slowly working it's way back, but I think it will get there again.  At least the precision errors have remained due to excitement errors and not lack of effort.  Mainly we have forging, crabbing, and creeping.

Here is a long video of Vito's training session on Wednesday.  The first 3 minutes are of absolutely nothing.  I am waiting outside the ring to see if Vito is going to choose to start work or not.  There are no rewards on my body.  Then Vito does decide to start work and once we enter the ring he stays in work mode until I decide to have him sit and bring over some treats for him.  I then repeat the process of exiting the ring and waiting.  The 2nd time is much shorter and I cut the video off once we make it back inside.

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USDAA Trial

The tollers had another agility trial this past weekend.  USDAA.  Just one more outdoor trial left for the year!

Zumi was a wild child.  She certainly is not lacking confidence. Wheee!!

There were good things.  Nice start lines, not even vulturing that much.  Nice aframes, even with 1 flip to a tunnel we haven't practiced!  And some nice dogwalks and weaves.  

Turning though was another story.  Actually she seemed to get worse in that department with every run.  Her first run on Saturday she was super responsive, almost too responsive as her rear cross "switch" cue seemed to me turn immediately and not actually take the jump.  That improved over the 7 total runs over the weekend but then she seemed to lose the ability to turn all together.  A single step from me meant run 20ft out.  

We had fun at least!  And actually we did end up with the single Q she needed in Starters Pairs to fast track her to Advanced in all the things.  It wasn't exactly clean as Zumi ran past a jump to head to her aframe, but off courses are just extra time in pairs and her partnering run was still under.  So 1 for 7 runs, and really 0 for 7 in the clean run department.

It was Ducky's first time doing pairs though!  She ran 2nd both days and was completely solid on her stay.  I left the leash on Saturday until I had the baton in my hand just to make sure she wasn't going to interfere.  But Sunday I took it off early and we just waited together.  

This was one of her wildish runs, but not her worse!

And her standard run on Sunday was pretty decent too.

Vito was Sad Toller on Saturday.  Well for those newer to the blog, Sad Toller really isn't sad, just slow.  Vito is perfectly happy to go out there and do his thing, just doesn't see any sense of urgency whatsoever without a ball in my hand.  And in this case Sad Toller also meant knocked bars.

On Sunday Vito was much more Happy Toller and running. Well kinda running. He actually improved each run and by his 3rd and last run on Sunday I thought he was moving pretty well!  Just a little refusal at the end of Fancy Standard to make a 0 for 6 weekend.

This was Vito's happiest run:

Only 2 more trials left all year, both coming up in the next month.  

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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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More UKI Trials

Zumi (and Vito!) has had 2 more agility trials these last 2 weeks.  Definetly getting more comfortable with the routine.  She has no problem watching me set down her ball anymore as we get ready to go in the ring and wants to offer some lovely heeling on many of her entrances.  No issues with being distracted by people at all anymore.  And this last weekend was her first experience running on real turf.

In her actual runs she's gaining speed.  I think I finally know what it's like to have a dog that can be even faster in trials than in practice, not that she's slow in practice.  Issues with going from extension to collection have shown up.  She's been great if I can be right there, but at a distance she's a bit of hit and miss on actually turning tightly.  For the most part she's listening pretty well.  Number of Q's over the last 2 weekends (UKI trials!) have been extremely low.  But no major issues cropping up.

Start lines are teh biggest issue.  Not in breaking her stay but reverting to the horrible vulturing that she used to do and had improved greatly on.  I feel like an idiot as I repeatedly give her the sit cue/signal to have her straighten up multiple times as I lead out.

Dogwalks have been pretty darn good.  Maybe 75% very low hits, and 25% on the higher side?  Not sure if any actual misses.  Aframes were awful 1 hit downsides at the first trial, all misses, but this last weekend all 3 aframes were beautiful.  Teeters have had another flyoff (2 total now in trials), an early release, and the rest have been goodish.  She's not doing her 2o2o all the time, sometimes doing 4 on instead.

Weaves are having some issues with collecting for the entrance on soft turns to them.

And we have had a few instances of running around the outside of jumps because you know turning a little bit is hard.

Overall I'm very happy with where Zumi is at in agility.
I don't know if I shared my disappointment at her last USDAA trial but it's offical, Zumi did not get her 3rd measurement to be 17.5" and jump 18.  The judges were very nice (I actually had both measure!) and they just couldn't get her there.  So 17.75 is her height, jumping 22in in USDAA unless they raise the cutoff.  Current plan in USDAA is to jump her at 22in until she gets into masters and then reevaluate if I want her in performance at 16 or not.  It  just gives me the most options going forward and right now I think she looks really good at 22.  UKI she gets to jump 20 and I think that's perfect for her.

A few videos from the last 2 weekends.
Standard from this past weekend.  Just missed the jump after the dogwalk!


Standard round 2 from 8/20. I love, love the dogwalk turn :)


Jumpers from 8/20.  Tunnel sucked her in from the weave entrance!


And Vito got to play too these last 2 weekends.  We don't really seem to be in sync yet from our break.  Getting so many more refusals like he used to do, especially on wraps when he just stares at me sometimes and doesn't take the damn jump in front of him.  And then I do toy runs as UKI allows that and he's perfect.  Toller loves his ball.

I just did Saturday with Vito this last weekend and skipped day 2 as it was a long drive and I didn't want to push our luck.  I increased one of his drugs just a week ago as car anxiety was starting to come back.  We only got a short few months of bliss since starting this new drug earlier this year...

Here is one of Vito's better runs this past Saturday with just 1 refusal at a wrap and 2 knocked bars.


And a weirder run where we were just not in sync much at all.  And then the poor guy did something at the weaves.


Both dogs get to play again in 2 weeks at an outdoor USDAA Trial.  It will be Zumi's first 2 ring trial, but the rings don't share a gate so will be a nice gradual introduction.   I guess we will just see with Vito.

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Super Q #2 And Starters Standard Dog!

USDAA trial on Saturday for the red dogs.  Too far to go back for a second day as pretty much all of Zumi's agility trials are turning out so far this summer.

Vito
This was Vito's first re-attempt at trialing since his little shoulder injury this spring.  My hopes weren't super high as Vito has been a complete idiot in his class every other week and really at home too.  Foundations dog instead of masters dog.  I had him in 3 runs to kinda test where he was at physically and mentally I guess too.

Standard he was an idiot.  A very happy idiot.  Broke his startline which isn't completely unexpected in a trial, but usually he is a good dog and we play the "know I mean it" game, because well he is Vito.  He apparently didn't think I meant it :)  which left me completely unable to handle his running dogwalk as the 2nd obstacle.  Then he broke his teeter which again left me out of position to handle a tunnel entrance.  He had fun.

Snooker he was magically back to being good toller.  Not quite as high, and in a thoughtful but decent speed mode.  And then he was a little naughty, but completely saved my butt.  I apparently thought I should throw in a spontaneous threadle after a backside in the closing of snooker and Vito thought that was stupid, a 180 was easier and obviously that's what the numbers said anyway.  I groaned and then realized the whistle didn't actually blow.  And then I realized my dog was way smarter than I am and finished the closing.  This magically earned us a super Q of which Vito gets the sole credit.  Super Q #2!!!  I didn't think it would happen again as we don't exactly win on speed when there are the many ties on points.  Our course was 7-7-7 through the closing, but no 4th red that apparently ate people up for time so they didn't finish the closing, or screw ups in general.  It's possible he could get that championship after all?

No video of the Toller :(  There wasn't a ton of people around and I didn't make a big effort like I did with Zumi since she is new at all...

Vito got a massage at the trial too before his jumpers run and checked out pretty well!

Zumi
Zumi's 3rd day of trialing and at the same location as her first trial.  Maybe she likes it here better, but she was way more focused than she was in Duluth at trial #2.  No focus issues at all going into the ring!  Of course there was also a lot less people working in the ring, we were a little short on workers at time.  But maybe she was just embracing her training.

Standard did all the things and in the correct order :)  A little naught on her teeter but did stop and then took a step back when I cued her feet again.  Dogwalk would have been perfect back foot hits but she slipped the last stride.  Judge did not' call it and it was a clean run for her 3rd leg and very first agility title!


Grand Prix was a fun course for her.  She got a little too excited and missed the weave entrance.  Then even more excited and flew off the teeter  like she thought it was the dogwalk. Dogwalk was a bit high.  But I was proud of her very tight rear cross on a jump, something that isn't very well practiced.  And a tandem turn to a tunnel which can always be a bit hard for her.


Snooker and Jumpers were also Qs!
I didn't notice how close the ending line was in jumpers but wow was she awkward.  Clearly Zumi does not know how to bounce jump the closer distance!  I'm shocked she kept the bars up.

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The Rats

In other news over our long break from blogging I had to say goodbye the the coolest rat that has ever lived.  Penelope developed a tumor that grew very fast.  We had it removed but unfortunately during the surgery they discovered it wasn't the tumor they thought it was.  Female rats are sadly very prone to tumors and Penelope's regrew in a much shorter time frame than we expected.  And it grew fast.  We finally said goodbye to her just a month over her initial surgery.

Since Penelope was a stray rat (a fact that still makes me smile and laugh!) we don't know how old she was. We had her for 15 months and she was fully grown when we got her but that doesn't mean much.  The reason why she was a stray was super obvious.  Once Penelope became comfortable, her greatest joy was figuring out how to escape from anything.  She was such a trouble maker!

And insanely smart.  I kinda lost motivation to train Penelope as the months went on, but she learned quite a bit when we were working!  Weave poles!  Rolling over!  Picking up a ball!  And some other little things.  

Evee has been a bit lost without her.  She looked depressed actually.  Evee was never the bravest rat despite my initial feeling that she would be.  Evee never once dreamed about escaping the expen setup.  And while she had no problem interacting with me, she startled super easily.

So I went looking for friends.  Since I spayed Evee when Penelope had her tumor removal surgery (to try and prevent Evee from getting tumors) I wanted boys this time.  Boys are known to be dumber and more cuddly.  I thought that sounded nice.

Rats in rescue were again not really there.  So this time I found a breeder.  I got 2 young boys.
Meet Spork and Splatter.

Splat.

 Spork.

Evee is not thrilled.  She's a bit of a bully actually.  Needless to say they are not moved in together.  But since it took 3 weeks for Evee and Penelope to move in together despite all the rat forums saying baby introductions are easy, I'm at least more prepared this time.

Evee got kicked out of the mansion to live in the temp cage with bars too big for the boys to stay contained in.  She's not happy.

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Catching Up

It's apparently been awhile.  We've been busy, kinda.  And also very lazy.

The things.
Dock Diving
Zumi and Vito went to a dock diving competition 4 weeks ago.  Much better experience than our first time.  This one was hosted by a club and everyone was very nice and willing to answer questions.  Plus having an actual briefing before the event started was helpful.

Vito only had 2 jumps at 11.5ft and 11ft.  Both jumps were larger than the other competition and more consistent.  He kinda did a stay for me on the dock the second turn but wouldn't at all on his first turn.

Zumi wouldn't jump.  I had hopes of her jumping since she finally made it to the dock when we were at Purina Farms.  But no such luck.  I took her 2 official turns and went straight to the ramp.  Even on the ramp she was a bit hesistant to actually enter the water, but of course super excited both before and after.

Then today I drove a ways to actually practice.  Their 3rd offical practice session, first time at this location.  No idea how far Vito jumped but he looked a lot better.  And actually stayed for me during his second set of turns on the dock.  Due to crowdedness each dog only got to have 2 sets on the dock.

Zumi and I just went to the ramp and never tried the dock.  The good news is that she didn't do any of the hesitancy she showed at the actual competition and it was the same setup of above ground pool.  The bad news is she made zero progress from jump 1 to the last jump.  Still eagerly running the short distance to the ramp and then going down the ramp until her feet touch water.  THEN jumping.  She's so happy.  And I don't know how to get her to progress from there.

Disc
Zumi went to a disc dog seminar a few weeks ago.  Had a blast!  We worked primarily on flatwork and teaching me how to time my throw with her striding.  Also taught me a better way to throw flip throws, and a few other little moves for Zumi.  If you're interested in disc, the presenter Sara is now at Fenzi Academy teaching her first class this session!  I'm hoping it will motivate me to actually practice disc.

Agility
Vito is back to going to agility practice, alternating weeks with Zumi in class.  His brain hasn't come back yet since his break.  Seriously, he's an idiot.  Stays are hard for him.  Actually following my handling is hard for him.  All the things are hard.  But wow is he excited.  Certainly not my nice consistent dog who almost never goes off course.
At home Vito is doing better with the listening department but he's still an idiot with jumping.  I don't think it's due to his shoulder still as whenever Vito is over the top excited he has always knocked bars.  Vito has a very hard time with arousal levels.

Zumi is doing pretty well.  We aren't practicing too much at home so haven't made much progress with her aframe turns since last posted. Actually I don't think I've touched the aframe.  We have done a few little sequences at home though, trying to kinda keep up with the online class I have been taking this summer.

Obedience
Zumi and Lance went to a WCRL rally trial and CDSP obedience trial last weekend!  I had plans to show Vito but when I looked at where it was held I knew that Vito wouldn't be entered. It's just too crowded of a site and usually very difficult to actually get into the ring.  Lots of pressure usually from people watching and the crating area.  It turned out that this trial was light on entries and with a surprisingly large amount crating from their car I think Vito could have handled it.  But better safe than sorry.

Lance was entered in 2 runs of level 3 rally on Saturday, and just 1 on Sunday based on his last trial in April of being tired on day 2. That held true this trial as well.  Very sassy and barky corgi in rally!  A bit naughty, but always such great focus and attitude.  Sunday he was still sassy but visibly tired so I was greatful he only had the one run.  I would have loved to entered him in utility obedience at this trial but realized that without regular practice it wouldn't really be fair to him.  He's such an experience dog that he could easily handle novice and open without practice, but utility really takes a ton of confidence in the exercises.  Articles, signals, go outs I feel are a little unfair without practice.  So the corgi won.  He has always loved rally more than obedience anyways.

Little Duck got to play in level 3 for the first time!  She had 2 runs in level 3 each day and qualified in all.  I was very proud of her focus in all runs.  She earned her title easily :)  And beat her way too sassy corgi brother


And then I decided to be brave and enter her very first obedience trial.  We did one run of starters novice on Sunday when I realized there was no stand for exam.  She had a few tiny moments of attention lapses but overall I was very proud of her run.  Her stand for exam was the biggest point loser in that it took an extra cue to get her to stand (CDSP judges this portion, AKC would not have).  

I've also been trying to practice Zumi's stand for exam when I take her to the club before I teach on Wednesdays.  She is really doing well.  Now if only I can start finding new people to generalize it to.

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Aframe Turns

Now that I don't have to worry about adding any more height to Zumi's aframe (thanks USDAA!), I need to really start focusing on teaching her turns off the aframe.  Well not so much turning tightly as you don't really need tight turns off the aframe, but being able to handle my different positions and not powering straight forward.  With Vito this was never an issue but clearly Zumi needs to be actually trained on this.  Training, how rare!

I've done a few reps with this at home this last week and thankfully had the great idea to use her pole from the running dogwalk turn training and plop it at the end of the aframe.  I wouldn't have initially thought it would be as helpful since she doesn't really need to go as low on the aframe as I want on the dogwalk, but clearly it caused her little lightbulb to turn on!  We've had some great success!

This was our first session this week both without the pole at the start for 2 awful reps, then with the pole.

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