Control Unleashed - The Dog's Idea

Well, well!

I'll skip any forced introduction along the lines of "wow, I haven't written on here in nearly two years." Instead, I'll jump right in to it and say that I attended a Control Unleashed seminar at my dog club this past weekend.

Those of you who may still be reading this blog and were around in the beginning know that Control Unleashed exercises played some role in Marge's behavior modification training back in the day.  Most notably, I remember playing the "Look at That!" game when Marge would go absolutely nuts watching dogs, particularly bigger dogs, zip around at the agility field.

I got to recount this with Leslie McDevitt herself, which was super cool - especially since I had Marge on-leash next to me, who had little interest in or concern for the environment around her, thanks in part to some of these games.

Anyway, it's been a long time since I picked up the book, and I mentioned that to Leslie.  I really thought that the seminar would be more of a refresher for me, a way for me to silently nod my head and recall my vague memories of reading and using sections of the book.  How silly of me. Leslie said that since the book came out, she's had a lot of time to think about things, and I guess amend the way that she teaches them.  She wasn't kidding, because the seminar was absolutely mind-blowingly good.

The premise of the entire seminar was teaching the dog to have a conversation with you about the environment, rather than focusing on the environment alone.

It started with the concept of teaching the dog to breathe. I was confused at first by the idea of literally watching a dogs' nose to see if they are taking breaths, but it actually makes a lot of sense.  To just breathe, a dog can't be jumping up all over, stress panting, barking, whining, or otherwise being raucous.  To be able to sit quietly and calmly, to be able to truly connect with the handler in a myriad of environments, is the foundation for everything else.  Drive, interest, excitement.. perhaps that should come later.

There was a recent blog post that circulated about the idea of dogs being stressed in competition settings. Marge herself likes agility and seems comfortable at trials, but can be barky right beefore entering the agility ring.   The gist was that although dogs may appear driven and may appear to love what they are doing (and maybe they do), is it possible that the screaming outside the ring, dilated pupils, nervous pawing, is actually not a good thing?

Based on this seminar, I'd think that the answer to that question is yes.  Seems obvious, but a dog that can't settle ("breathe") may become unglued more easily in a pressure-filled setting.

After that, the rest of the seminar basically consisted of versions of Leslie's games used to build patterns that reassure the dog and rewards that stimulate interest in the handler rather than the environment.  I won't get in to all of them here, but the one I found most amazing was a rendition of CU's "Give Me a Break" game.

One working participant was called in to the ring with her dog to act as a demo.  The participant happened to have her dog off-leash, figuring he'd follow her in to the ring. He didn't.  In fact, he went left, he went right, he sniffed.. he went everywhere OTHER than through the ring with his handler, even after being called.  Pure avoidance behavior.

This is something I've struggled with to an extent when I do things like Obedience and Rally with Marge.. although she gives me a good performance in everything she does, it sometimes feels like I'm dragging her around in those two activities, as opposed to agility, where she appears a lot more animated.

After seeing what I saw, I realized that we stand a good chance of raising the dogs' level of interest and comfort by using predictable patterns and making participation in the behavior "the dog's idea."

What Leslie did was bring this dog into the ring, fed him a bunch of treats, rewarded him for breathing, for calm eye contact.. and then slowly exited the ring.  Once she sat down for a break, the dog eventually looked back up at her.  At that exact moment, she took the dog back in to the ring, repeated the same process, and then left the ring again. The eye contact outside of the ring became the dog's cue for "MORE! MORE!"

The dog who was, at first, completely avoiding the ring was now voluntarily asking to be brought back in.  In the span of 5 minutes or so.  Entering the ring became his idea, on his terms, and his entire demeanor changed.

After a while, Leslie not only had the dog sit and breathe in the ring, but also added heeling and other obedience exercises slowly in to the mix before exiting.  The dog remained engaged.  The pattern was predictable, plenty of treats were had, and the dog was happy.

It's not a perfect system, since dogs can differentiate between practice settings and trials, but it is a start, and can be easily implemented at match shows.  Besides, forming the pattern itself (dog asks to be worked, we go in the ring, do stuff, and then go back to our chair) may be enough to make a dog more comfortable in a trial setting.

An upcoming goal that I have for Marge is to obtain her Companion Dog (CD) title.  She earned her UKC CD several years ago, but in a quest for Marge to be my Novice A Obedience dog, as she has been my Novice A Rally and Agility dog, I'd love to earn her AKC CD, too. If I put her in the ring tomorrow, she'd stand a decent chance of qualifying.  However, I've been hesitant to bring her out because of how different it is than agility.  Things like the presence of the judge and the lack of feedback from the handler may make it tougher for her.  Since a Q with an uncomfortable Marge would not make me happy, I've been very picky about deciding when to enter.

We have been practicing weekly or bi-weekly with decent success. However, after dabbling with the "Give Me a Break" game as explained above, I'm really excited to continue training and see where it leads us.

Our Obedience Journey

Our competition obedience journey started roughly one year ago, when the obedience training director at my training club told me that Marge was advanced enough in her training to drop in to a Show-Ready Novice obedience class.

Dogs in this class were already competing or close to doing so.  I had never set foot in an obedience ring, never went through the foundation classes like every one else.  Yet, I was now here in this class, not knowing what to expect.  Would I like it?  Would Marge like it?  Would we do well?

Long story short, we made the decision to press on with our competition obedience training.  Two obedience matches later, we entered our first UKC obedience trial in June of this year and picked up scores of 193 and 194.  Here is her first run.

Last weekend, the day that Hurricane Irene scared the pants off of all of us, I had to make the difficult choice to either go to or skip the obedience trial I had entered.  I was stressed to the max with thoughts of my house being washed away by a storm surge (dramatic? maybe), but needed to free myself just a little bit from the chaos and so decided to go.

We had not practiced at all, save for one little ring rental hour shared with a few friends earlier that week.   Marge was picking up on my stress and I just couldn't seem to get her where I wanted her to be in terms of performance during our warm up.

But we went in the ring and got it done.  Not as pretty as our other two legs, we managed to hold on to a 191 and earned our final qualifying score.

Marge is now registered as a United Companion Dog (UCD).  Her first obedience title.  She also was, once again, the high scoring mixed breed in the trial.

It's hard to explain how I feel about the whole process as it's so vastly different than anything else we've ever done.  I wish I could say that it was the title that took us the most work to get, but I'm not sure that's true.  Sure, having Marge hold a Stand For Exam was the culmination of years of socialization work, but the rest almost came naturally.  A little heeling practice here and there, some fronts and finishes, and we were really good to go.

Still, I am really proud of the both of us for earning this title.  Even if it was a tiny little trial at our home training club, I never, ever thought we'd do competition obedience, let alone do it successfully.

We're done with competition obedience for the time being.  Quite honestly, the possibility is there that we will not continue competition obedience at all.  Real life responsibilities beckon (the same reason I've been absent from the blog world), and I'd really like to focus on agility for now.  We are dabbling with the Open exercises, though I'm not sure if I'd like to start fresh in AKC or go on to Open in UKC.  Only time will tell!

First Match

Today, Marge and I attended an obedience match at our dog training club.  It was the first time we matched in obedience.

We did two runs; the second was loads better than the first.  Marge was sort of distracted on the first run.  I'm trying really hard to get her to understand that the reward is both hidden and delayed (as opposed to in my hand at all times - definitely one of my training flaws), and I think in focusing on that, I didn't help her enough.  I got my act together once I realized I needed to change my strategy.

Several people commented on how good our heeling is.  It didn't feel good.. though it was better on the second run.

So why don't I just run through the exercises and talk about how I did today with them?

Heel on Leash
- Overall, she was pretty good.  Distracted on the first run but seemed to get better as time went on.  Her halts were lacking tremendously, partially because her attention wasn't as great as it usually is.  She got a little laggy in some spots, but when I did my footwork correctly, things seemed to come together more.

Figure 8 on Leash
- Again, got better in our second run.  The first run, she was laggy and distracted around the outer ring.  This exercise is one of her strongest, so I was a little concerned about that.  However, she did better the second time around.  She also paid no mind to the fact that we actually had people as posts for a change.

Stand for Exam
- AWESOME.  She held it fine twice for a person she knows well and then held it with a waggy tail for someone she has never met before in her life.  Happily, this exercise is proving to be a HUGE non-issue as it stands right now.

Heel off Leash
- Like the heel on leash, this was patchy.. we really just need to work it more.

Recall over Jump (UKC Recall)
- This was hit and miss.  One time, she missed my verbal cue and stared at my cluelessly.  She had a couple of perfect ones and some not-so-straight ones.  She did NOT break from the front position prematurely, though, which was a big deal (she likes to take it into her own hands and finish before I let her know it is OK to do so).

Stays
- Held both the sit and the down, but she was very interested in the Flat Coat working in the other ring.   We did some really nice proofing, though, because the Open level dogs were doing their stays with the Novice dogs, so there were dogs moving around and people moving in to and out of the ring.  Marge didn't even bat an eye at that stuff!

We do need to do more work with Honoring (the UKC's version of the down-stay), but I'm pretty confident in Marge's ability to handle it.

I didn't get any video, but here she is working out in the field with me recently. (Ignore the fact that my hands are in all the wrong places!)

I think we've totally smash our obedience goals for the first half of this year. If things keep panning out this well, we'll be entered in our first UKC obedience trial on June 11th.

Everything

I really should be asleep, since I have to wake up at 7 AM to get ready to run eight pigeons in the operant chambers at school, but I figured I could squeak out an update.

Saturday, we all caught a bit of a break and headed to the park for a while.  My sister and grandmother tagged along as well.  It was a new park that Marge had never been to.  She was so excited to get out and start walking, though.  We milled around for about a half hour.  There were people everywhere and whistles galore from the sports games that were taking place, and I'm proud to say that Marge wasn't fazed at all!

my sweet girl..

Afterwards, Marge accompanied us to PetCo, where I picked up cans of food for Layla. I was originally going to leave her in the car, but she seemed so relaxed that I didn't think a 5-minute trip inside of the store would bother her. She did much better on this visit, probably because of all of the company that was with us.  She was in close quarters with lots of dogs and did just fine.  This might become a regular activity for us, as PetCo is the only store that supplies Layla's food around here.

Monday was Layla's Gotcha Day.  She's now been living with us for 12 years.

We started Prednisone treatment for her over the weekend.  I simply could not justify spending $2K and putting Layla through anesthesia and tons of mental and physical stress without trying the less invasive option first.  She will be re-weighed next weekend to see if the steroids have had any effect.  So far, all I'm seeing is a hearty appetite and not much, if any, weight gain.

This, of course, is one of many things that is totally consuming me right now.  There are so many reasons why I should and shouldn't agree to biopsy.  Still hoping it doesn't come to that.. we have about another 8 or 9 days of steroid treatment before she is reevaluated at the vet.

Monday night, Marge came with me to teach the non-competitive agility class.  Not an uncommon occurrence.  However, she ran agility for FOUR people other than me.

We had a simple course set up with just low jumps, NADAC hoops, and tunnels, and wanted to give the students a feel for what it's like to run a competition level dog.  Marge did beautifully.. running for one male (the special needs boy who she befriended a few weeks ago - very, very proud of her) and three women.

I helped direct her around the course a bit (like calling out a "turn" to get Marge to switch leads - these students don't know about rear crosses or anything), but she worked pretty well for everyone and didn't seem terribly stressed by it.  She sure did like getting to sample other people's treats.

Tuesday night, we dropped into obedience class for the second week in a row.  We played more front games, which Marge thoroughly enjoyed.  We also worked a lot on heeling (not my strong suit).  My footwork goes to pot as soon as Marge gets added to the picture.  By myself, I am fine, but stick the leash in my hand and I don't know where my feet are!  I'm working on it.

The plan is still to do a UKC obedience trial in June.  I have the UKC paperwork all filled out to register her with her FIFTH organization, now I just need to part with the cash.

That's really the long and short of everything we've been up to this week.  I am so overwhelmed with school right now (took three tests this week, taking another Tuesday).  One of my classes is ending on March 22nd and I am leaving my internship on the 30th, so I'm hoping to get my life back in a couple of weeks!  Of course, I'm not expecting too long of a honeymoon, as we're already just about half way through the semester and finals are slowly approaching, never mind the grueling summer class schedule that I might put myself through.. AND the required Physical Therapy hours I need to do.. AND the GRE studying that I should have already started.. Junior year of college really isn't all that different from Junior year of high school.

Tuesday Training 45

an old pic of some not-so-great figure eight-ing. :)

For the first time since September, we actually did some formal obedience with instruction this week.

Monday night, my friend, who I am teaching the non-competitive agility class with, offered to help me with my heeling and footwork.  She had me walk to the beat of a metronome (I think it was at 130 steps per minute) to keep me at a steady pace.  We also worked on the footwork for about turns and halts (I'm doing much better with the abouts.. the halts, not so much).

Then, tonight, we dropped in to Show Ready Novice, kind of on a whim.  Marge did quite well.

Distracted Stays
We worked our dogs with a partner on stays.  The partner would distract the dog with treats, toys, food, noise, etc.  Marge did very well - she showed interest in the person several times, but only broke her sit once (the first time).  Once she realized that that was NOT was she was supposed to do, she stayed put with a little verbal help and tons of praise.

We then lined our dogs up and put them in a sit stay while the instructor heeled her dog around them, had her dog run across the room, etc.  Once again, Marge showed interest, but she did not break.

She even held her sit when the big, gorgeous Irish Setter next to her got up and started sniffing her.  I IMMEDIATELY went in and fed her.

Distracted Heeling
The next thing we worked was some heeling.  We were paired with a partner who was supposed to act like a "pushy" judge (one that comes in very close to the dog, circles the dog, etc).  I had her only call forwards, halts, and abouts (we've barely even started on lefts and rights).  My footwork was awful and that threw Marge out of position, but she didn't really pay any mind to the woman (who was, admittedly, going easy on her.. but still!)

Stand For Exam
This one was the biggie for us.  We each took turns practicing the entire Stand For Exam exercise.

Marge was great.  She did turn her head and look at the person coming in, but did not move her feet at all.  We did this with three different people. I'm going to work on tossing her cookies while the person is approaching her to keep her focus on me.

I was very proud of this.. it was really the first time we ever practiced the entire Stand For Exam exercise with new people.

Recall Games
This was a lot of fun! We sat our dogs in a circle with their backs to each other, told them to wait, and then released them into a game.

After a few reps, we called front.  Marge LOVED this. We did the same routine individually as well, using the whole length of the room.

Marge's fronts were not bad.. the teacher said she was doing very well, and that it was obvious that I've been working with her.

Her finishes weren't too shabby, either.

The one thing that did scare her about this was when one of the handlers was really pumping his dog up by running around and pounding around his tug stick.  I simply fed her and took her off of the floor when I saw it was bothering her.

Sit Stay
We ended class with a regular 1-minute sit.  Marge, as usual, didn't budge (and was next to a Rottweiler, to boot!).  I will say she was a bit distracted by what was going on on the other side of the room, though.

The plan for us is to enter one day of a UKC Obedience trial at our club in June.  I feel confident that she'll be ready to compete by then and really does seem to like working on it.

Revisiting Obedience

After our two class drop-ins in September, we sort of forgot about Obedience training and went back to focusing on our agility trials.  Marge did NOT do as well in the second class as she did in the first (where she was called "fabulous" by the instructor), but she didn't do terribly and seemed to still enjoy it.

I watched a UKC Obedience trial at my club this past weekend, so once again, the activity has been on my mind.  I actually went in to the ring with a friend's Dachshund, as the sit-stay exercise was condensed in to one group for the Novice dogs, and she had two dogs to show so needed another person to handle one of them.  The Dachsie girl held the 1-minute sit for me!

I've started running through exercises with Marge again in my living room, drawing on the little bit of guidance I received from our club's instructor two months ago, and adding in some ideas of my own.

I think that, if I ever compete, I will choose UKC Obedience.  The trials are smaller.  We have two every year held at my club.  And, from what I saw on Saturday, the atmosphere was very laid back.  I'm not crazy about registering Marge with ANOTHER organization (it'll be her fifth one - NADAC, CPE, AKC, APDT), but getting to trial at our home club is really the most important thing.

So, if we were entered in a trial tomorrow, how would we do?

Heel on Leash
Pass.  Marge's heeling has come a long, long way.  Her about-turns look really good, providing I get the footwork right.  Her left turns are also fine.  I do tend to lose her a bit on the right turns, so I think she'd get some points off for lagging.  She sits straight when we halt, too.  The one thing I anticipate about competition is losing eye-contact with her, or only getting it some of the time.   So, I think we'd pass, with some deductions.
Figure 8
Pass.  We haven't actually done this with people yet, but my gut feeling says she'd pass this one, too.  I don't anticipate her sniffing anyone, though we certainly would practice at matches and stuff to really proof the whole thing.  She lags a bit on the rights - as you can see, it's a recurring issue that we're working on.
Stand For Exam
Fail.  She might hold the stand-stay, but not without a lot of shrinking and lip-licking (which is not a situation I'll put her in).  We won't compete until I am confident that Marge understands the exercise and realizes that all the judge will do to her is pat her three times on the head, neck, and back.  Oh, and we sure as heck won't show under a male judge, either.
Heel Free
Pass.  I think there'd be more lagging than with the Heel on Leash, but not enough to fail the exercise.  I'm the kind of person who wants only to qualify without the finishing touches (I like my runs to look good and feel good), but, if we set foot in the ring today, I think that's how it'd look.
Recall Over Jump
Pass.  Her fronts have gotten consistently more straight, and I'm not sure that the jump would affect her much in any way.  She might need to get used to the idea of two people standing on either side of the jump, but I think she'd perform the exercise.  Finishes are a work in progress, but she's absolutely doing them.
Honor Down
Pass. In UKC Obedience, the "Honor" dog does a down-stay during the first two exercises of another dog's run.  I saw how it was set up at my club, and the Honor dogs in Novice were definitely not more than 20-30 feet away from their handler.   She has no problem whatsoever with her down-stays.  I'd just like her to get some practice actually being in that position while another dog is working.
Long Sit
Pass. I just participated in this exercise at the trial and am confident that Marge could hold a 1-minute sit-stay with other dogs around.

I'm toying with the idea of taking Marge to a match and just playing around with her.. having some people stand in the ring as Figure 8 posts, maybe just mill around the way a judge would, etc.  My one concern is getting unsolicited advice and being told to do things in a way that I'm not comfortable with while at the match.  If I need help, I'd rather ask for it or go to class.  There are so many different ways to train these exercises, and it can get kind of overwhelming and awkward for me when a more-experienced person tells me something that I don't agree with. Constructive criticism is OK, advice is OK too (heck, I love getting advice on my agility handling), but something in me tells me to do this Obedience thing by myself.

I've changed up our training set up when we train Obedience.  I rarely carry treats in my hand - sometimes, I don't even take them out of the closet at all.  I want Marge to be focused on me with the possibility of reinforcement in her mind, not focusing solely on the cookie (which, I think, has affected us a bit in agility).  So, we'll run though a couple of exercises, then she'll run inside with me to the treat cabinet and get her reward.  We do this several times throughout the day, often at high-excitement times (like when I first come home, or before dinner, etc).  Of course, this has all been in my house, so it'll be interesting to see what will happen when I finally get to work her during some ring rental time at the club.

It would be nice to add the letters U-CD to the front of Marge's name, but only time will tell how far we really get.  The next trial at our club likely won't be until April -- and probably the same weekend as one of our favorite agility trials, so hooray for conflicts -- so we have lots of time to practice and mull it over.  We'll update on this again after we do some ring time or attend a match. Guidance is definitely appreciated!

Fabulous

Well, we took the leap and gave it a try.

The whole car ride there, my mind wavered between thinking it was an awful idea and thinking it'd be a worthwhile experience.

Turns out it was the latter of the two.

We totally rocked in Novice class last night.  Not only by my standards - the teacher called our work "fabulous" on one occasion (I think it was the recall) and said it was obvious that we'd practiced a lot at home.   She seemed surprised by the fact that this is my first dog, my first competition dog.  Scary, considering the fact that the last Obedience class we took was Beginner 2 in the early months of 2009 and save for some tips from friends, have had absolutely no formal competition training.

I have tons of work to do if I'm going to do this right, no doubt.  My footwork is completely screwed up, particularly on the about turns.  Marge and I ran in to each other on more than one occasion, but we also had better heelwork than I ever could have imagined in a brand-new class setting.   And, now I know what I need to work on (cueing the about turn by turning my body when I'm stepping on the right foot!!!!).  I'm also not making the traditional T shape when doing the about turn - it sends Marge wide - so we're modifying it a bit.

We dabbled with the stand for exam.  She stood there and barely paid attention to the instructor, who did not touch her (by my request), just walked up next to her.  We practiced heeling offleash.  We performed the recall exercise, and Marge's front was so lovely that I threw her a little party and forgot about the finish.

We did stays.  She held both the sit and down with no problem what so ever.  Even put her head on the floor on the down.  Didn't matter that there was a strange Cocker Spaniel next to her.  She didn't even look at him - or any of the other dogs in the class, for that matter.

I really enjoyed it.  I think Marge did, too.   Her focus was the best I've seen in a while out of ANY of our activities.  I'm kind of impressed with myself, too.. I really had no idea that I had trained her to such a high level on my own by reading, studying, and watching others.

So, yeah.. as if I needed to add another activity to my busy schedule and Marge's growing agenda, we just might keep at this for a while and see where it leads us.

Stay tuned until next week - I think we're going to go to class again.

Thoughts on Obedience

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about starting Marge in Competition Obedience.  She has been doing really well in her classes at the club (her reactivity is way down), and our bits and pieces of Obedience practice seem to be well-received by her - and I enjoy them, too.  Lots of people at my club tell me that we'd enjoy it, it'd help us in our other training areas (Rally and Agility), and that my dog would be really good at it.

I never really considered it up until now, likely due to all of the stressed dogs and unhappy handlers that I see at shows and run-throughs (and, quite frankly, the over abundance of people using compulsion on dogs who aren't performing correctly BECAUSE they are stressed).  But then, I see people like Petra Ford training her heavily titled, National Obedience Champion Lab, and I see how much fun they are both having.  The dog isn't stressed to be in the ring.  He isn't simply complying with her requests to drop on a recall or take a jump. He is thoroughly enjoying it, and it is really wonderful to see.

Marge and I did some heeling pattern practice with a friend last night, and I have to admit, I was really encouraged by how well she did.  Honestly, her only heeling problems are lagging on the right turns and the about turns.  She has great attention and sticks to my left side when we are practicing heeling.

Her fronts and finishes have come a long way, too.  We could still use some work in those areas, but I don't think it's anything that can't be fixed by training under a good instructor.

And, her stays?  They're solid.  After some proofing (i.e. performing stays with groups of new dogs), I would feel extremely confident in her ability to perform a set of Novice sits and downs.  She isn't stressed at all during them - last night, she actually put her head on the floor on the 3-minute down we did after Rally class.

This leaves one thing - the Stand for Exam.  It is, perhaps, the biggest reason why I'm still hesitant to go on with Obedience training.  Marge has come SO far in regards to her fears of people.  I'm afraid of jeopardizing that.  Maybe it's an irrational fear, maybe it isn't.  I'm not really sure.  I know how I'd train it (in baby steps - teach her to stand in place while a "judge" circles around her - she's got this down already, then to stand in place while a judge walks up to her side and then retreats, then a pat on the head, then a pat on the head and shoulders, then all three pats).  But I'm just worried that more experienced people will tell me that my approach is bad or something.

I'm likely going to observe a class at my club to see what I think. I never thought I'd do it - and Obedience will NEVER take the place of our heart sport, Agility - but maybe we'll give it a try.