the sheltiechick blog

Training Schedule for 6/25/12

The training schedule for this week is as follows…
M – W – F
Session 1:
Weaves (Payton)

Session 2:
Weaves (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)

Session 3:
Heeling

T – R
Session 1:
Jump work
Set Point x3
Straight line x3
Straight line with height x3

Session 2:
Shaping

Session 3:
Shaping

Sat
Session 1:
Jump work
Distance grid – x4 out, x3 back in
Progressive grid x3

Session 2:
Weaves (P)
Treadmill (A)

Session 3:
Heeling

Sun:
“Rest day” – just playing, shaping

As you can see, I’ve changed Payton’s training from “2x2s” to just “weaves.” After yet another frustrating 2×2 session at lunch today, I think I’m done with the 2x2s. Yesterday I thought we were good to just back up to doing 4 poles at 2 and 6 o’clock and just work the arc to death. This afternoon we had meltdown again and couldn’t even get THAT done. How is this happening? How can I have a dog doing awesome entries for me on Wednesday, then Saturday afternoon, just by starting to close up the weave poles, I have a dog who’s performance falls apart so much I feel like the best way to get him back to being successful is to start completely over?
I know I’m certainly not the only person in the world to have problems with the 2×2 method. Just like people, I don’t believe that all dogs learn the same and that one approach with work for all dogs. Let me clarify: obviously the overall science of behaviourism on the whole is the same for everybody, but there are different learning styles controlled by different parts of the brain. So as much as I am enamored with the 2x2s, it just seems like a great way to teach weave poles… I don’t think this is going to work for Payton.

I’m not entirely decided what I’m going to go to instead. I may try the weave-a-matics or I may just try shaping straight poles. We shall see.

As far as the other shaping sessions, we’ll be continuing perch work this week. Payton can pivot the perch both directions now, so now comes putting them on a cue and getting him to figure out how to switch back and forth. I’m calling them “right” and “left” – and it’s not based on which way the dog pivots, rather, on which leg the dog will pivot into. So for pivoting into my right leg, it’s “right” and the hand signal is a fist with knuckles down. Pivoting into the left leg is “left” and the handle signal is my fist with fingers down to the dog.
Auggie-bad-doggie will be shifted from messing with the perch straight to heeling. He hasn’t mastered the perch yet but there are a few things I need to deal with specifically as it relates to some rally signs and I would rather spend my week and a half before the trial refining those instead of dealing with general heel work.
I told a co-worker this afternoon, entering Payton in a rally trial SOUNDED like a good idea at the time… at least it’s all on leash so he can’t do TOO much damage. Only damage to my reputation.


Three Dog Training

It’s Sunday so we have pretty much wrapped up our training challenge for this week, but I think I’ll save that post for tomorrow when I can post with some video. This morning is our “play” day where I don’t have much of a set plan and instead just fool around, so I decided I would take the pups to the training building after lunch and play around. I loaded the 2x2s into the car so Payton could play with them in another new location, grabbed Auggie, Payton, and Georgie, and off we went.

P started with 2x2s. We’re having some major problems as of yesterday when I started to close them up, and as they did last time before we backtracked and started over again, he’s had a serious setback. I did work him back to where he was before I started closing them up, but of course, the last several well done and hard entries were AFTER my camera ran out of battery power and it stopped recording.

Next I set up a curved tunnel and a jump for Auggie and worked on some rear crosses. We’ve had some issues with tunnels lately. It’s possible he is having some vision problems, or it could just be he’s a brat and it’s a training issue. So we worked that. I’m still not happy with how it went and I think I know what to work on with him next week.

Georgie came out next and she got to run through the straight tunnel. She LOVES jumping so I went ahead and let her take the jump before and after the tunnel a few times. Working on naming “tunnel” and “jump” both with her now.

P came back out and did more of the tunnel and I let him do the jump as well. Did some beginning one jump work where sometimes I would let him over the jump and take the tunnel and other times I would switch sides and he needed to come to me instead of take the tunnel, and not once did he take the bait of the tunnel and ALWAYS read my handling and came to me. Hurray for Payton!!

I brought Auggie out again next and was putting the tunnel away and he jumped into it while I was putting it away. So I had a fully collapsed tunnel and Auggie was sitting in it barking at me. “I’M IN THE TUNNEL WHERE IS MY COOKIE?” This dog. I moved the jump out of the way too and we just did flatwork where I encouraged speed on him. He did awesome. For his last two cookies I just did some off leash heeling because I wanted to let him cool down some and he was awesome with that too, because he’s Auggie and he’s usually fab.

Georgie came out for some flatwork next. We’re having a problem with her bouncing like you could see in the impromptu flatwork video but I got her really tired before long and that stopped. She kept trying to sneak behind me and dart to the wrong shoulder at first but after a few reps I got her going to the proper shoulder and switching sides with me and doing really great. Flatwork is really the biggest skill she is in need of right now, more than any kind of obstacle introduction.

I brought Payton out for more 2x2s, and like I said, this is where we seemed to heal his problems and get his skills back to where they were before I tried closing up the poles. I think we are just going to work at this stage for at least a week before I try to close them up at all and REALLY try to reinforce four poles… I’ll just say that yesterday I was so frustrated (and so was he) I was ready to say screw it to the 2x2s and go weave-a-matics instead. But I love the theory behind 2x2s so I am going to try and stick it out some more. I can ALWAYS quit and go to the WAMs if he never gets to progressing with the 2x2s. So we’ll give it a bit more time.

After all that, I was dripping sweat, so I packed all my stuff back into the car and we came back home. I could use a second set of 2x2s to leave at the training building – it would sure be nicer than having to pack mine up and drag them with us! Let’s put that on the list of things I’ll buy when I win the lottery.


Payton loves sheepie toy


Oh sheepie toy. Let’s run away together.


Somewhere we can lay on our backs and make wookie noises all day long… Forever.


Oh. You’re here too.


Look I guess you can come if you want to. Just don’t get in the way of me and my sheepie toy.


Oh balls, Payton.


MUCH cuter without testicles in the photo.


NO!! Don’t tell them I’m cute!!


I’m not cute, I’m obnoxious. <3


Payton in class, round two

This afternoon I texted with Auggie’s breeder. My initial thought was to just bring the puppies over to the training building after her class tonight and let her see how things are going and give me some tips, especially on an issue I’m having with Georgie. But she told me she was just starting a new class and asked if I would like to bring the pups along.

I decided to bring Payton, since our rally trial is in three weeks, and he could use some work in a new location and with some other eyes watching. Georgie will wait for another day; besides, I can’t really work two dogs at once.

The class is a unique one we developed to meet some in-between demands… people who weren’t quite ready to jump into agility, but were looking for something more than just pet house manners. We delve into some rally exercises and do some extended sit-stays and down-stays in a line up like you would at an obedience trial, and also do some beginning obstacle introduction with agility stuff (jumps, tunnels, tire.)

So away we went tonight. Payton did fairly good with heeling though he is still very forgey, and forges more on me the longer we heel. I stepped on his paw once and almost tripped over him several more times. Sigh. And the sits, oh God, the crooked sits! I’m still hoping to clean it up enough in the next few weeks that we can scrape out at least ONE qualifying RN score.

But in light of my decision earlier this year to stop always being so negative about my dogs and their behaviour, I am not going to tell you where he was awesome.

First, his first sit-stay was ALMOST great, but being his very first time in a lineup with dogs he had never met before, he got up and came to me just before I went back to him. The next several sit-stays, however, were lovely, and I was even able to test him some by doing stupid dance moves and things (I made sure none of the other dogs – or their handlers – were looking at me while I was doing this.) So he rocked those!

Next, his recalls were equally lovely, though the first was lacking the enthusiasm I like to see, but he gets a pass because once again, he was sitting in a lineup with dogs he had never met before.

After that, we moved on to introduction to agility. First we had a jump, and I felt bad because Payton and I are totally cheating. We have at least a dozen jumps of varying type at home and he has seen regular jumps over and over and over again being that we’re doing beginning jump training! The other students were like “ooooh!” but HE’S CHEATING HE’S DONE THIS A MILLION TIMES ALREADY.
Next we got out the tunnel. Payton has seen a tunnel before but not fully extended, and as many times as I see it in my basement and think “I need to get that out and work on it,” I have yet to actually do that. So I wasn’t sure how he was going to do with a tunnel stretched all the way out.
Of course I am an idiot and had no need to worry. He darted right through it, then came back, then back through again. Everything was going GREAT until Auggie’s breeder suggested I run with him through it.
So I did. And Payton went OMG YOU GUYS THIS IS SOOOO MUCH FUN and the next thing I know he jumps on top of the tunnel, STAYS THERE for a second or two, then hops back down. How he managed to actually stay perched on top of the tunnel is beyond me, but he did it.
But I said I wasn’t going to be negative, right? Well, as embarrassing as that was, he only did it the one time and then appeared to realize that on TOP of the tunnel is not how we do it. I ran him back and forth several times after that in both of our turns, including setting him up for some odd entries.

The best news: he is really fast. Not so fast I can’t keep up, I am a runner myself and just generally a gym junkie (in fact, I’m blowing off a Wednesday class at the gym to take him to this class… but I figured I can do those weight lifting sessions at home…) so I have the added bonus of being able to sprint myself and not end up nearly killing myself. But he is definitely fast.
Now I just have to figure out how to not kill that speed in him. Which means I need to become a far better handler and very soon.

So there you have it. My dog is a huge brat and embarrassing, but he’s a very talented little embarrassing brat too.


Training Challenge

Okay, the “challenge” isn’t actually in the training. It’s in the staying organized and focused.

I’ve made up a little calendar for myself detailing what I’m going to work on every day. I usually do two or three training sessions a day, so it’s broken out into three training sessions… one at lunchtime, one after work (or after I get back from the gym on days I go to the gym right after work), and one late at night.

Every week, between the normal agility stuff, I’m going to try and focus on new “tricks” on certain days, so this will require me figuring out which tricks exactly I want to work on. So I will try and make a post on Monday detailing what I plan to work on, and at some point later in the week I will post again about our progress. Maybe even with some videos? We’ll see what happens. It’s a challenge.

Auggie gets less training/more time off, however you’d like to look at it, because he is both further along in stuff and because I’m kind of ramping down his training. More on that later whenever it’s more relevant to talk about.

Below is the current Base Schedule. Certain outside stuff is of course dependent on the weather, right now we’re drilling hard on heeling because we have a rally trial coming up in a few weeks, and of course once certain tasks are mastered they won’t be “drilled” so often (like the 2x2s.) And this schedule doesn’t account for Georgie at all, who will pop in and out when I can work with her. And I actually work on training my dogs all day long… this is just the actual structured training sessions I have planned.

BASE TRAINING SCHEDULE:
M – W – F
Session 1:
2×2 weaves (Payton)

Session 2:
2×2 weaves (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)

Session 3:
Heeling (both dogs)

T – R
Session 1:
Jump work (both dogs)
Set Point x3
Straight line x3
Straight line with height x3

Session 2:
Shaping (both dogs)

Session 3:
Shaping (both dogs)

Sat

Session 1:
Jump work (both dogs)
Distance grid – x4 out, x3 back in
Progressive grid x3

Session 2:
2x2s (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)

Session 3:
Heeling (both dogs)

Sun:
“Rest day” – just playing, shaping (both dogs)

This week, shaping sessions will involve perch work. Both dogs can pivot on the perch in one direction but do not pivot in both directions. Auggie’s pivot involves barking loudly at me and jumping off the perch a lot. Payton’s pivot is a lot better and I’ve already done one session getting him to pivot the opposite direction so I anticipate Payton will progress faster than Aug.
I may also work on Payton’s back up which is in progress. Auggie already knows this trick and cracked me up last session by patiently laying in a chair watching me work with Payton for almost the entire session, and when I was down to one last cookie in my hand, he jumped out of the chair and proceeded to back up across the room. Like “Seriously, screw this – WATCH ME DO IT LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME GIVE ME THE COOKIE MOM!” And, well, I had to give him a cookie after that. It was too funny not too. Yes, I do sometimes reward my dog for being a brat.


Grooming day

Washed, dried, groomed all three dogs today. My back is killing me. At least I did nails last night.


Payton.


Georgie.


Auggie, just for fun. I didn’t even realize until I looked at the pictures to edit them that he moved his leg after I stacked him and told him to stay. Figures.

So there’s this hope chest in the basement and I put the blanket over it to take photos. I did Payton’s first, put him on the floor, put Auggie on the chest and took his photos, then put him on the floor. I took a few steps to go get Georgie and hear a THUNK.
I turn around and Payton is on top of the hope chest but his BUTT is wedged halfway between the chest and the wall. He had decided to jump back on it (MY TURN AGAIN ME ME ME) and because of the blanket he almost slid off the back. This could have ended poorly, when Happy was a puppy he tried to jump on the bed, and his leg got caught between the bed frame and the mattress and broke his leg, so I’m paranoid something like that will happen to my guys. But nothing happened except Payton looked really surprised and confused.
So I laughed instead.
A lot.


Georgie v. Payton

Thursdays are my odd day because the class I like to take at the gym doesn’t start until 6:30. So I spend about an hour just sitting around waiting to go to the gym. What better way to blow the hour than take the dogs outside and encourage them to terrorize each other?


Georgie says “I LIKE THIS GAME”


Butts. Unfortunately where I was sitting I got a lot of views of their butts as they blew past, because they weren’t looping the garden the other direction as I’d hoped.


Not focused but these always crack me up haha.


LOL.


Payton could so kick her butt if he wanted to. It’s a REALLY good thing he adores her.


“I MIGHT JUST EAT YOU UP ONE DAY”


More butts! That’s the end of it.

Oh, what Auggie was doing while this was going on:

Dumb puppies.


Sunbathing. I’m not sure he knows that dogs don’t tan.


Henri

Henri is my sister’s new puppy. He came home the weekend before last, but he was wormy so we waited until this weekend to introduce him to our dogs. Auggie came out first and kept looking at me like “ANOTHER ONE??? Take it back!!” Poor guy. No, he wasn’t staying. He didn’t want to play with Henri at all. I don’t get it, he LOVED Payton and has never snarked at Payton, but he doesn’t have tolerance for other puppies now. I guess Pay was just special.

Georgie came out next and Henri wasn’t sure what to think of her. She was loud and didn’t stop moving. She got him to play a little bit but he just didn’t know what to think.

So then we brought out the Wild Child.
Oh Lord.
PAYTON will not rest until you play with him. PAYTON will not stop barking in your face until you play with him. PAYTON WANTS TO WRESTLE AND BY GOLLY YOU ARE GOING TO WRESTLE. So they became pretty fast friends actually, by necessity of the wild one being obnoxious until Henri obliged, and then Henri decided Payton was pretty cool and he wanted to play play play!
They did get into it a little twice, and I still can’t figure out what it was that Henri did that Payton didn’t like. I think it was Payton who would lose his cool but maybe not. Certainly Henri wasn’t doing anything that Georgie doesn’t do and get away with, but maybe because Henri was still new he wasn’t allowed the way Georgie is?

Anyway, what you really want is the pics:


“This thing won’t stop following me!”


Slightly blurry… he is a cutie!


Auggie sniffing at the puppy. He’s allowed to sniff the puppy, the puppy isn’t allowed to sniff him.


Oh here is my tongue.


Cutie cute cute!


Mom: “Are you sure Payton is wilder than Georgie?”


Umm… yes.


Yeah play!!


Imma bite all this fluffy hair you has! (I think this may have eventually become what Payton didn’t like even though Georgie – AND AUGGIE – do the same thing.)


Oh there’s a tennis ball.


I nom ball.


There’s another toy!! So many toys!


His tail kinda curls up over his back sometimes, haha. It’s adorable.


Mommy that cookie lady put me in this bucket.


I want out!


My sister was sitting right next to him getting him to pose like this and so she could keep the bucket from tipping over hahaha.


Ugh he’s terribly sweet too.


Getting sleepy… it’s about time to recharge my batteries…


head going down…


huh wha?? No I wasn’t sleeping!


Puppy butt!


The end… or just the beginning.


Impromptu Flatwork Session

The other day I decided to do some impromptu flatwork with the puppies. Click to watch the video below…

Admittedly I haven’t done hardly any flatwork with Georgie at all. Sometimes I’ll do a few handling maneuvers with her, but that’s about it. So her, uh, interesting take on flatwork in the video is not exactly her fault! She just needs more work. Lots more work. It’s okay, we’ll get there. She’s not even a year old yet, she has time.

Payton is improving a lot. Our biggest struggle is that instead of chasing the shoulder so to speak, he was more interested in trying to bite my legs. We have gotten past that at least, though the barking, THE BARKING. It doesn’t stop. Hopefully once he has something to do besides just chase the shoulder he will use his brain more and stop using it to vocalize!

Auggie was stuck in there just for fun. His session is rather different since we are working more on building drive and speed, though admittedly, we don’t really have drive or speed problems in the yard… only at agility trials… but whatever. We’re working on it. After this we had an impromptu game of tug and fetch, in which I threw the toy, he went to retrieve it, and as soon as he reached the toy, I turned around and ran the opposite direction and he had to catch up to me with the toy. GREAT fun for Auggie and I was dying before long, sprinting in circles around the yard and trying not to break my ankle stepping in any of the holes in the ground or trip over the garden or whatever. This is definitely a game we’ll play more.

All three dogs want to squirt behind me and take the wrong side, so there’s more to be done. It would obviously be nice to have a larger space to work in too… working on that one…


Just one Payton…

And by that I mean there’s only one photo, and also, there’s only one of him.
Thankfully.

I don’t know what I would do with two of him.