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.

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.

This week is going awesome(ly?)!

Dog: Whatchya doing?
Me: Shhh... having a moment.
Dog: Ohhh... whats that?
Me: You know, when you take a minute to like, reflect. It's supposed to be quiet reflection.
Dog: Ohhhh.... sorry.
Me: It's ok. Why don't you try reflecting too?
Dog: Ok.
(silence)
Dog: ...Reflect on what?
Me: The week! The nice week we had!!!
Dog: OOOOooohh... OK. Well, I chewed my bone, and played outside, and ran around, and-
Me: No, to yourself, reflect to yourself!
Dog: OOOOOHHHHHH... I don't get it.
Me: Never mind. I'll go blog about it instead.
Dog: OK... could you throw my toy first?

We had a few good days here. First, obedience Thursday. Apparently, one has to heal with their dog OFF LEASH to show in Novice. Surprise!! Figured we should give that a go in the safety of class. And-even bigger SURPRISE!!! the dog was pretty dang near flawless. We had a different instructor who had us go through the exercises in a new order. I have to say, the Dog's mind was blown. I had no clue how very concrete sequential she was until that moment. We usually do long sits and downs after the stand, but instead did a recall exercise. Poor Dog looked nervously at all her classmates releasing to her owners but stayed firmly in her sit, believing wholeheartedly that every other dog was stupid to fall for the oldest trick in the book (Dog says Don't they know- wait means WAIT! Duh.) by actually coming when I called when she was sitting. It was very interesting and I am glad for the insight.

Then we found out that...drum roll...we managed to secure a few working spots for the upcoming Silvia Trkman seminar! Running Contacts and 'Fine Tune Handling for Competitive Teams.' I literally jumped for joy. After trying to apply a lot of her methodology in the last couple months on my own I am overjoyed at the opportunity for help first hand. I am very hopeful that she will be able to help us through some of the motivation road blocks. I am also auditing her 'cik/cap' jumping session and a session on starting a new puppy... just in case. Really looking forward to it all!

Last, today was day one at the AKC show- BOTC. We are fervently trying to get her through Open quickly, and she gained some ground by qualifying in both classes. Though, she had an off course in Standard. (Dog says Didn't you know- 'teeter' is... uh... French ...for 'jump!') She had terrific contacts though so can't complain a whole lot. It was just kind of silly. Jumpers involved two incredibly close calls, but both times she came off to the correct choice. I drove from behind for much of it so I was really happy to keep her head in those situations. Also proud of me for delivering some front crosses on the fly- she didn't even break stride and picked them up amazingly. Very nice times, even with all the almost off courses (and one real). She RAN the whole time, which always makes me happy. We'll see if tomorrow goes as well, we just need one more Q in each for the titles.