When did that happen??

Is it just me, or is time simply flying by lately? Maybe this always happens when puppies are around- the first year or so is measured in spurts and breakthroughs and benchmarks that all happen so fast.  One after another, something is always changing.  That’s life I suppose. Change is the only constant. 

But having a puppy sure does throw that concept into sharp relief.

Here I was having a nice weekend of training with the girls and realized that I don’t have a Pup and a Dog anymore, but two dogs.  Two demanding, pushy, eager dogs.

Sure, she’s still wiggly and naughty and gets into everything, but I think that might just be her nature.

She is part terrier, you know.

***

So the dogs and I had some very surprising and eye-opening sessions this weekend. The Pup’s was surprising and eye-opening because of the sheer fact of her being all mature and intense about working now. I suppose I started to notice her commitment level changed drastically last week, but the past few days have been somehow exponentially better.

The two most noticeable changes: obstacle drive and pre-run attention.   While she has been doing pretty well on sequencing one thing to another, she’s now starting to have some confidence. I guess what I thought was running before…not so much. Hello, Speed.  Nice to see you there between those jumps.   I don’t necessarily need to baby sit every step of her path now, either.  I’ve been gearing myself up for a long struggle with de-Velcroing her but it might not be the issue I had previously thought it would be.  She has officially started seeking out things besides the table and contacts- sends to tunnels and jumps are now on the books. 

The other thing, pre-run attention:  This has changed in that we have it now.  Before there was some ‘sniffy sniffy clover eating ok I’ll come do something I want to do now’ but at this point I just have to give her the cue to line up on either side and she’s magically there. Poof. Ready to do whatever is in front of her. 

Someday I will take video of all that magically grown-up cuteness. For now though, here is a little video of her full dogwalk.  This is the second session, all reps (as seen on FB).

 I think she is solid on the idea that Thou Shall Not Leap.  I don’t think that she has worked out her stride for the full obstacle.  It looks to me that she is very ok with the going up part, but occasionally being cautious across the top (she HATES crosswind), definitely changing strides for the down, probably in an effort to not lose control.  She has a tendency to balance her weight back whenever going downhill.  I’m thinking this will fade with time and confidence and she will run extended and head down the whole length, but has anyone else noticed this with their babies?

***

As for The Dog, I think I may have figured something out.  I’ve been racking my brain on why there doesn’t seem to be a lot of carryover recently with the running dogwalk.  I know a lot of it is courses and confidence and all the normal variables, but I thought there must be something basic that I was missing causing the rift between beautiful running in practice versus a show.  Wouldn’t you know, I think it’s the lack of toy.  Can’t get much more basic than that.

I was working on a course without carrying a toy, which I normally do in practice.   We got to the dogwalk and suddenly had a totally sticky show-like performance.  Did some experimenting and sure enough, she would only have the motivation to run if the toy was with me.  Huh. 

So yesterday we went out and tried some weaning.  I did get a few right away without a toy (having her natural high at the start of practice work for me there) and with a friendly set-up.   Then to keep her attitude in the right place we started hiding the toy around the course and asking for two nice dogwalks before she could go find it.  I always marked the dogwalks, but asked that she carry on a bit after the nice ones and then she had to stop and get praise and pets from me and THEN she got the toy.  I’m hoping the break up from our previous routine will help with some transference to the ring.  I’m sure the absence of reward/motivation in a show was probably not helping much.  We will see!   

***

Aside from interesting training breakthroughs, we had fun swimming and hiking both days.  The Dog was all kinds of naughty and refused to leave the lake yesterday.  Even The PUP came when called before her.  Naughty. 

Lastly- behold, two seemingly boring studies in dogness:

The Dog. 

The Pup. 

Why share these?  Would you believe that these are photos of two exhausted dogs?? No, really. Please bear witness to The Pup's first ever time being tired enough to lay down and not start destroying something. Amazing. 

Of course, ten minutes later she got a hold of her new special toy compliments of her sister and started going to town.

Pup Says...Riot has good GOOD TASTE!!! 

Feel Good Time

I’m not a very huggy wuggy person, perhaps my parents over-instilled a fear of stranger danger or germs, but if I were the sort to dole out hugs I would be doing that now.  

I’m really not that sort though.  Let’s just have a nice, long distance, no-contact-necessary moment here where I say thanks instead. 

Thanks for being supportive. For offering commiseration. For being pushy.  For giving feedback. For having a laugh. 

I really needed that.

I was a bit shocked- though why should I be? Dog people are the best people- at the help I’ve gotten in one form or another since yesterday.  Because of people taking the time to give that help, I’ve got a better outlook, I’ve got ideas, I’ve got a better understanding.  I’ve got a great dog, and I’ve got hope again.

Phew!

***

So we can probably cancel the suicide watch at this point and get back to our regularly scheduled program which references Velociraptors and crack way too much.

Speaking of…

Crack Puppy!  And here is a shot of her with the seldom seen Crack Ducky (he’s been shrouded in mystery due to the fact that she engulfs him in her giant mouth).

He’s seen better days.

Lucky she has a short attention span (which you can clearly see waning above) or he wouldn’t have lasted this long. 

Case in point: Give it two minutes and...

Pup and Ball. Friends Forever. Who’s Crack Ducky??

 ***

 I was taking my monthly side-by-side to chronicle Pup Growth and became a bit alarmed. Um. Is she bigger than The Dog now??? I’m not sure I can blame this on tricky lighting… 

One thing is for sure though- I obviously need her to learn to stand like a slinky BC and not a proud terrier.  The Dog looks positively diminutive. 

***

The Pup has no time for silly things like crouchy stands though. She is all about agility now.

I’m sad to say her crate suffered some substantial wounds due to her…um…enthusiasm… while waiting to work though.  Oh well.  At least I know she wants to play?

We had a really good practice with her last night. I am pleased to report that the short turn alternating is working really well for BOTH girls.  It’s harder for me to bust up the party once it gets going, but I’m learning.   It’s helped me become more focused and plan better too so we are getting a lot more out of our hour.

Anyways, so The Pup worked some on the Aframe, I think it’s about 4 feet at this point?  She seems to adore flying the apex. Her stride is a natural one to put her into the yellow so I don’t think I will need to do much more than train her to go up and off straight.  Which is awesome since I am The Anti-apparatus.    We also started really working on the full dogwalk.  I wasn’t sure if it was too soon to go full height- if she was too young? But she seems sure footed and pretty sturdy.  Plus she has a Helmut Head.  For protection.   So we back chained up and over and everything held up just fine.  She’s already doing the adorable leap from the top board to the middle of the down plank (flying the ‘apex’ of the DW!) so I think that tells us her speed and confidence are good.

We also started on some more sequences.  I was too into it to stop and video, but here are some tiny maps to allow you to use your imagination: 

Tunnel, tunnel, jump, table, A! In case your imagination is broken.

Tunnel, jump, tire, jump, teeter! Because it's not really that obvious, huh.

She was all about working out and seeking obstacles last night so I took advantage to start working a bit on sending. We used a TOY for the first time really and she BROUGHT IT BACK! And TUGGED!!! This was pretty huge.  SO much easier to train with toys, I am glad she is starting to get that part and especially get that part about playing WITH me.   I’m seriously going to send presents to all the dogs that have been demonstrating good tugging skills for her.  I really think that helped far more than anything I’d been doing.

Just when I think she’s had her agility ‘lightbulb’ she keeps getting better and better.

Now if only I could get her to stop eating toilet paper. 

Things. Just. Got. Real!

Guess what this is!

Go on, guess! (And don’t just guess “paper.” That’s lame.) 

Give up? Well- it’s a registration form for The Pup’s FIRST SEMINAR!!

I know, I can hardly believe it myself.  I wouldn’t have done it if the seminar weren’t months away. (November.)  I really wanted to attend a seminar by Tracy Sklenar, having heard that she is just wonderful- fun, informative and open-minded (my absolute seminarist ‘must-meet’ criteria!)- from everyone on the planet.  Unfortunately, the “Master Handling” portion was on a Friday and all my vacation is already allocated for the year. That meant that The Pup was going to have to step up and be the working girl, so I signed her up for the Novice Handling day. 

I was pretty much vomiting after I decided to do this- I mean, I haven't worked her in agility more than one or two 10 minute sessions a day.  I have never worked her around other people.  The only thing that kept me from being absolutely sick was the fact that this is several months out- plenty of time to start increasing difficulty. 

But in fact, it turned out to be a REALLY good choice. I was struggling a bit for goals for her at this point. Now, having something to work for, I feel back on track.  So goal driven was I yesterday that I went out on the skimpiest new bud of a branch ever and brought her into a puppy agility class last night.  I continued on my scary limb and put her on the more advanced puppy side, figuring that if she went into total ADHD mode with wanting to chase the other dogs I could defect to the newbie side and work attention only.  

Amazingly, my branch didn’t snap! Project Pup Prep went really well. Like, REALLY well.  She didn’t forget her name, didn’t spaz over every dog/person, and had so much fun she forgot about chasing butterflies and eating clover (ah, mostly).   I had unprecedented attention for the first half, then it waned a bit on the second half (the clover side). But she still stuck with it; only running away to see Marvin once when she wasn’t supposed to. 

Things I learned:

Marvin is a godsend (ok I knew that already)

Clover is catnip for dogs

Long wet grass turns her into Ms. Dainty Paws. She also couldn’t put her butt in the grass and instead sort of crouched.

Watching other dogs run isn’t ALL about wanting to chase. There was definitely a jealousy element. The times I let her watch them run she would run full board on her turn. 

She likes to become one with the equipment. 

I sort of guessed that one before, but it’s pretty obvious what will hold her attention AND enthusiasm- if she can’t go on, over or through it she gets a bit ‘meh.’  She was very much into the contacts, weaves, tunnels and tables (and even the tire!) but when it came to running through jump standards she thought it was lame. Where’s the risk in THAT?? So we need to get more involved with flat work and make it crazy fun, not just a meal ticket.

Overall- really had a good time.  Both of us. And she was…different… after. Not so obnoxious at home- much sweeter and attentive to me.  So we will be going back!

 ***

After all, anything that keeps the Decepticon from surfacing is well worth it for that reason alone.  I’m thinking this is the outlet she needs- not enough stimulation and too much being left to her own naughty puppy devices has been…not so good for the house recently.

Exhibit A.

Um... I didn't do it?

Farewell expensive light-blocking blinds. We shall miss you!

***

Oh, and of COURSE I can’t post without mentioning a certain Dog.  I had a horrible practice with her on Wednesday- bigtime dogwalk struggle.  Really, I blame the heat for the bad practice AND The Pup’s mutilation of the blinds. Watch me reason the crap out of this-

Dis otta be good.

So, it’s HOT and humid and because it’s hot and humid the ground can’t absorb all the water, so it’s all muddy. The mud got all over The Dog and made her all slippery which made her dogwalk performance suck, which made me move the dogwalk out of the mud, which made it too close to the fence, which made her miss it worse.  So when she FINALLY got a rep I chucked the ball hard in joy, which increased her exuberance, which when combined with slick slobber from the heat made the ball SHOOM into the neighbor’s (locked) yard.  The Dog then refused to do any work, so I had to get the ball, which meant shoving the dogs in the house so I could go try to scale the fence without falling on them. This led The Pup, who had not yet been allowed to play because the dogwalk was too high, to throw a tantrum inside, which caused her to pull the blinds off the wall and murder them.

I told ya- I DIDN'T DO IT!!!

See!!?!? Stupid weather.  

Anyways, last night I began Project Make Contact With Contacts- an attempt to get  The Dog on as many different dogwalks as I could and try to get her to run each from the get-go (no encouragement period).  I am pleased to report that phase one was a complete success and she ran EACH dogwalk last night.  One leap and one sticky in there somewhere but ended with her best reps yet. The only downfall is that I cannot yet turn her tight AT ALL without sacrificing stride. All such experiments failed. Eh, homework. 

Tomorrow phase two continues with a fun match!

…I love projects! 

Milk Was a Bad Choice.

Yep, no one can sum up this weather better than Ron Burgundy.

It's...so...hot...

I totally know how the candy bar The Boyfriend left on his care seat felt (i.e. melty).

But that's ok, we're completely insane so we practice dogwalks anyways. But we do this before we have our glass of milk.

Video from last night- the eureka of running continues.

She's made a connection between running the half pint and running the full size.  The bounce factor was pretty high today so her end performance was a little weird- it's hard to tell, but she is hitting very nicely.  It's just easier to for her to run with the board doesn't mimic a bouncy castle. I am really, really not complaining. She is a genius. We celebrated with a White Trash Shower (getting hosed down in the front yard).

I'm taking a bit of a break with The Pup on her equipment work. I have to hit the full DW hard with The Dog now and it's too high for a baby.  She's still a fragile little fetus and I don't want to risk any injuries. Not to mention that I am lazy and switching the sizes twice a day would make me barf from excessive activity.

So instead, she's going to work on Smart Puppy more inside. Our online class is all finished so we are on our own. We had to do a final compilation video to 'graduate' (and to get our FREE GIFT! This class was so awesomely worth it!!!) showing all our finished tricks or at least the progress we made. Here's ours- it's adorably nostaligic.  You'll see.

I may even start taking her to obedience class- gulp.  She has to get used to around working other dogs eventually. I am thinking I may split an hour between her and The Dog. The Dog can do the stands, figure 8s and recalls and The Pup can practice heeling and stays...maybe.  The only problem is the class I like which is SUPPOSED to be Novice is actually filled with dogs working towards OTCHs and crap like that who want to just drill the 'easy skills' so they will probably run screaming for the hills once they see The Pup breaking her stay to say HI to the other dogs. Sigh.

For now though, she is having fun being herself. However weird that may be.  Last night, she invented a new game.

Most of her games seem to involve barking obnoxiously to get The Dog to chase her out of annoyance. Then she tries to outrun The Dog before her butt gets bitten. This version of the game added the extra bonus level where max points seemed to be achieved by boinging off the arm of the couch as far as she could.

I call it "Poking the Bear."

Terriers are So. Weird.

Run For The Hills!!

Somebody in some cold country in Europe gets major genius points!!

I was poking around on Silvia Trkman’s site last night and found a little discussion on the Running Contacts Online Course.  A few people weren’t sure the course was ‘for them’ as they had limited space, poor landscape for agility or both. So ST posted a video of a gal who had taken her class who had both issues but managed to train lovely RCs with her BC anyways.  How did she do it?

She used the hilly landscape as elevation for her plank!!!  

GENIUS!!!

Basically, the gal had a dirt driveway, with a hill on one side (shrubs on the other).  So she did the flat plank work in the grass along the shrubs, then when she needed to raise it, she leaned it on the hill and sent the dog across the driveway.   The best part was when the plank was raised to the top of the hill- no space (woods) for a good run at it- so she practiced cik/cap turns around a bush near the top of the plank to get speed up!

What a resourceful lady.  She even put the board up to the entry of her house at one point for a higher height and called the dog out from her kitchen.  Then there was some finagling of a picnic table, but eventually she set up the whole shebang next to the shrubs and ta-daaa! Magic Running Dogwalk.

This was an answer to a few issues I was having.  First, The Dog hated the table/plank set up. I don’t know why, exactly (it did bounce a lot), but she had not a good time at 12” on the table.  Second, the amount of time and effort it took to set up the table/plank really went against my lazy nature. Third, I was worried that The Pup would figure out that there was a table under there and start getting confused on what to do with a table. This point wasn’t entirely unfounded either. She had started hesitating before the drop since I went to that set-up. 

So I tried the Hillside Approach last night.  I have two lovely hills in my yard, perfect for adding elevation to a dogwalk plank (the bonus being that one of the hills is even in the shade).  The Boyfriend used this thing call “Trigonometry” to magically find out the equivalent height and informed me that I had it set at 16”.  He gets genius points too, even if he probably used voodoo or something to figure that out.

In practice? It actually worked pretty well.  The hill prevents a lot of the bounce, so The Dog was a bit more comfortable.  She is improving in her stride consistency overall.  I’m encouraged by her bounce back after a run where she doesn’t get rewarded.  You can see she always brings it down a notch and thinks very hard, and then by the next turn is back to her previous pace, but with improved stride.  I still reward everything that isn’t an obvious leap with at least an offering from Marvin. Awesome runs get the ball after.  Occasionally I do let her target to the ball if it’s going really well, but too much of that and she stops using her brain (i.e. LEAPS!).  I’m trying to very slowly incorporate my movement- VERY slowly.  We will stay here until I see some more consistent striding with all the performance variables. Happy with this first attempt though with the new set-up and height. 

On a side note, this actually DOES seem to be transferring to a full dogwalk.  After her naughty one last weekend on Saturday we ran a few plank in the yard and Sunday was MUCH better.  And last night, we practiced planks at home then went to teach and play sequences after.  I put her over the full DW at the end and WOW!  She actually, truly, ran the thing. Of course, that was only in one direction for some reason and she had a jump to target, but still!! She didn’t hitch her stride or leap, but ran through. Consistently (uh, in one direction)! Cool! Now, if we could get the OTHER direction, we might have something really useful.

***

The Pup had some balance issues; a downhill run had a bit of a ‘snowballing’ effect.  (BASEBALL HEAD STRIKES AGAIN!!!) I think she had two misses- one was extremely awkward (she fell on her head off tape), the other I think I pushed a bit too much but also looks awkward.  I’ve got to remember that she doesn’t need to be pushed at this point, just needs to think about it and learn and her speed will continue to come up along with it. Anyways, the ones where I let her do her thing were beautiful as usual. 

I tossed some teeter video on there too for variety.  It’s about 14” right now.  NOT shown are her first two attempts which were spectacular fly-offs. Oops. She was a tad excited.  For what it’s worth, there were heroic attempts to stop made on her part, but it’s a VERY slick board so WHOOSH! Off she went.  (She will be so set on teeters for life after learning on this one- it’s slippery, LOUD, and shaky.)  I rewarded her so she wouldn’t get freaked, but I don’t know how much danger there was in that. She mostly looked super annoyed at the teeter and tried to clamber back on right away. 

***

At this point, I’m a bit at full capacity for what we can possibly train in a day.  Or a week for that matter.  I HAVE to do Smart Puppy work with The Pup every day.  Obedience under the guise of tricks is the most necessary thing for her now so we can stand living with her.  Without Smart Puppy time she gets all feral and socks disappear at an alarming rate.  I HAVE to do some sort of balance/core trick work with The Dog daily. Then they need walks and The Dog needs equipment time and drills most days.  The Pup has a million obstacles to learn (some of which take FOREVER to teach) and proof on at some point in time, not to mention basic handling work on the flat.  But yet I have only a tiny window of the day.

I’ve instructed The Boyfriend to find a job where he can make enough that I don’t have to work and can be a Lady of Leisure.  I’ll take his silence as approval??

Running Dogwalk (Bet you thought you'd seen that end of this! HA!)

What can I say, I don't give up easily and I'm certainly not going to let all you off the hook either.  I suffer, you suffer.

But really, it's going much better this time- promise.

I've managed to learn quite a bit during and after Failed Attempt One with The Dog, both through study and execution.

Much of that I've been able to apply to The Pup.

And while if I suffer, you suffer, there is the flip side: when I benefit, so do you! (Though I am sure you'd prefer ice cream over unsolicited advice...)

So what have I learned?

One- and most important- no one has a 'formula.' There are some very good general concepts, but largely this is trial and error.  If anyone tries to sell you a formula, run away.  Certainly don't buy it!

Two- It will NEVER be perfect. If you are looking for perfect at any stage or in the long term usage, run away.

So there you go, helpful, no? (Wink!) Really, I've learned way more than just that, but I doubt anything else could be applied to EVERY team. Again with the 'no formulas' thing.

So...Things I've figured out regarding my dogs (which may or may not be helpful for anyone else):

Start 'em young. I read that that one person started their dog on a plank the week she brought her home.  It made sense; her dog had amazing dogwalks. There was certainly no harm in building value in the board at that age-most of us do similar exercises for rear-end awareness anyways. At this point, board value is essentially ingrained into The Pup's mind.

Other Foundation Matters. The more you do with body awareness in general, the better off you are. At the high speeds of a running dogwalk, you need to know your dog is 100% in control and understanding of their body.

Learning Style Matters Too. The Dog did not start out life with tricks based foundation or shaping like The Pup. She was not taught to learn, or more importantly, how to make mistakes. This has caused more issues with training this obstacle than anything else. I've spent the last year and a half trying to rectify this by teaching tricks, tricks and more tricks through shaping. While she still has her preference to be perfect, she is willing to redo something and doesn't liquefy into a puppy puddle when she makes mistakes now. And her ability to rebound has improved a lot too. Good for training in general, but great for this obstacle that requires a lot of repetition and shaping

Retrains suck. Ok, maybe this is another one that can be universally applied. Going forward, I would always opt to train running first, then a stop if need be and not the other way around.  I'm not saying you only get one chance, but no matter what you're doing you can only retrain so many times and this is one place where excess confusion makes for excess frustration.

You can't be perfect, but you should be pretty good.  If it isn't pretty accurate at 6", then it won't get much better if you raise it and cross your fingers. Yes, some dogs seem to run into an awkward height at some point, but in general moving on before there is enough consistency to indicate understanding is a bad idea. This was a big mistake I made with The Dog. I didn't know enough to tell if she got it, or rather, that she got what I was trying to uh, get her to get. Get it??

Know your dog. A big duh, and kind of relates to the formula thing.  Rather than grasping ONE training format, I should have checked them all out.  The one I happened to pick at first was not the best one for The Dog. Parts of it, yes, but not everything. Like I've said before, The Pup has a training plan specifically catered to what makes her tick.  It would not work for The Dog-  I'm still working on narrowing in on the best thing for her.  Trial and error, baby.

Luckily though, far less error, since as you can see from the above, I figured out a few things.  Phew. Only took a year.   If anyone else has any valuable lessons on the running contacts, please share! Learning at the expense of others is the best way to go!
***
So here is The Dog's current status.  You can see how varied I am when we practice, for two reasons: I'm still working on what gets the best results as far as the reward goes, and I don't want her to 'feel' the reps. If I repeat the exact same tactic she either falls apart or falls into patterns (like how she learned to pace me off the DW). Besides, in real life I won't always be ahead or behind or moving or standing still, right?

Anyways, she only had one giant miss, but about half or so were only back foot hits. I'm rewarding these of course because I care more about speed consistency than footfalls, but I am jackpotting the really nice strides.

I'm extremely happy with this compared to the first attempt last year. She's happy, she is offering a nice pace and the leaping is pretty rare. (But again, any thoughts or advice are very welcome.)
***
Here's The Pup. She had her first ever miss (and it was spectacular!) which I included because it's history. I think she was so excited to say hi to Marvin that she forgot about anything else. When he didn't give her a treat it shocked her, but clearly didn't bring her down. Solid after that.

Also, one last video starring The Pup. We are very sad, it's the video for our last lesson through ST's online course. Luckily there was enough homework we didn't even get to start that we will have ideas to occupy us for ages.

By the way, I would really, really recommend trying out her online courses as a participant. If I haven't already said it a dozen times- totally worth the money (and it wasn't that much to start with).

So anyways, show this weekend (AKC) and a glorious day off on Monday, though I know I will be busy trying to keep the dogs' heads from exploding along with the fireworks.

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! No… Wait!

It’s just my dogs.  They’re as high as kites. Sorry about that.

But that’s what happens when you take a mini break from showing and hard core training; nutty animals start bouncing all over, screaming in the yard, running amuck, knocking things over and tearing things up.

R&R. Good for people, difficult for doggies, impossible for living spaces.

***

So in the interest of ear drums and peace worldwide, I finally took the dogs out for some fun yesterday.  We went early as I could see the impending line of DOOM on the weather map rolling its way over to the area.  Apparently the frequent rains this year have turned me into a weather vane or Farmer’s Almanac because while it did hit us, I had already packed up and gotten us settled back in the car singing Ke$ha songs before the first drop hit.   

But before I predicted the weather, we got some excellent training in. Very basic stuff for all last night. I started with The Dog on her plank work.   Set-up took some major trial and error- I couldn’t figure out why she kept blasting everywhere but the board- mega DUH- the plank was nestled in between weaves and teeter and I was telling her “GO” so off she went to go do something, not focusing at all on the board.  So I knocked the other stuff over and stuck a jump out as a target in front of Marvin. That worked pretty well; worked even better when I told her to ‘walk it’ and worked best when I rewarded after all was said and done with The Ball.   

Here’s a VIDEO! (I bought a cute little external hard drive so my laptop could barf up all my data onto THAT instead of the living room. Now I have space again and that means VIDEOS!!!) Thoughts and suggestions entirely welcome.

I love that you can see her picking up speed as this goes along; that’s recordable progress if you ask me.  I rewarded a LOT last night- still care far more about her running the board than much else- and I am glad I did. I rewarded a few that originally look bad to me, but on video looked pretty good.  And she obviously improved as we went on so something is getting through here.  Very happy. 

And it doesn’t seem to have killed her normal dogwalk- I took her over a few and they were ok. ButI can’t have expectation for this weekend. I think the key with her is to minimize the amount she does (repetition isn’t our friend without intense reward) and try to replicate what we do on the plank with how we do a dogwalk.  We are only super screwed if there is a dogwalk into nothingness. No clue about the Judge this weekend, but hopefully he is as scared of Black Holes off dogwalks as we are…

***

The Pup then showed off her exemplary board running skills; I decided since we were using Marvin now I’d better back it up to make sure she understood the game.  Yup.  We also worked a bit on weave channels and teeter.  Video!

I’m digging the ‘weave channels, no guides’ thing.   She has no issue staying in the channel, and I don’t have a chance to do anything dumb like get tangled in a guide and scar her for life. Win!  

Love Tangent alert- have I said how much I love working this little monster? She couldn’t be cleverer (and if she was we would all be in serious trouble- think ‘Planet of The Dogs’). Today’s Love Tangent Topic:  The way she figures out at the base level what to do with “things.”  I mean, she sees the Aframe and knows you go up and come down the other side- no jumping off! She sees the weave poles and just knows that you weave them! (Or in the case of the channel set, go through the middle.)  Seriously, I had a set of six in the yard for The Dog, and Smarty Pants Pup went over and wove through. How does that happen?  There is just something inherent there- something to do, I suspect, with her fascination with manipulating things and then from that understanding what to make of obstacles she is presented with. MAYBE it’s a good thing she gets into so much stuff??? Eh… nah, probably can’t justify that as much as I’d like too.  

But anyways, I’m not just a doting Leader- she really is a genius. If you haven’t seen this- it’s too cute, but also evidence.  I was trying to work on core stuff with The Dog and since The Pup is a screamer I tried to practice her down stay at the same time instead of sticking her in a crate.  I gave her Marvin to keep her company and had the remote on the floor by me.  Apparently I waited too long to reward because she came over and stole the remote, pressing the dispenser and getting her treat.  The subsequent “light bulb” moment was adorable, she totally realized that the remote was key, so spent the next half hour joyously self-rewarding.

Probably not the ideal use of a MM, but who doesn’t love a dog clicker training herself to clicker train?

Mind Your Manners

Go Dog Goes Techie!

That’s right, why be all old fashioned and pass out dog treats with your hand when you can have a treat gizmo do all the work for you!

Meet… The Manner’s Minder!!

Please, Manner's Minder is my father, call me Marvin!

Besides the convenience and laziness-enabling features, you also eliminate ‘Piranha Syndrome’ with chompy dogs, food crumbs in pockets which make dogs eat your pants later, and can avoid long-lasting unsavory treat smell on your hands.

Basically it is the coolest thing ever.

The Pup agrees. Five paws up (or four paws and one tail). 

Actually, she agrees a little too much.

It’s turning rather… ah… unhealthy at this point. 

Pup, do you have to make-out in front of everyone???

When we first borrowed Marvin the MM from our friend for a test run before buying our own (those of us what do things the old fashioned way yet are wary of all this new fangled technology and hesitate to buy into it until we can poke it with a stick a few times to prove it won’t explode in our face) The Pup was quite perplexed.  I guess her reaction was normal (“AUUGGGHHH NOISY!” followed by “MMMMM FOOD!” transitioning quickly back to “AUUUUGGGHHH NOISY!!”) but it took her several exposures to stop cowering in fear before the almighty Marvin.

Now she is living on the other side of the coin. Now, she won’t leave the dang guy alone. Stalker, much?

If I leave him on the floor, she lays in front of him trying to impress him (Down? Sit? Butt in the air? How do you like it, Marvin?) and barking at him when he doesn’t produced food (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE YOU HAPPY??). Then I put him on the counter and she starts boinging up and down and scratching stuff trying to reach him (THEY WILL NEVER KEEP US APART MARVIN!!) If I shut him or her away in another room, she chills out, but you just know she is thinking of ways to go all Fatal Attraction on me.  If I had a bunny, it would so be boiled. 

Enforced time out- spent contemplating boiling... something!

Seriously, last night I used him to try and reward her for not going in the dishwasher.  She didn’t go in the dishwasher, but she was so frantic by the end her eyes were bright red and she was out of breath.  I tried the ‘continuous stay’ dispenser mode, but every time he said BEEP she jumped about six inches in the air and whipped her head to look at the tray (MARVIN??? My Marvin, what do you NEED??? What do you WANT???). Unhealthy.

So I have my doubts that he will get me what I need for her running contact training.  I will do a test run with the weave poles, but if she can’t use her brain AND stay hopelessly devoted to Marvin its back to boring old target training for her.  (This is the part where she reads this over my shoulder and the next thing I know she’s packing her bags to run away with Marvin and there is a scuffle and I end up dead ‘accidently’ from knife wounds.)

***

However- in a rather pleasant surprise, Marvin has brought out the best in The Dog.  She and Marvin seem to be the perfect fit. She didn’t let him intimidate her and needed no real intro period like The Pup (HO HUM. So food goes in and comes out, big deal my dinner bowl does the same thing). I did spend some time value building the beep, and doing some send work, but that was about all she needed.  Surprisingly, the send work was nice. REALLY nice…

So, feeling a slight twinge of optimism, I crossed my fingers and tried beginning plank work with her again. I went to the very beginning with her where the goal is Find Board, Go Across Board. And… it actually worked.  With a toy, she never noticed the board much on the flat, and certainly never really made the effort to get on it and scurry across. If she did, for whatever reason she would leap more often than not (it’s a springboard, right? It must be a springboard…). But Marvin was the perfect reward. Exciting and novel, but not TOO exciting or novel.  She LOVES food, but understands that food equals brain time and you have to offer behaviors to get it. The beep brings her to the shaping mindset.  If you are wondering, gee, duh, why didn’t you try food before? The answer is of course I did- but since she had already been introduced to targeting alongside her 2o2o contact exposure the connection was there and trying it simply brought out that underlying behavior; no matter what I did she crept along with uncertainty, never truly believing I wasn’t trying to proof. So that’s where the novel comes in- Marvin looks and acts nothing like the target. He is super cool, but she’s not infatuated (not like someone we know…).

The plan then is to slowly restart from ground up. As I have her entered (really, not much though) and don’t intend to pull from competition, at this point she can do what she wants there.  We will work on the new behavior on the side. I’m trying to make it as different as possible- I am switching to “run up” for the command in hopes that will prevent reversion.  We are working on her driving her own contact and complete, obstacle-focused independence. We will use Marvin, possibly add toys in as super jackpots, but for now just Marvin.  I feel tentatively good about this plan. (Soon, the running dowgalks will all be mine!! Mwuahahaha! Really, it will! The hinges are ordered, the supports are done and I found the perfect planks for $30!!! And now we even have a hope of a training plan… SO CLOSE!!) 

Ta-daaa! Two supports! Just need planks!!

Here’s a video of the very first attempt (sorry, too lazy to edit out the time to reset her, but you’ll live):

Yes, I rewarded every attempt she made to get on the baby plank.  She went around once, but reset happily after noting the lack of treats and tried harder the next rep.  With toys, if the reward is withheld, it results in creepy carefulness the next time- not the case here.  There was one rep, not on video, where she tried to stop and stared at me expectantly. I held out and did nothing until she chose to move along the board on her own- then giant jackpot. That was the one and only time so far she made any attempt to offer the old stuff, and she seemed to get that it wasn’t what we were going for.  I like her pace better too, she has a nice trotty stride going on rather than the inconsistent leapiness that the toy got us. I can really see why some people more strongly advocate the food thing.

Anyways. Big difference. I’d put up a comparison video of her last summer trying this with a toy to prove it, but again, I am too lazy so you need to take my word for it.  (What??? So Marvin is turning me into a lazy blob? I don't see a problem!)

***

So even though Marvin is causing some cat (dog?) fights for the love he bestows (two dogs plus one treat gizmo...uh oh), he is a welcome addition to our home for the time being.  I wonder if the girls will notice if I replace him with a permanent version of our own? I may need to buy him off our friend- these attachments The Pup is making are looking more than plastic cover deep…

Bitten

I’ve got a totally well organized theme today, just you wait! (And even mostly regarding dogs!)

Big news first- The Pup is down to just one more Evil Tooth! Joy and rapture. Only one pointy little shark tooth left.   Don’t you worry though, she is still a Velociraptor. The lack of pointy shark teeth doesn’t seem to be cutting down on the amount of chomping and biting she accomplishes in a day (hidden message: that amount is still very large). 

It was quite bizarre though- most of her baby teeth politely excused themselves long before the appearance of her more distinguished grown up teeth.  But not those canines… they just clung on for dear life even though the grown-up teeth started coming in. So for awhile now she has had two rows of teeth…just like a REAL shark.  Very disconcerting to find “Jaws” being reenacted in my living room.    

At any rate, nearly done with the whole irritable, bloody mouth, floppy-tooth thing.  And for the record, I did keep one little tooth. Mostly for science. In case the future is devoid of Border/Staffies and they feel the need to reverse the extinction.  What?? It’s not creepy. Science.

***

In a bizarre twist, The Pup is for once the one that has been bitten.  By a bug. The agility bug!  You can tell when an agility newbie gets bitten (homemade agility equipment in their backyard and forsaking their children’s school events for an agility trial). Likewise, there are little ways to tell when your newbie puppy is bitten too.  For me, I look for pushy! The Pup is officially pushy.  Now instead of random screaming in her crate while The Dog has her turn, I get a mix of screaming and demanding bark.  When I go to get her out for her turn, she explodes out of the crate and runs to the gate to go in the ring.  If I’m too slow to get going on something, she decides to start tromping over, under and through things on her own.

Pushy.

Last night we had much pushiness and so a very fun practice.  As the Aframe was very low and she was running up and down it anyways I decided to introduce her to it properly.  I set the target out and kept her on leash.  (Not sure it was necessary, but better safe than sorry with a broken leg from catapulting off the top.)  She did very well! She is very good about looking for THINGS to do, so she very rarely curls into me inappropriately. Makes this sort of thing easy.   I don’t think we will see the Aframe again until after the DW is done, but it was fun to see how she would do.

Speaking of DW, I set up the plank contraption on the baby version. She doesn’t seem to alter her behavior at all if the boards change which is great. Go Go Gadget Generalization!   (Inspector Gadget anyone? No? Am I dating myself?)  It’s sort of hard to tell in the video where she is hitting with her front feet, but she was rolling through with all her feet most reps.  She was also doing this while the class was arriving so very distracting. I was proud of her for keeping as focused as she did and not flubbing from ADD.

The video below shows her cute Aframes and some DW reps.  Also some tunnel fun.  She really doesn’t love it (yet), but she is starting to actually send to it and head in pretty happily.  This was probably the first tunnel she has done that she couldn’t see the exit from the entry, so not too bad.    I do love how she bursts out and looks for me- she clearly assumes it is a wormhole and doesn’t believe that I will exist on the other end yet.

We also did some low teeter (not videoed) and that’s going well.  Great understanding of ‘four on.’ She will run through the tip point, but she hasn’t decided whether or not it is cool to slide.  I’m letting her figure out how to handle that, my only requirements are movement through the tip and four on. She only obsessively boinged on and off the ‘bang’ part two or three times so… progress on that OCD!

Also not on video, but the best part was the ‘jumping’ (4”, if that even counts as a jump)!  We’ve been working start lines (I probably will not use them, but need to be able to step away a least) and they are adorable! She sits very well and is VERY pushy. No scooching, but the whole leaning false start thing- ‘canwegocanwegocanwegoNOW???’ Good momentum off her start.  So we did some of those and also some walking around from jump to jump and seeing if she would seek the obstacle.  And she did!  Started out nice and slow very close to her, treating every jump and by the end of the night we were up to running between and her going to find the jumps independently. Ok, so the jump was only four feet away but still! Good stuff.

It’s exciting to get some flow going, but it does make me think about my handling for her and what our system will be.  It’s a bit daunting, especially since at this point I can’t boil down The Dog’s ‘system’ into an easy one or two key word description.   I don’t know… can anyone else do that? I’m curious.  At one time I had an easy end goal for how I would handle The Dog and it’s developed into something completely different now.  She has SO MANY RULES that it’s basically an awful, complicated ‘if this than that’ flow chart of possibilities for any scenario.  I think at this point with The Pup I can only do what I’m doing and hope I’m not creating another needy monster. (Too late on the monster part though… Oops!)  I am training her with just one goal in mind at this point- obstacle independence.  My hope is that her job is obstacles and mine will be lines.  It would be lovely if she would take what I put in front of her until I put something else in her line.  

Nice and simple.

It’s good to dream!

***

So we have our 4 star this weekend- The Dog was put through every manner of awful I could think of at practice last night and she was a gem about it.  Her DWs were nice again, after a few runs.  I’m determined not to stress about it.  And to take my mind off of it… True Blood marathon this weekend when we aren’t doing agility!! I don’t care if its vampire bite porn, it makes me happy.  Don’t judge me!

(Ok, so did you get the sense of the theme? Subtle, but cohesive! Yay me for good organization!) 

Sorry, Rabbit- AND Kids- Trix are for PUPS!

 This’ll show those nasty little kids who never shared their Trix with the Rabbit.

Trix are for DOGS now- ha!

OK, I guess they are for rabbits too- per the RABBIT SHOW JUMPING LINK that our friend at BC Insanity found.  I’m so getting rabbits now.

So there you go: Rabbits and Dogs, 1. Kids, 0. Reason one thousand seven hundred and twelve that I have dogs instead of kids still. For anyone keeping track.

OK so I really digressed a bit there. What can I say? I’m delirious from a severe lack of Mexican food. I need 50 cc’s of queso fundido, stat.

ANYWAYS. I really love trix. By which I mean tricks.  When I brought The Pup home, I decided to experiment a little. I decided to try 100% tricks-based foundations with her.  Why? Two reasons- I love tricks and find them to be very entertaining, which makes training more fun and not a chore (how many millions of times have I heard people say “UGH I can’t wait for the puppy stage to be OVER, I HATE foundations, I just want a trained DOG??” I so didn’t want that to be me.)  Second, it was in the name of The Project.  Remember, one of my goals here is to try new things and evolve with the sport.  I definitely don’t want to be one of those people who trains every dog the same way… forever.  Blah. Even if it works. Blah.  I can’t even imagine how much it would suck to have an agility ‘brand’ that you are known by- try to change anything, and it’s like suddenly you’re no longer behind your own product!  How limiting.  So the key is to ALWAYS be trying new things.  Further, (secret hidden third reason?) I’ve had the unique perspective of teaching hundreds of other people’s new dogs for several years now- I have a pretty darn good idea of what works…and what really doesn’t.  So it isn’t a totally uncontrolled experiment- I am working under the reasonable assumption that this will pay off.

And it SO is, for those wondering.  I am NOT working on obedience, manners (except the not biting thing), drive or the other countless things that some people obsess over.  Just tricks.  And ta-da.  Those other things are all popping into existence on their own.  PLUS I have a brilliant, confident puppy who works to engage me.  She IS a bit (ha!) naughty, but it’s all coming along.  And I would rather have a dog who feels good enough about herself and her life to attempt a crusade onto the counter to steal a taco (and who can solve the problem of getting up there!) than a dog who never tries anything because she’s too scared or lacks ingenuity.  At least I get good stories out of it.

In case it isn’t totally obvious, we’ve had some good training sessions around here recently.  I’m dang happy with how all the trick work has morphed along into obstacle performance.  I did get some video of things last night:

Teeter- her favorite thing on the planet.  I couldn’t even take the two seconds to lower it before she was trying to run over it, so I caved and let her do it as it was.  It’s about 12” high here.   This is her third time on am entire teeter.   Contributing tricks: Wobble board, perch work, perch work on wobble board, Four feet in a box, plank work, ‘ready-steady-go,’ drawer slams and the bang game.  Find it fascinating that we spent most hours away from the actual obstacle only to have close to a proficient final product within a session or two of actually seeing it. Similar to making a really good mole sauce. 

Plank work- I decided she understood the concept of committing to staying on the length of the plank well enough to start raising it up. It’s maybe 6” off the ground- I grafted it onto the actual DW which works awesome(ly?), FYI.  She did very well, did not come off the sides, and seems to have a non-leaping stride.  I did a few (not shown) running with her so the concept wouldn’t be foreign to her in the future and those were good too.  I am still targeting only to food, not toys.  I’ve dubbed the ‘method’ Tex/Mex: a Daisy/Silvia bastard brain child- I took what I liked and what is appropriate for The Pup from their training and squished it together.  I very much agree with the Daisy/Linda idea that thinking matters most right now and will equal more correct behaviors, which equals more positive experiences/reinforcement, which equals confidence which equals speed.   I’ve seen this in action on the jump training- why not apply it to contacts too? So this is another experiment.

As for jumping, we’ve done many sessions of the various one jump c/t exercises and I decided to move to the next stage of walking through sequences.  Obviously, the jumps are low, basically non jumps.  We will revisit the one jump work when it comes time to raise the bar, but before then I have lots of time to get her used to seeking out jumps, loving them, and learning my handling cues too.  Also am simultaneously teaching the cik/cap style turns.  

Not completely throwing Silvia’s idea on speed from the get-go though, doing lots and lots of flatwork with this concept in mind.  (The Pup is the best chaser ever.)   I really liked the idea of training everything separately- handling away from equipment and equipment from other equipment so I am doing this to some extent. Hopefully it all mushes together like some kind of beautiful agility nacho plate. 

Not to be outdone, The Dog is lovely. Cik/cap turns up to 20” and holding strong. I can’t get over that I have to do it, but we are building lots of tunnel drive still and last night I had fun directing her into various tunnels from across the ring at breakneck speed.  Oh, she had fun too, don’t worry.

Now, onto the next big problem- getting’ me some Mexican-y goodness.  Ole! 

Oh god, so good looking I may lick my screen...

Born to Run?

“Dear Diary,

I just HAD to tell you about the magically awesome time I had with The Pup last night. The Pup is the COOLest dog for sure. I’m not positively positive yet…but I think I might just be in L-O-V-E!!!!”

-my thoughts and feelings about our training session last night, as read by a 13 year old girl.

Because nobody does over-the-top dramatic feeling like a 13 year old girl. Yep, I am JUST THAT HAPPY!

We three of The Project braved the rain/snow to go run The Dog on some dogwalks before the show this weekend. I also had to remind her…and myself… of what is like to run on real grass in all its slick, uneven glory since we’ll be outside for the first time this year for the 3 day trial.  She was fine and dandy; no slips, trips or falls.

***

After her turn, I took The Pup out for some outdoor training in the rain (well, technically, it was snow).  I let The Dog hang out for distraction purposes (sometimes she likes to bark a little. And run around with her ball...), so between her and the new environment and the weather, it should have probably been a pretty unsuccessful session.

Oh no.

I must have forgotten.

My puppy is a genius.

We mostly worked on the plank- I was able to use a real full sized DW plank for the first time and was prepared to spend awhile familiarizing her to it.  Not necessary.  I put the boards on the ground and she started whizzing back and forth all on her own. Score a point for Super Powers of Generalization. 

I’m pretty much convinced she was born for a running dogwalk.  She totally seems to ‘get’ the game. By the end she was hanging out at the load end of the board while I put the treat out, lining herself up to the plank and running across with full confidence (no more thinking puppy). When she opened up, it turned out to be the perfect stride (hopefully future growth spurts won’t mess with it) to put her through the yellow with all four feet.  There was not one rep that didn’t earn a click. Joy.  (Shhh... I know it's early...but I'm buzzing and I like it!! I can't help thinking that perhaps after months of suffering with The Dog's contact, I am being smiled upon by the Agility Gods. Leave me my delusions!)  

We went over some teeter end position fun too, letting her jump up and ride the BANG about 6” on the very low teeter.  As an experiment, I asked her to do the whole teeter.

I seemed to have created a Teeter Monster.

Turns out, she is a bit of a daredevil.  The thrill of the drop was- I swear- her favorite experience to date. I could not get her to stop racing to the end to make it bang down. Eventually, she ran back and forth along it without exiting, finally refusing to release to exit from it at all.

She held her position as well as she could (on the real teeters, not the insane ones), but I think we will continue reinforcing the four on wait for awhile before doing a full run again. Front end held well, back foot enjoyed sliding off about half the time when she slid to a stop and I don’t want her to hurt herself. (Remember, Safety Is Our Number One Priority!!).

***

At the end of the night, she fell asleep in my lap. It’s nice to see that a sensitive side exists under that tough girl exterior.  

Yep, definitely L-O-V-E.