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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The Video- 2015 In Review

My favorite video of the year.  No sad things exist, just fun times.

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2015 Review

The end of another year.

Lance
Needless to say this was not the year I had in mind for the Corgi.  His herniated disc occurred in January that set the tone for the rest of his year.  Crate rest, complications with facial paralysis, and then forced retirement from agility.  No last run, just done.  Obedience I had hopes of continued playing in utility only, no broad jump again.  Lance did a small handful of runs in AKC and then he decided he was done doing that too.

Mostly Lance is doing well with just pet dog activities.  Very happy to run around on walks, although he occasionally limps after trips where he runs a lot.  Otherwise Lance doesn't seem to showing any signs of pain in every day life.  Happy Corgi.
We will continue to do the occasional Cynosport Rally trial and CDSP obedience trial where he doesn't have to actually jump.

Vito
Vito's year didn't go as planned either.  Vito had a muscle injury that needed rehabbing that took out the majority of the summer.  Thankfully he seems fine now.

Agility:
With Lance out of agility, Vito and I only did 1.5 NADAC trials this year.  The injury starting during his 2nd trial.  Not sure how much NADAC we will be doing in the future, just not my favorite courses for how I like to run with my dogs.  The USDAA trials we managed to do around his injury we had fun. Very few Sad Toller runs and mostly we're on track and happy in agility trials.  Working on speed will always be our goal but our average continues to go up.  Vito even earned his very first Super Q in snooker and earned his masters gamblers title.  Things I never thought would happen.  Still don't know that an ATCH will be possible with him, but we're having fun and getting quite a few Master Challengers Q's!

Obedience:
Vito earned his preferred CDX title in AKC early this year.  But his attitude just isn't there for AKC.  We took quite a few more months off and then tried again.  And Vito had a meltdown, very nervous of the judges and even flipped out in just the environment itself.  CDSP has continued to go well though, with quite a few very happy Toller runs.  Even earned his championship Open title (10 Q's) and his Utility title in CDSP.  It's amazing how much the environment between CDSP and AKC trials effects him.

And for the past 2 months we began an experiment looking at the issues of choice in work and building the value of personal play.  Taking away all food and toys in his obedience work and leaving in the ability for him to say no.  It's been interesting!

Anxieties
Vito started out the year doing amazing with life.  Huge streak of no panic attacks in the car.  Being very calm at work.  Handling change.  And then he hit rock bottom in July.  We increased his drugs and re placed him back on a 3rd drug that was succesfully weaned off late last year.  It took awhile, but Vito is currently in a good place again.

Zumi
The little Duck's first full year with us!  Love this dog so much.  Normal!  And very, very eager to learn and do.  Over the past year we have worked on foundations for obedience, agility, disc dog, and recently started gun dog training.  I don't know where our future in dog sports will take us but we're going to have a solid start for whatever the road takes us.

She even competed in "puppy" rally with WCRL, getting lots of treats for being in the ring and focusing.  Her first title.  And a few weeks ago did level 1 with even more focus, and more cookies in the ring :)
Technically competed once in a disc dog trial, with rollers thrown.
Has done a small handful of agility run throughs in different places as well.

I look forward to seeing her hit the competition field in 2016!

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Merry Christmas

Got some snow just in time for some quick pictures before we loaded up the dogs for a very long drive south.  Betting is now open for how long it takes for Vito to have a panic attack.  Getting lots of extra drugs.

Best photobomb ever.

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Sit Signal

I've run into an unexpected problem with Zumi's signals.  Knowing that creeping forward is a common problem in the signal exercises I've been pretty clear how I want her position changes to look.  A fold back down, a lift back sit, and a kick back stand.  Zero forward movement.  So when Zumi started offering scootching backwards a little bit from her down to sit I thought it was cute.  I rewarded it.  A bunch.  I honestly never thought it was going to stick as she didn't always do it.

So now we have this!


Alright I have to fix it.  Motion forwards or backwards is deducted the same, no matter how cute.  She's a little confused as to why I'm resetting her a lot now, but she is starting to get it.

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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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WCRL Rally level 1!

Our club hosted a WCRL Rally trial this Saturday so I thought I would try Zumi in level 1 for the first time.  She did a few runs in the "puppy class" this past summer where you allowed to give a cookie anytime you want and the courses were shorter.

In level 1 (and all the levels) you are still allowed to give a cookie in the ring but only at "stationary" signs.  While Zumi will not be entering any AKC obedience or rally trials for quite a while still I had no doubt that she could successfully do WCRL rally and meet my goals.  Goals of course being
1) Great attitude and
2) Great focus

With the bonus goal being 3) precision.  We're not quite there on that one yet!  The focus goal also needs some more work on getting her used to the specific distractions that a trial entails- ring entrances, signs, stewards and, judge. But her overall ability to focus is extremely good and I knew look aways would be minor.

Round 1;
I cost way more points than she did!  Total score ended up being 201 out of 210 with 8 points lost due to me screwing up not one but two signs!  At sign #2 I already messed up and started to spiral (like the exercise later in that course) instead of a serpentine.  And then a few signs later I forgot to put her in a sit before I did a pivot and step to the right.  Shameful.  Luckily Zumi forgave me and was a very good Duck!


Round 2:
We both manage to make it through without any big mistakes!  210 out of 210!  I felt her focus was just a tiny bit less on this run through.


Bonus run off!  Since there was a 3 way tie for first place in the A class that means there is a run off with teams doing the first 6 signs again.  I immediately lost at sign #2 because yes once again I screwed up a sign!  Caught myself, praised Zumi, thanked the judge, and then left the ring right away with dorky shame!

Lance 
The corgi also got to play!  While he is permently retired from AKC obedience and rally, in WCRL he can get a jump height exemption and have the bars resting on the ground.  This lets him still have fun and lets him decide if he wants to "jump" or just walk over them.  We just stick with level 3 as I find it's the most fun with the baby open and utility exercises from obedience thrown in!  Although not a ton of those signs this weekend.

Round 1:
Happy and kinda sassy corgi.  Did not want to sit at first!  And then appeased me and had no problem after that 2nd sign.  I thought it was a nice run but he felt a bit stiff compared to normal, not quite as smooth of a worker.  A little sad for me, but he was still having a great time.  Earned a 209.

Round 2:
Happy and much better moving!  Felt just like old times and earned a nice 210.

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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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