Shaping Up: A Trick's Story

The Dog needed a new trick.

She likes tricks. She understands them to be the secret of treat dispensing. Hang around long enough, and she will eventually put her moves on you.

Her recent favorite...

And if that fails to produce the desired reaction,  the big guns come out: Pink Belly. (As in, "see my little, pink belly? Isn't it SO CUTE that you want to give me the treat and/or toy that you have???")

"Does this do it for you???"

In the typical dog form, she will run through the routine, turning her tricks, attempting to engage me in her own brand of puppy prostitution.  To spice things up for me, the "John," I decided it was time to add to the arsenal.  Johns like variety.

Having seen the viral picture of the mastiff hugging the cute little baby under one arm, I thought I would try to teach this behavior to the Dog.  Not having a baby I wished to sacrifice to the learning process, I determined that an adorable stuffed animal would be sufficient and less illegal. 

Wiggle Puppy was the brave volunteer. 

"Hi! I am a little scared! You haven't said what it is we will be doing yet...What's the Dog doing here???"

I wasn't entirely sure how to get her to do this, as the maneuver I envisioned for her isn't exactly one she produces naturally.  I thought I could use a jump bar to teach her to hook her paw around something and would be able to shape the process into the final huggingness I wanted.

We started with getting her to just touch the bar, first with both paws, then just one when she became comfortable. The surface was slick, and that actually helped.  She had to make a sort of claw to hang on to it and this gave me the hook shape I wanted after a few click-treats.

Next, I propped the bar on my shoulder at a slant and clicked first just touching with her paw, then only when she grasped it. 

I imagine velociraptors grasped similarly... 

She caught on to that pretty quickly (Oh, clicker, you are MAGIC! Plus the fact that she was working for her dinner... one kibble bit at a time. Best way to teach a new trick!).  I moved the bar off me and leaned it on the couch, which was much lower and at a natural 'hugging height.' I then marked it when she grabbed the bar as before, eventually shaping it to look something like this:

Why is this picture orange?? 

Enter Wiggle Puppy.  I grafted him onto the pole so that she could practice with the stability of the bar, but get used to targeting her paw on Wiggle.

"Um, what is up with the pole dancing stuffed puppy?"

Let's just say she really liked clawing... I mean, hugging... Wiggle Puppy.  Getting her to grab for him was no problem. As illustrated below, she was soon huggin' it up big time with Wiggle Puppy.  Her hugs are a bit... exuberant... so I had to hold him up while she grabbed on, but she would hold him against her other front leg on her own after that. Yay!! Good Dog!

Epilogue: Wiggle Puppy has now entered protective custody after his stint as a volunteer for the Dog.  I will have to find her a more sturdy playmate while we perfect this trick- Wiggle was very floppy. And his stuffing comes out too easily.

I thought maybe a Weeble? They wobble, but they don't fall down.

Wow, Super Long... I like it that way.

Today's blog posting, that is.  It's super long. Bwaahahahaha!

Yep. Bored. Rain, rain, go away. And I don't mean "go away by ceasing to be 'rain' by turning into my least favorite version of precipitation-" I will recognize you, even if you disguise yourself as snow. You do that and you will be sorry! I will get out a hairdryer or something and melt you.

I've done very little lately. Kind of ashamed to admit it.  The Dog and I spent the whole of the weekend watching scary movies. Which I HATES.  So why watch? Um, the only other thing on at this time of year is Evangelist TV. And QVC. Yawn. And I am too lazy to even find a DVD. (Rain is demotivating.  It is my kryptonite.) Besides, the Dog enjoys them.  The discordant tunes usually tweak her interest and make her do the cute head turn thingy.  So we watched Cujo.  I found the movie very stupid- however the Dog's reaction was the scary part. She liked it. A lot.

Example: When Cujo did this-

 She did this. (cute head turn to left)

Then when Cujo did this:

She did this. (cute head turn to right)

She was studying Cujo's evil behavior. I swear.  She wagged her tail when Cujo ate the police office and whined her happy whine every time he tried to ingest the mom and kid.

Gulp.

Let's just say that after watching that I made sure her rabies vaccine was up to date and have kept her very well fed. Just in case...


Oh, I have done something! We started a new round of beginner agility students this past week. Two rounds, actually! Nice small groups for once. There are some fun dogs, it should be an entertaining winter session. There is an adorable junior handler and her equally adorable 9 month old mini aussi. Somehow they both managed to fall down and get stuck on their backs turtle style.  Love them! The Dog enjoyed her tasks as Demo Dog, her favorite part was showing the other dogs the awesomeness of the clicker. Click-treat-click-treat-NOM!


And... happy 1000 site hits, little Project Go Dog Blog! Just noticed that the other day, and I like milestones, however teeny.  Balloons are nice.

Ok, party time is over (Dogs says But we didn't have the ice cream yet?!?!). Now it's research time. The Dog needs a new trick. Gotta hit up YouTube for something fun. Tricks we can do when the rain... and eventually snow... push us indoors... and she is turning into a couch potato (Do I have the only lazy border collie ever??). I'm thinking something along the lines of "hugging" since she's good with her front feet.  Unless anyone out there has any suggestions??

Oh, Banana Hammock, I miss you not!

Well, we are home! And since we slept for the last 24 hours, we are wide awake!  24 hours of sleep for lack of anything better to do, as I was feeling pretty ill anyways after all the dust I absorbed and being in a car with the banana hammock compounded my queasy feelings.  But we are free from the RV and the swingy-sway-ey hammock no longer has any power over me.  The Dog is happy to be home, she ran around performing a head check on all her toys. All accounted for! She was desperate to play with her things- all she had to entertain herself on the drive back was an empty bottle and my chapstick.

"Bottle equals one true love"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Cynosport. What did we get out of it? We of course found some more things to work on. TOO BAD that it is now the 'end' of the MN agility season and I will have limited access to equipment.  But we can try!
1.) "Grab the nose!" In other words, tight turns when pulling her around me without me having to cross- just pivot in place. So many of the courses had places where it was obviously the thing to do and I had to make due with some funky maneuvers instead.

2.) Aframe meltdowns occurred when I had to either stop forward momentum or move away from her on the exit. Going to need to work on her still hitting the zone in these circumstances.

3.) WEAVING! Must speed up, not just improve her footwork. It is so obvious that this is what is sucking up a huge chunk of her time on course. I am plotting a retrain for the winter. I figure I can do 2x2s inside the house?

On the fence- running dogwalk or not? I really liked how she did it this week, with a slight hesitation. But also need to think about the long run, competition-wise. Also on the fence about blind crosses. It is an option for the issue I have with crossing in front of her on the Aframe (that she missed it almost always!).  I saw it work out awesomely for several dogs, particularly in the Steeple finals and Grand Prix round 2.   Always been against my rules though!!!

Also, I have to say, I'd forgotten the caliber of dogs you get to see at these events. So inspiring! The Grand Prix winning runs by Masher (12), Rush (16), Encore (22) and Solar (26) were amazing; in particular the run by Encore was one of the prettiest I have ever seen. MN was well represented in all finals rounds and congrats again to Tango, Remy, Winn (Perf.); Gators large and small, Crackers, Presto, and the teams of Mm, Tasty Gator Pi and Pyro's Maniacs (especially to Pyro- what a wonderful final outing in Championship for this great guy! Enjoy 16" Pyro, you'll always be Shiver's hero!). Thanks for giving me something to cheer for!

So overall, besides learning a lot and seeing some remarkable agility, The Dog was a very good girl this week for her first trip to Cyno.  I  realized yesterday that she was clean in all her Team classes (if you don't count the bar and missed A in the Gamblers opening- which I am not!), plus silly Rekoons, and on all her clean runs for the week she ended up in the top 15% of the class. With 335 22" dogs entered, this is pretty good! Her Team with Brother Dog and Black Dog did just miss the finals, but 32nd is still at the top! (Top 15% again- magic number) Thanks to them both for being great teamies (though I wish we could have seen Brother Dog run more- curse you separate groups!).  And The Dog's times were more than fast enough to have advanced her to the next rounds when applicable, if she hadn't have had her oopses in the first rounds. 

Just maybe there is an alternate universe out there, and in that universe is another me, who has another Shiver- maybe even another Shiver who rocked in the Finals. But that Alternate Universe Me, despite their slightly better week, still could not be more proud of their little Go Dog than I am of mine! She's come so far this year, by this universe's standards or any others. Hope we can keep it Going!

Cynosport Final Day of Evil Grand Prix Finals

Cynosport Final Day of Evil- Team Relay

Cynosport Final Day of Evil-Rekoons

(Rules for Rekoons- not that it will help!)