Tuesday Training 38

I actually have a ton of training news to talk about - from walks, to teaching class, to training Marge - but I'll just stick with a couple of things for tonight since it's so darn late.

Rally Practice
Walks have been few and far between lately (I'll get in to it some other time - let's just say that the summer has started to catch up with Marge a bit), so I took a ring rental on Monday before I helped out with the pet agility class for some training and exercise time.  Marge and I covered a little bit of everything - worked on some fronts/finishes, some handling stuff in agility, and ran an APDT Level 2 rally course.  Here's one of our attempts at the rally course.

As you can see, I rewarded her often and carried the treats in my hands.  Since Marge will be off leash at our next trial on August 14, I really wanted to reinforce her staying close to me and keeping her attention on me.  She hasn't been formally trained to heel, but she is getting closer and closer to doing so (I still do ponder about a career in Novice Obedience for Marge, but that's for another day, too).

Her only error was on the Call Front - Finish Right sign.  She anticipates the finish. I don't want her to get in to the habit of doing something before I cue it, so that's why we went back and did it again.  Her turns were absolutely lovely, though!  I still need to use my hands and exaggerated body motions to cue the turns, but still. Look at those 360s at the end of the course!

O Little Playmate
Marge waited very patiently in a crate for about an hour while I taught the class.  Afterwards, I invited one of the students (a fellow club member) to stick around for a few minutes to let her Chihuahua, Napoleon, play with Marge.  They have met before and absolutely adore each other (and I REALLY like Nappy, he is an awesome dog with a very bright future in agility), and I thought some off leash playtime would be good for Marge.

They did very well together.  Marge allowed herself to be chased - she's usually the one doing the chasing - and did lots of play bowing.  I saw that after five minutes or so, Marge started to get tired; Nappy still wanted to play and tried to egg her on, but good girl Marge just ignored his behavior.  Seems like they might be really good playmates for each other - perhaps we'll do the same thing again in a couple of weeks.

Tuesday Training 32

Sunday Session

On Sunday, we had a training session with my friend and her Westie, S. I was originally set up to be disappointed, as Marge heard loud sounds in the parking lot while we were waiting to go in to the training hall and got all stressy. (She also hates interacting with dogs when she's like this, so she did send a snark or two poor little S's way.) I put her in a crate inside the hall for a couple of minutes for her to cool off, and the sounds seemed to have gone away (though, as I loater found out, it was simply that we couldn't hear them inside the building), so she calmed down.

We ran Rally first. Our first Rally trial is Saturday and Sunday, so I wanted to get in one more practice before then. We set up two courses - the AKC course from S's recent debut (where she qualified!) and then another course with some APDT signs in it. Marge did pretty well. I have been fine-tuning some of my handling, trying to exaggerate my body language to better prepare Marge for making right turns and lefts. It seems to be working.

Then, we did some agility. I didn't want to overdo it, since we're back in to the swing of outdoor classes and don't like to over work Marge, so we worked on the teeter, the weaves, startlines at the tire, and some directional stuff. I helped S and her Mom with back crosses, too.

By then, Marge was feeling fine, and had a little play-bow/chase session with her friend. At the end, I snapped a photo of them looking up at the tempting roast beef in my hand. Aren't they cute together? Both S's Mom and I are thrilled that they get along - we're roughly in the same stages of our training, so it's going to be nice to have a trial buddy who Marge likes. We're hopefully going to have another training session together in two weeks.

Walkie Walkie

Marge's walks have been mostly uneventful. We've been doing a lot of walking in the field, honestly. It has been quiet, so there hasn't been much to test her on, BUT she is dealing decently well with the things that she does encounter, like construction noises. She's perking waaay up when she sees dogs, so I really need to go back to the clicking and treating for both looking calmly and then making eye contact with me. (Strangely enough, strange dogs really aren't a huge issue at doggy sport events.) The warm weather is always a challenge for Marge, as she seems to react more strongly to stimuli when it's hot out. We've been doing roughly one long walk a day, and sometimes a shorter one thrown in.

I want to continue walking her at night, but I'm being very selective about when I do it. Friday and Saturday nights are usually no-no's. If it's too warm, I usually scrap it, too. I do NOT want her to hear a firework and then decide that all walks are bad.

I want to start heading back to the parks, but haven't yet had the time.

Speaking of Fireworks..

We have had a few. Already. #@%$#! On the plus side, I'm pretty much grabbing treats as soon as I hear them and feeding Marge. She isn't running away as badly as she used to, but she is still getting pretty scared. I know I need to step the conditioning NOW if I want the summer to be bearable.

I've thought about playing firework sounds on the computer, but most of them go EEEEEK-POP and she is really not ready to deal with the high pitched "EEEEK." She reacts the worst to that. She's been doing better with whistles, sirens, etc., so I'm not sure I really want to touch that at all. If I play regular bangs and booms on the computer, she usually doesn't think anything of it. Hmm.

I might get some bubble wrap for Marge to go crazy with. She really did love the game in the past where I clicked/treated for her stepping on the wrap and making the popping noise. That might be something to do again.

Agility

We're going to agility tonight and also having a private lesson afterwards. But, so that this post isn't ginormously long, I'll save that for another day!

Tuesday Training 31

We were tagged by Sammie to play the photo game. The rules are to go to your first photo folder and find the tenth picture. Here is ours (from our first folder on Photobucket):

It's the picture from our Novice Regular run in NADAC in November. I posted it on the blog back then, but it's a good enough picture to re-post it. That trial will always be special, since it was the first one. (Though, I must admit, this recent one was more special - it took more hard work to get there, and we had the added bonus of qualifying!)

I'm supposed to tag 5 more people, so I'll tag Nubs (a great new blog!), Tula (a fellow behavior-mod buddy), AC & Kona (fellow fearful dog buddies), The Teacher's Pets (a blog we just started reading), and Walter & Lucy (since their mom takes some AWESOME photos). Don't feel obligated to play if you don't want to - half the time I don't even get around to posting when I'm tagged - just think of this as an excuse for me to shout out some blogs!

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We went to the training hall on Monday for some practice. Though I originally intended to stay for agility class, I decided against it. It was hot, Marge was coming off a weird day on Sunday (not sure what was bothering her, but she just didn't seem "right"), and we're moving back out to the field next week, so there wasn't much of a reason for us to go.

We did get in some Rally practice, though. I set up a pretty long APDT Level 1 course and ran Marge through it. Here it is. (I zoomed in on each half of the course using video editing, but we ran the whole thing continuously.)

I think she did well. It was pretty warm in the building, which may have made her a little bit lackluster compared to other days. But, that tail was still wagging. Our trial is in a couple of weeks - we're doing both days. It should be a small trial, but it will be Marge's first indoor trial. I'm only doing it because it's on our home turf - otherwise, indoor trials are off-limits right now.

The photos from this past weekend's agility trial have been posted. The photographer took a lot of pictures - probably at least 15 or 20 of Marge. I'm going to order at least two or three of them. I'd like to blog more about the trial and especially my (good) feelings about the AKC Canine Partners program now that I've experienced it, but I simply haven't had the time. Spring Break ended this week, and all of a sudden I feel as though I've been hit with a ton of school work.

Later in the week, or possibly next week, I'm probably going to begin a series of posts about a very dear four-legged friend of mine. The third anniversary of his death is coming up, and I think sharing some of the many stories of he and I together will be a good way to remember him.

Agility Challenges

Before I get into training news (yeah, I've had a lot of that lately, I know -- blame the snow that's still on the ground), here are the pictures I promised from last week's Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Marge's favorite breed was the Border Terrier. She liked the terrier group last year, too. Out of all the hours I spent watching, this was the breed that she watched the closest. I don't think it's a coincidence that she had played with an old Border Terrier friend the day before. It was really cute to see her watching the screen so intently.

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Saturday, as planned, I went for run throughs in northern New Jersey. Since there were several trials in the area this weekend, I knew that I wouldn't have to share the time with many people. Turns out I was right - I was with one other dog, a black Labrador.

Here was the layout, as best as I could remember it. I didn't even get CLOSE to running this whole course. It was one of the hardest courses I've ever seen. All of the contact approaches were extremely difficult.

I walked the course as if I was going to run the whole thing and then set Marge up at the start. She was NOT getting that tunnel under the dog walk. I mean, she was at the point where she was jumping over the tunnel to get on the dog walk. I worked it a while, but I wasn't convinced that she was getting better at it as I was having to practically stick my hand in the tunnel for her. For some reason, tunnel discriminations really bother her, especially when the tunnels are under the contact equipment. Guess I should work on this on our home turf, maybe gating off the contact obstacle so she can't make the wrong choice.

Louie suspected that the repetition of the opening sequence stressed her out. He was probably right. I felt like Marge was disconnected from me for a good chunk of the session. She did a lot of sniffing of the obstacles that were along the walls, not in use, and a lot of eyeballing, even though there really was not a whole lot going on.

She also ran up to another handler who was walking the course while we were breaking stuff down. This is something I'm really worried about, because I have this sinking feeling that she's going to do the same at the agility trial when she sees the judge.

For the rest of the time, I tried to just break stuff down and make it easy for Marge. We skipped some sections of the course entirely, and worked on the table which they were nice enough to bring out for me. On the bright side, Marge didn't have too much trouble when the man in charge counted down for me ("5 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 1 and go"), and that's something she's never done before at all.

Something else that I really liked was that Marge was able to do the teeter this time. Last time we went to this facility, she was absolutely terrified of the teeter, as it's both loud and squeaky. This time, I made it a lot of fun, and she seemed to be a lot more into it.

Her contacts were pretty good. I brought my post-it to use on the A-Frame, and she did it without a problem. I tried it a couple of times without, and she was about 50/50. So, I'm going to just gradually reduce the size of the post-it until she's solid without it. Her dog walk was fine, pretty speedy, but she did take a tumble off of it - the approach was REALLY hard and I probably shouldn't have even done it. She didn't seem fazed, as I ran her over it a couple more times to make sure she wasn't spooked by it.

I left the practice feeling sort of disappointed by Marge's inattentiveness. I didn't really think there was a lot of distractions, yet her nose was running her into every corner to sniff every scent. In reality, it was probably the tunnel/dog walk that set the stage for things to go badly, but I really hate it when she's stressy and all over the place - it makes me wonder if we truly are ready for what we're doing.

I don't think the sniffing is going to be a big problem, as she's loads better outdoors, but I do have a genuine concern about her running up to the judge and standing there sniffing for an obnoxious amount of time. (At the NADAC trial, the judge stood in one spot and did not move - in AKC trials, it doesn't look like this will be the case.) It's hard to practice with a "judge" in our training hall, since there really isn't all that much room. I guess I'll try, though.

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Today, we had Rally practice with our friend and her Westie, S. It went pretty well. Marge seems to be doing a bit better about having someone "judge" her in Rally, so I'm hoping that will transfer over to agility. Tomorrow, I have time at the training hall again, but I'm unsure what I'm going to do with it. I feel like we both need a break from agility, yet I don't want to set up a Rally course. Maybe I'll do some work on tunnels with her, to make her feel super motivated about them. Or, I may bring her obedience dumbbell along and do some of that, in addition to working on the wicket. Either way, there will most likely be video - I know that's an area I've been lacking in lately!

Tuesday Training 26

Monday was quite a full day, with two trips to the training hall in one afternoon.

First, we went for Rally run-thrus. It was stressful. There were a lot of strange dogs and people for Marge to contend with - and for ME to contend with. I don't want to elaborate too much, but I extremely dislike being spoken down to, especially by someone who doesn't know anything about me or my dog. I extremely dislike when someone tells me that they're a "professional" and that they know what they're doing with my fearful dog when I'm obviously not interested in their methods. If I wanted advice, I would ask for it, and, if I did ask for it, I would hope to receive a helpful and polite response rather than a condescending one.

The Rally itself was alright - nothing stellar. Her heeling wasn't bad, and perhaps my biggest complaint would be crooked fronts and finishes. It's AKC Rally, so, if I dare say, it was easier than its APDT cousin. Her attentiveness wasn't bad considering the number of people around. I used treats, but sparingly.

Despite the commotion, she was able to settle in a corner and even get pets from another (very nice) club member, who happens to share her name!

We went home for a few hours and then headed back out for agility class. What an awesome class in every single respect. There were 5 other teams - all either classmates or Excellent level dogs. Not one dog or person made Marge feel scared. Not one bark or one snark out of her. It was unbelievable! She even got to run around with a Border Terrier friend of hers when we were moving equipment.

No photos or video, but here is the course map:

This course was loads of fun.

• The opening was tough. I had to send Marge into the tunnel and then get into position for the next jump. Finding that position was tricky - the best thing to do was to stand so that Marge would come out of the tunnel and approach me, fully facing her, and then send her on to the second jump.
• Her weaves were a little funky tonight but not terrible. She missed the entry once and then skipped a pole another time. They got better as the night went on, so I think maybe we were both rushing a bit in the beginning.
• Her A-Frame was beautiful. I think we did it 3 or 4 times and she hit her contact every single time. I had the post-it target there for her to mark, but I think we're going to make it smaller next time we train.
• I front crossed the A-Frame and used to wall to help me guide Marge straight to the table. No issues there.
• Her teeter was a little slow, but she did it. She actually went off course at one point to go do it. Teeter suck, if you will.
• After tunnel 8 it was a back cross over 9, and then another back from 11 to 12, and then a back into the tunnel.
• No problems with 14 and 15 - I tried having her come around 15 both ways, and it seemed like pulling her through the middle was the better option.
• I HAD to front cross after jump 17 to get her into the correct tunnel entrance. I tried pushing and it just didn't work.

It was a very quick course - a lot of twists and turns, but we managed pretty well.

At the very end, Marisa, Karen and I took out the wicket. Turns out I did set it up right last time and just didn't know how to read it. By using treats, we were able to measure Marge with no problem. She's right around 21", so she's at least an inch under the 22" cut off for agility jump heights. Marisa's only concern is that some wickets are more squeaky than this one - so I should really try to clank this one around and make sure she's solid with it. She also told me that treats can be used when she's measured. If that's the case, we're likely not going to have a big problem with measuring.

Over all, Marge and I have been doing a lot lately and having a lot of fun. At the end of the day, it's nice to have a cuddle buddy.. I can think of no one better suited to the job.

(I know I was MIA this weekend. I've begun catching up, but have a lot more blogs to read!)

Tuesday Training 23

Holy cow.

Talk about a LOT of training!

We were at the training hall Monday for three straight hours. First was totally private practice, then was semi-private practice (a lesson with my instructor and another handler), and third was regular class.

Hour 1

Because I knew we'd be there a long time, I didn't want to overdo it in the beginning. So, I set up an APDT Rally Level 1 course from my club's last trial and ran it two or three times with Marge.

I don't think she was as enthused as she was at our Rally practice a couple of weeks ago, and certainly not as enthused as when she does agility (but that's a given). She lagged a bit and wasn't as tight as she normally is on her turns. It was pretty warm in the building, though - I was absolutely dying in that sweatshirt I was wearing - so that may have been a factor. Looking back at the video, she did better than I first thought she did.

What you can't see in the far right corner are three "married" signs - Halt/90 Degree Pivot Left - Sit/Walkaround - Down/Walkaround.

After that, I cleaned up the Rally equipment while Marge practiced sit and down stays. No problem with either other than the fact that she loves to slide into a down after sitting for a little bit. I have no aspirations for obedience competition any time in the future, but it's not a bad skill for her to have.

I then dragged out the teeter, and we did a little bit of work on it with the table underneath. It was the fastest I've ever seen her do the teeter; she slowed at the pivot point (which I actually want so that she doesn't spook herself flying off of it or anything), but had so much less hesitation. A few reps with the table, and then I removed it and she did it full height. Still looked very nice. I put the treats right on the teeter rather than feed them from my hand, so maybe she makes the connection that it's not a scary thing.

Hour 2

Next was my semi-private lesson. Marge did not take very kindly to the other dog who was with us, a young, adorable Golden. I tried introducing him to her before we started and she gave him nasty growls and a couple of snaps. Probably my mistake. We kept our distance the rest of the time and she was eventually more comfortable with his presence. If we have a lesson together a few more times, I think she'll feel better about him.

We worked the A-Frame mostly (sorry, no video). We've incorporated a nose touch to our 2o2o criteria and it seems to be helping tremendously. She hit her contact almost every single time with the help of our temporary target, a simple piece of paper. She's still not doing it as smoothly as I like, but she wasn't thudding into it like she did so many times in the last video.

She did do one silly thing.. I forgot to put the target on the descending side of the A-Frame (we were obviously switching which way we ran it) and she ran half way up, turned around, and performed her contact on the target. Marisa was hysterical.

She said to leave the target for a while, at least a month or two, and gradually make it smaller. Sounds like a plan to me. I'm not using a target on the dog walk.

Only other things we did were some bounce jumping, the dog walk and table to solidify criteria for those two obstacles, and a small sequence to practice using either a front or a back cross between two jumps.

Hour 3

Then, finally, we had class. Marge had to hang out in a crate while I helped set up and walked the course. I gave her a Kong and covered her crate with a sheet so no one would disturb her, but she whined for a good portion of the time. Almost every other dog in the crate room was whining, though, and I think it may have added to the stress.

(Later on, when I walked the second half of the course, I put her in a down stay and she didn't move. GOOD GIRL!)

Here was the course:

• Opening was simple enough; lead out to jump two (on the non-wall side of the jumps), and ran completely straight to get her in the right tunnel entrance.
• Back crossed over 5 and 6. Marisa told me to try to front the second time around, but I was already in back cross position and I got screwed up. Marge, I believe, spun in a circle, but then when I sent her on to 6 and told her to weave (I was way behind her), she did it beautifully. Way to make up for my mistake!
• Jump to dog walk to table was simple. Her dog walk looked great today. Didn't miss any contacts and had lots of speed.
• Still having some table sticky issues.. I don't think I'm clear enough to her that she is to DOWN and stay DOWN until I release her.. she gets her cookie and then gets up. I suppose I could try delaying the reward to really proof it first.
• Used my inside arm to get her over jump 11, front crossed, front crossed again after 12. No problem.
• The tunnel to A-Frame was pretty disastrous.. the tunnel was too short, which made it really hard for all of the dogs to find it. Both Marge and I were exhausted at this point and we kind of bombed it, but Marisa said to leave it alone, so I just told Marge to tunnel and sent her over the A-Frame without doing the obstacles before it.
• Closing wasn't bad.. just, again, had to basically run into the triple to make sure she took the right tunnel entrance.

This will be our last agility class until probably the middle of February, maybe longer. In the meantime, I'm going to practice during my ring time and take some more lessons. We're pretty much going full steam ahead for an early April AKC trial. I don't plan to trial heavily this year, but I want to make the most out of the trials that we DO do. I was told today that we'll breeze through Novice.. I really hope it's true!

Tuesday Training 20

Forgive me for all of the training news lately - it's all I've got! It's been so cold (and WINDY) here lately that we haven't done anything else, besides our usual walks in the neighborhood.

Ready to Rally

The Rally run-throughs on Saturday went smashingly well. Aside from one growl at one woman, Marge's behavior was absolutely wonderful. There were only a handful of dogs there and Marge wasn't forced to be near any of them, so it worked out perfectly. She mingled with old human friends from the club and lay down right outside the ring, waiting for her turn and watching other dogs play the Rally game.

I did not get my first run on video, but it was flawless - we would have Q'd for sure if it was a real trial! Marge really seems to get into "work" mode when we're at events - it brought back memories of how she strutted her stuff during her CGC evaluation last April. I did use treats, but pretty sparingly, for she didn't need them. I tried to stick to the APDT rules of only treating after a "halt" exercise - and still, Marge did great!

It prompted questions from friends about whether or not we were entered in the APDT trial next weekend, but, the answer is no. Though I considered it in December, I feared we were not ready and also that my APDT registration wouldn't have made it in on time. Neither of these are apparently true, based on Marge's performance and the information from other knowledgeable people about APDT registration, but that's okay - there will be other times.

Here are our third and fourth runs of the day.

You may notice that Marge is wearing a slip chain collar. However, as a disclaimer, I feel it necessary to make sure that all of my readers know that I am NOT NOT NOT a correction-based trainer - such would be a horrible mistake when working with a fearful dog. The collar is always loose and is not used to punish for bad behavior (I use verbal no-reward markers). In fact, I am using the chain collar for the opposite reason than most do - I like it because it is light. Marge's best Rally actually happens offleash, and, since the collar is slack around her neck, I have found that it simulates the feeling of offleash the best. Though I plan on buying a leather collar for obedience work (since some venues only allow leather or fabric collars), I wanted to use the equipment Marge is familiar with for now.

Back to Class

It's been two weeks since our last agility class, so it was nice to get back into it on Monday. Though we were pressed for time, we did one large course and one small course, both skills-filled.

Tunnel/A-Frame discrimination did not prove to be much of a problem, as I thought it might. However, seeing the A-Frame reminded me that we really need to start solidifying our contact criteria - she really has no contact right now on the Frame. Dog Walk is currently a 2o2o and will stay that way, and the teeter is a running, because I know my dog is not brave enough to try any crazy fly-off stunts.

Otherwise, the course worked some crazy front crosses, some of which I had trouble executing. It was a lot of equipment in a little space.

Her weave entries were great and she did not break early from the poles at all - I'm crossing my fingers that our weave issues are behind us now.

One other thing to note is that Marge's table performance was almost non-existent - she would not stay on the table! We haven't worked the table in a while, so I guess that's just a cue for me to drag it out during our next practice.

Other Tidbits

The @#%^$ people in my neighborhood did some fire works over New Years. I was out walking at about 4 PM on January 1, thinking that it'd be safe, but there were still some around. Marge wasn't nearly as bad about it as she was over the summer - took treats and didn't pull home like a freight train - but they also were not particularly loud, so I'm not sure if I can count that as improvement. Either way, I'm hoping we don't hear those darned things for a long, long time to come. Really, where is the appeal in making noise, anyway?

We've kept up somewhat with our night walks. The holidays have thrown us off, but we're getting back into the swing of things slowly but surely. Monday night's walk was a little odd - there wasn't much around but the wind was blowing - Marge had her head up the whole time and was not really stopping to sniff as she usually does, but instead was making very frequent eye contact with me. One explanation I can think of was that I had very very high-value treats with me, and "watch me" is a very very reinforced behavior, so those two things combined led Marge to want to get the cookies instead of sniff around.

I'm hoping to get out and do some doggy-dog stuff this week, but temperatures are expected to drop even further, so I'm not sure how likely that is. How I miss the park, beach, and, most of all, the woods!

Switching Gears

Tonight, we brushed up on some old Rally Obedience moves. We took Rally class in May and June, but haven't done much since then. Rally class was a very stressful environment for Marge, with 6 or 7 other dogs in a room smaller than this one, so I didn't exactly have a good first experience with it.

Now, since there's only so much agility one team can do, I'd like to start working on Rally again and maybe even do some trials at our home club building (this one). We have a run-through tomorrow with a few other dogs, so tonight was in preparation for that.

I set up a 19 station APDT course that was previously used at a trial (our instructor gave us sample course maps when we were in Rally class, and I found them the other day). Though we didn't work on everything, we did a lot of turns and some cone work.

Though Marge doesn't look as enthused as she does when we do agility, she does seem to like Rally. Turning is her weak spot, but she loves fronts and finishes (as shown by her assumption to left finish at the third station when I hadn't given her any direction yet). She's gotten pretty good at the cone exercises and pivots as well. She lagged a little bit in a couple of spots, but I think she did well over all.

Tomorrow, I'm going to use better treats, be more motivational and see where it gets me. I'm hoping that Marge will have no problem doing Rally with others around, especially since the number of entrants is much smaller than I expected it would be.

(I did drag out two Agility jumps after we ran this a couple of times. I couldn't help it! We worked on go-outs/distance, 180s, 270s, some crosses, an easy modified threadle, and just some fun speedy stuff. I figured it'd be a good way to end the night.)