Steak and Weaves
As part of Payton’s re-training (to rule out any gaps in our training as issues in the ring), I’ve decided to start over with the 2x2s. In order to make them really awesome, I’ve also decided to use steak to train them.
Today was our first session, the “entry” pole not totally wide open, but open enough to make it an obvious entry. I worked the arc, alternating success with entries high on the arc with an easy, straight on, flat out entry. His success rate was quite high although at times when we were high on the arc he’d enter the second set, possibly because they “look” like weave poles and the open entry doesn’t. We’ll go with the former in the name of re-training.
Although it’s funny to even call it re-training, because, as I mentioned to a co-worker, he always knows what weave poles are in the backyard. Is it re-training, or is it supplemental training? Proofing? Desperate attempt to get my dog to Q? What should I technically call it? So I’ve decided, for the fun of it, to call it Steak and Weaves.
We have three nice steaks I picked up cheap at the grocery store last night, so those will be sliced up and grilled and used for our further work. We also have some jump work and more contact proofing to do, so I need to work out a new training schedule for him. We have just under two weeks to get some additional training in before our seminar, so hopefully we’ll be able to make some advancements and rule training gaps out so we can be a little more direct with our seminar adjustments… but in the meantime… STEAK AND WEAVES!
Broad Jump Lumber Emergency
So 10PM the night before our second ever agility trial, and the first time Payton was entered in Standard, I remembered I had never actually TAUGHT Payton the broad jump.
Had he seen it? Yes. He’s taken it a few times even. And also walked across it a couple times. And never really, actually TAUGHT how to do it.
Uh-oh.
For those who don’t know, the broad jump is required in Novice Standard. So it was GOING to happen. Determined not to let a stupid broad stand in the way of my dog and our success together, I ransacked the house trying to find a suitable replacement for a broad jump, simultaneously swearing that Home Depot used to be a 24-hour store and why isn’t it anymore and don’t people know that there are lumber emergencies going on?!
I settled for 12-pack cartons of soda… fishing all kinds out of the closet where my parents store their soda and shoving them together and making a make-shift broad jump.
THERE. That’s close enough.
And Payton’s first interaction with my make-shift broad jump was to hop up on it and pivot in a circle.
We’re going to do AWESOME.
Whatever Wednesday
Other ideas for names for this post was “Wimpy Wednesday” or “Whiny Wednesday.” Or maybe I could save this post and call it “Failure Friday?” Let’s stick with the slightly more optimistic “Whatever Wednesday,” because once again, I’m trying to be positive, right? Right. So let’s go.
As I mentioned in last week’s training challenge, Payton was entered in his very first rally trial last weekend. It was novice rally – not a huge deal, right? Payton’s perch work was fabulous and his heel was looking really good as a result. Not flawless but really good for the semi-rush job I was doing to get ready for the trial. I thought we’d maybe scrape out a Q, even.
Sometimes life just likes to punch us in the stomach though.
I had Payton out before going in the ring and was practicing the moves for the signs, popping him some treats to get him all locked in and ready to go. He was sitting in heel and I was chatting with a friend while feeding him and just working on eye contact before we were going in the ring. She was telling me he looked great, was so attentive, I was feeling pretty good. Optimistic!
Then a large dog almost sat on him.
Cue a meltdown from Payton. I got up and took him in the opposite direction but that wasn’t helping. He was barking and flipping out. I had a treat and tried to get him in heel to pop him the treat, he had NO interest in the treat at all.
My dog’s brain was gone… and they just called our number to get into the ring.
I did about four signs with my dog barking the entire time and swiveling his head around looking for that big dog, freaking out, before I realized there was no recovering. I turned to the judge and said “That’s it for us, thank you,” and out of the ring we went.
My friend told me not to feel bad, that dog had just freaked him out, but I still felt bad. Immediately doubts started setting in. Payton is kind of OCD at times. If you move something in the house, he’s alarmed and barks at it. If you bring something new and strange into the house, he’s alarmed and barks at it. If he sees something new while on a walk, he’s alarmed and barks at it. The response I was anticipating from Payton in the ring was for him to get really excited and start jumping around and playing like a crazy, not panicking. What was I going to do?
The second day I got Payton out and was ready to try again, and made SURE I was very calm and quiet with him before we got in the ring. I kept out of everybody’s way so nobody would accidentally sit on him again, so nobody would do anything strange and freak him out. We got in the ring and he sat in heel at the “start” sign and looked up at me with a smile. “Yes,” I thought. “We got this.” I took a deep breath as we started forwarded…
and as we reached the second sign, there was another person standing right outside the ring gates with their border collie, doing as border collies do, creepin’ and peering into the ring.
Cue meltdown!
I did manage to get Payton to complete the second sign, and we started towards the third sign, but he wouldn’t do the third sign (a left pivot) for me. I looked up at the judge (a different judge this day thankfully, I don’t think I would have even had the guts to walk back in under the same judge) and said “We’re all done I think, thank you.”
“That was a good decision for him,” she told me as we walked out. I’m pretty sure my face was bright red. I know I did right by my dog by taking him out so I didn’t poison the ring experience, but this was mortifying. I’m sure everybody thought my dog was a total nutcase and completely untrained.
Just to be clear: I don’t blame the person with the border collie. Yes, it would have been nice if they weren’t standing right outside the ring gate with their dog staring at me. Before Auggie goes in the ring for agility, I try to keep him back from the ring gates, but I am getting him revved up and that means he’s jumping around and barking. If that sets off a dog in the ring, it’s unfortunate and yes, I would feel bad, but it ultimately means the dog in the ring needs to be trained better against distractions. Same rules apply to Payton. He needs to be trained better. It is not the fault of the person outside the ring that my dog was unprepared for that kind of distraction, it’s MY fault. The answer is TRAIN MY DOG.
So that’s why this is WHATEVER WEDNESDAY. Part of me feels really beat up and beat down right now (and it’s not because this week’s gym activities have left me unable to tell you a part of my body that is NOT sore at the moment.) I am terrified that we are facing a long uphill battle and might never be able to fix this problem. I’m picturing my dog freaking out every time I take him in a ring and he sees something new. THERE’S A SANDBAG UNDER THAT DOGWALK OMG. THERE’S A SIGN HANGING ON THAT WALL OMG. THAT TABLE IS PAINTED PURPLE INSTEAD OF YELLOW OMG. It’s panic inducing picturing serious problems for the rest of his life. You certainly can’t control every aspect of every trial – there will always be something new or unknown or unusual.
But you know? Whatever. I know the answer: TRAIN MY DOG. And it’s kind of that simple, isn’t it? I went to the Dollar Store and I bought a bunch of “weird” things. Anything that just looked different, stuff that maybe Payton hadn’t seen before. I bought some spinny flower sticks, some glow sticks in the shape of a trident and an axe, a plunger, big buckets, just anything that looked different. We’re going to start more distraction work. I’m going to double down again on the recalls and try to rebuild getting him locked on when he hears his name rather than having him tune me out so much.
My biggest plan right now is to re-read my way through Control Unleashed, especially as it addresses Over Noticers. So I’m planning on running a nice muscle soak this evening and dying a little while reading the book. Just like I’ve been making a weekly schedule on what to work with my dogs every week, I need to battle plan out how to work on this with Payton.
It all comes back to training.
We’ll see how simple it is when we actually tackle the problem.
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 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 Journal
Since joining Recallers 3.0, I’ve tried to get into the habit of record keeping my training sessions.
I am terrible at it. I have failed pretty gloriously at record keeping. I was GREAT for about the first week of Recallers. Then that was the end of that… whoops.
I do have training notebooks, several of them, all over the place. Inside of these notebooks are notes I take when I’ve watched training DVDs or webinars or whatever. I jot down lists of tricks I would like to train, make notes on what we need to work on, figure out game plans for training large tasks like jumping skills. I think it’s pretty clear how bad my record keeping skills are just based on the fact that I have multiple training notebooks instead of actually having everything just collected in one notebook.
I mentioned my training notebook on a dog forum I belong to and another poster asked what my training notebook was like. “Not very well organized” was part of my answer. I thought the thread might spawn more people giving input on what they have for record keeping and what all they write down, but nobody else piped up about their training notebook. Maybe it’s a rare quality – maybe very few people record keep. I suppose I’m not alone in my disorganization, but realistically, it’s a GOOD thing to do. Why don’t more people record keep?
Regardless, a group of us who have access to Recallers through the end of March (or some who have access for even longer) have decided to work our way back through the course lessons from the beginning. The Re-Doers, we are so dubbed! So I have decided to re-do my attempt at record keeping.
It’s currently the beginning of week two (not counting the first week of re-working what is called Critical Core and are more just games that become part of your everyday life; most of these are in fact games I already played as part of our everyday life anyway.) I didn’t actually write down my training notes for Monday yesterday. I remembered to grab my journal and brought it to work with me to put notes in this morning. NOT ideal… I’m sure there are things that I thought about writing down last night while working with the dogs that I have forgotten by this point.
However, in the interest of accountability, and in the interest of showing a little bit more of what I have in my training notebook, I decided to post what I wrote down from yesterday’s training sessions.
2/6 –
Crate Games – Progress with Payton sitting faster. Still need to play the games more to help him out. Closed the door on Payton breaking sit and he didn’t lock down again.
RZ – Tried this with chicken. Auggie tried to bite my fingers off. IYC fail. Payton seems to get it at first, then I realize it’s just a fluke. Need to do more!!
Hand touches – Also tried with chicken. Chicken was too messy and shredded to work well. Getting solid repeated touches from Payton. Criteria is for two hard nose touches in a row. Shredded chicken remnants were apparently teaching Auggie I want him to lick my hand… not what I want. Put the chicken away.
Not exactly the most organized of note taking, but this is the format I’ve decided on. Essentially, I’m just journaling. The name of the game we played, what worked, what didn’t work, what I need to do to fix it. This is what works for me. Other people might use a different format, far more structured – I do sometimes take structured notes if our activity calls for it (I have a whole page where I charted behaviours out for latency) but being far more relaxed about it by jotting down these notes is how I will take most of my notes. The other major problem I see with my journals is how frequently I focus on “what went wrong” and how rarely I focus on “what went right.” I’m trying to write with a far more positive perspective these days. It’s a hard habit to break since I tend to look at things as a problem solver… this didn’t work, so how can I fix it? The problem solving IS an important part of training, but when I read my notes back, it just sounds really negative. And I believe that the language we use with our dogs and when thinking of our dogs and their training affects our thinking and affects our relationship with them.
Therefore, time to be more positive.
I made some shredded chicken last week because poor Payton was having serious poop problems and fasted him, then put him on antibiotics and a chicken and rice mixture. I haven’t done treats with him – he only got back on full dog food Sunday – and am hesitant to do anything that might aggravate his poor belly again. We didn’t do much training last week because I couldn’t use treats, and what I wanted to work on I didn’t feel could be done with a toy reward as well, but I have extra chicken leftover and wanted to use it to train with. But the chicken just wasn’t working well for the hand touches, so I think I will have to get back to the dog treats. He finishes his antibiotics Wednesday, so hopefully his stomach is back and in balance again anyway. If not… I guess I’m about to find out!
Also, Auggie really needs to learn better self-control, especially when he’s super excited during training (read: just about any time food is present during training.) He is good about being gentle for a few rewards, and then CHOMP! Bites my fingers again. Sigh. It’s a work in progress, as always. Chicken is FAR too high value to be giving him right now if I expect to keep my fingers. We need to work up to him not getting really excited and biting my fingers off for plain old treats before I try chicken…
…see? Negative. I just keep doing it!
The Dog Training Robot
I feel like I’ve become a bit of one.
As I posted earlier, I’ve spent the last 8 weeks or so enrolled in Susan Garrett’s Recallers e-course.ย I’ve been re-reading Shaping Success for a while since getting Payton; I got the 2×2 weaves DVD for Christmas (which I had been wanting for a while), and just got myself Crate Games a few weeks back too (which I had also been wanting and Recallers gave me the push to go ahead and order it.)
Basically, I have been so immersed in SG that I’ve found myself using her terminology in just about everything I do training-wise. My thinking has changed to be very “Say Yes” oriented. I was never the kind of person who would put a shock collar or anything on my dogs, but Auggie was trained with corrections – so being that I’ve trained with corrections in the past, I guess you can officially call me a cross over trainer into The Land of Do, as SG puts it.ย See? There’s yet another SG term. I feel like if I say (or think) “where’s the value?” one more time, I’m going to smack MYSELF.
But the odd thing is that it’s also become kind of therapeutic to start thinking this way.
Baby Georgie thinks (and has been reinforced for it, so “knows”) the fastest way to get out of her crate is to yip at the top of her lungs in her high-pitched baby bitch voice.ย So we are now trying to un-do the damage, train it out of her, and, basically, play Crate Games.
So this afternoon I came home from work, let the boys out, and put Georgie in Payton’s crate while I fed the boys.ย I was going to go get Georgie, but my mom came home right then, which caused Georgie to start yelping and screaming and biting the crate trying to get out and get to my mom.ย I already knew my mom had a migraine earlier and wasn’t in a mood to deal with the barking and yipping, but I’ll be damned if I was going to let a migraine tear down all the work we had done… so I shut my mom out of the room and decided to take care of it myself.
I walked out of the room and stood in the hall, waiting for her to stop barking.ย When she was quite for five seconds, I would go into the room.ย At first this was her cue to start screaming at me again, so I would immediately, silently, turn around and walk back out of the room.
I’m standing in the hall, having done this for several minutes, and feeling irritated because I’m freaking starving for my own dinner, not in a very good mood already having just left work, and this isn’t even my dog!! I sure didn’t encourage (even inadvertently) this bad habit, so why do I have to stand here and deal with this?! It’s bad enough to have to struggle with Payton’s brattiness but at least that is all a direct result of the work I have or have not put into him; this one has NOTHING TO DO WITH ME, and yet here I am with the dumb baby bitch barking at me every time I walk into the room, preventing me from just feeding her and getting on with the rest of my life. And suddenly my head starts going “It’s her choice.ย Control the resources, NOT the dog.ย It’s her choice.”ย Like a calming mantra.ย Control the resources… not the dog.ย It’s Georgie’s choice to keep barking and not be let out of the crate.ย It’s her choice to stop barking and have me walk in the room.ย It’s her choice to start barking when I approach the crate and make me turn around and LEAVE the room.ย It’s all her choice.ย I’m not really DOING anything.ย Just letting the dog make the choices.
And it’s actually VERY calming, really, when you think about it.ย It sure makes it easy for me.ย Well, “easy” may not be the right word, but it takes the pressure off me, at the very least. I’m not here to make the dog do anything. I don’t have to force it. We’re not having a battle for control.ย All I’m here to do is allow the dog to make her own choices, come to the correct choice (what I want), and then reward her for it! You get that? I’m just here to allow her to experiment, make her own choices, and then deliver a reward when the right choice rolls around.ย Nothing else.ย I don’t have to sit there having a shouting match with her, screaming, “Georgie QUIET!ย Georgie STOP BARKING!ย QUIET!ย SIT!ย SIT!”
I just stand there in the hallway with the lights off… and wait.
It really didn’t take much longer than five minutes for her to stop barking, stay quiet as I walked into the room and approached her crate, sit nicely when I unlatched the crate door, OPEN the crate door, and then release her from her sit so we could finally leave the room and go get her dinner.
And all I did was stand there and wait patiently.
I like this kind of dog training.
Training Chatter
So it’s week five of my Brilliant Recalls e-course with Susan Garrett. Over the course of the class, I wouldn’t say I’ve necessarily had any training epiphanies so the speak… at least not in the traditional “ah-ha!” moment kind of way. What I have had is a shifting of my thought process and my overall training habits.
The big one would be that I’ve ditched luring for behaviours. This is actually really hard, because lure based training is how I was taught to train and how I’ve trained for many many years. Old habits die hard and it’s VERY difficult to stop luring. It’s also hard because what we are learning in Recallers has to do mostly with a recall, though many of the games are useful in SO many different areas. So we aren’t learning, for example, how to teach a dog to sit without a lure. Not that I need to know how to teach a dog to sit without a lure – I know about capturing, and of course my dogs know how to sit – but I’m just using that as an example. So I’m shifting into a new way of thinking, but I don’t really know how to do everything yet.ย I definitely don’t feel confident enough to walk into a training class tomorrow and say “We’re not doing any luring in this class!” and help everybody in the classroom train their dogs as expected without using a lure… just because I haven’t done it all before, helped anybody do it before, and don’t even have a clear picture in my head of what to do.ย There is no game plan, no map.ย I am basically stumbling around with a blank piece of paper, trying to draw the map based on what I walk into, what other people tell me, and then can eventually show that map to somebody else and tell them “Well, if you want to get from here to here, this is where you go…”
One problem with drawing this map of shaping and capturing, as I’ve noticed with other people as a trainer and having used SOME shaping/capturing in my classes (even though I would say they have been primarily lure-based) is how HARD it is for many people to learn the concept of “don’t do anything, don’t say anything, let the dog come to the conclusion on his own.” I’ve told people “okay, don’t say anything, just wait” and they wait for maybe a few seconds… and then start saying things again or trying to “make” the dog do something.ย It’s difficult for people to grasp the concept of waiting for the dog to do things on his own and then reward it rather than luring or prompting… even with somebody standing right behind you, saying “JUST SHUT UP AND LET THE DOG THINK FOR A SECOND!”ย (Not that I’ve ever yelled that at my students or even been tempted to, but I sometimes think I probably should have yelled that at MYSELF in the past.)
It’s evolution of my thought processes.ย I’m enjoying it.ย I think that might actually be the biggest thing I’m getting out of the e-course, even though the games are also IMMENSELY helpful – but it’s how my entire thought process and teaching approach is evolving along the way.
Payton the Amazing
This dog is awesome, and hilarious. I’ve posted a couple of times about our perch work. The last time he was on the perch was two or three days ago (I know, but I’m also working on other stuff, so we are actually rotating tricks…) He was going about a turn and a half for me, a turn regularly but often giving me more. I want him to be doing more than that before we start lowering the perch and then fade it out entirely, but he’s doing pretty good. The hand signal I’m using is Celeste Meade’s, which is a fist with my knuckles down towards the dog.
Well, I just had him in the bathroom with me while I was getting ready for bed. I wanted to put him in a sit so I said “Payton, sit,” and made the hand signal I use, which is scooping my hand up towards my face. Normally I have my hand open, palm up, but I was holding something so it was basically raising my fist up in the air. He looked at my hand but didn’t sit right away, so I just waited. Sit is his default behaviour so I knew he would sit in a second anyway once his brain caught up to his feet.
Except he didn’t sit.
He stared at my hand, which was a fist, knuckles down… and he thought about it, then proceeded to start pivoting his butt around.
I looked at him, totally shocked, then looked at my hand, and realized he was doing EXACTLY what I asked him to. Just not what I MEANT to ask him to do!
And he did it without the perch anywhere nearby and without having done any kind of fading of the perch. Just up and turned a pivot on the bathroom floor.
I then almost fell over laughing hysterically. Really, Payton? Wow. Okay.
Now I don’t know if I should just ditch the perch and make him start doing pivots without it since he already proved to me he can, haha.
Recall Bootcamp
After a lot of thought and a lot of staring at my bank account, I decided to enroll in Susan Garrett’s 5 Minutes to a Brilliant Recall e-course. It wasn’t exactly cheap, but I asked myself what a good recall is worth. If somehow Auggie or Payton were to get out the front door, or maybe broke the gate in the backyard, or escaped from their lead at an agility trial… and were running towards a busy road with cars coming… how much is it worth if I said “AUGGIE” and my dog would turn around and come racing back to me without hesitation? The answer, for me, is that it would be worth a lot more than I paid for the class.
So that will be our winter project… how much work we’ll get to do outside once the snow dumps on us, exactly, is anybody’s guess. But I will at least be arming myself with the games and the learning to work on it later.
Both dogs have also been learning perch work. Payton is doing better than Auggie, who ever since I got out the clicker and tried to teach him to speak has added barking furiously at me to his repertoire of “stuff to try during shaping.” Auggie was giving me two full turns around the perch but frequently would stop and bark at me, so I dropped WAY back and am currently rewarding for two steps in a row WITH NO. BARKING. and hoping that eliminates the annoying barkface.
Payton, on the other hand, is now doing a turn and a half. Sometimes he gets overly excited and ends up slipping off the perch and since he is no longer on the perch starts jumping around the room (my puppy is so weird) but once he gets himself collected and hits the perch again, he returns very quickly to pivoting. I’m very proud of him… when I first brought him home and tried to teach him to touch a target, he wouldn’t do anything. He would just sit down and stare at me. Having gone from that to a dog who learned to start zooming around a perch purely from offered behaviours, it just makes me smile. I almost cried when I saw the light bulb go off in his head and he started stepping in a hurry around the perch. Hurray for Payton!
So I will probably be posting some updates here, maybe with some videos, while we work through Auggie’s Recall Bootcamp! I’m looking forward to it for sure. (How can anybody NOT look forward to not having to go out and retrieve their dog who is in the back of the yard barking at ABSOLUTELY NOTHING through the fence when it’s 20 degrees out and they are only wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts?)
Shaping is awesome
Do you ever get really excited when training something when you see that ah-ha moment take place?ย I know how shaping works.ย I’ve done it over and over and over again.ย I’ve taught people how to do it and watched them shape their dogs.
So tonight we got the perch out again and I did exactly that… and when he started stepping left clearly over and over and over and all the way around the perch I got so excited I almost started crying. I had to run and get my mom to show her, and of course when I tried it again he was getting stuck in his little dance again, LOL, BUT HE WAS DOING IT… I swear!!
And I felt like SUCH a dork being so excited.
Target Training Update
I’ve been pretty busy with the Naturally Jumping program, but we have been playing with target training still! Auggie got the concept very quickly, and I started playing around with throwing the frisbee (his target) across the room or down the stairs and making him “go touch” away from me. Last week, we were able to put the target on a piece of contact equipment for the first time… the teeter, which (luckily) is Auggie’s best piece of contact equipment anyway! As long as he can slow down (which usually requires me to be paying attention and tell him “EASY” if he gets to excited) he does just fine. It went really well, except for a lot of hilarity involving him looking across the room at the target and trying to go touch it before he was told. *facepalm* At one point he was in a sit, looked over at the teeter, licked his lips, and took off through the sequence – leaving me standing at the start, because if he breaks his stay and goes ahead of me I just stand there until he comes back to me – until he got to the teeter. Which resulted in me standing at the start, and him standing on the teeter doing his touch, looking rather expectantly at me.
It will probably be a little while until I’m able to put the target on the a-frame, which is fine by me. I want to have plenty of time to get the touch behaviour reinforced before I have to put it on the one piece of equipment that gives us trouble. If the weather does a solid warm-up and stays that way, I can get the mini a-frame out in the backyard and start with that before we go out to his breeder’s house for practice on the real a-frame out there. I’m anxious, and yet not… I don’t want to rush it, but I want to get on with solving this problem at the same time.
We’ll see. So far, so good – that’s all I can say!
Farmer’s Market Photos
Well, no Farmer’s Market this weekend. I did take Auggie to a remote for work and could have slapped myself for not taking my camera (I seriously seriously ALMOST took it and decided at the last minute to leave it at home.) There were bales of hay set up and pumpkins EVERYWHERE. Also lots of small children, many of which asked to pet Auggie, and he just ate up all the attention. Some guy took photos of him while I was holding him and asked me a bunch of questions about shelties – then declared “My next dog is going to be one!”
Auggie – Sheltie Ambassador.
Anyway, these are the very few Farmer’s Market photos from last weekend. If the weather stays nice there should be several more weekends of FM trips for us to go socialize and train in public settings with lots of people around.
Waiting patiently while Grandma buys some bread.
Somebody had just said to him “Oh, aren’t you a cute little puppy!”
“Why yes, yes I am!” Auggie says. “Thank you for noticing!”
He kept looking at those flowers, then looking away every time I snapped a photo. Brat!
Positive results from positive training
My little Auggie Doggie is having positive experiences with little kids.
And he’s doing AMAZING.
He still doesn’t like them running around or moving awkwardly, but he barks when adults run around too… that’s likely just herding instinct and I’ll never get it to go away.
BUT… last week we went to the farmer’s market and several small children approached, asked if they could pet him, and were so nice and gentle with him. Towards the end of our circle of the market, two young boys came RUNNING in front of us, bursting through the rows of tables. I nearly freaked out and thought for sure Auggie would lose it…
but he just wagged his tail and pranced forward. He wanted to PLAY with them!! You could have knocked me over with a feather… my little guy wanting to play with small children!
Today I stopped by a remote for work and there were children EVERYWHERE. At first I held him, not sure how he’d react (it was crowded and LOUD) but after being there for a while and he seemed totally calm, I put him down. He did so wonderfully… so many children came up, ALL of them asked if they could pet my dog (!!!!) and they were ALL so nice and gentle. He was just a happy little guy, enjoying all of the attention.
Swung by to grab some Chinese before going home, and I sat outside the restaurant with Auggie. Put him in a down-stay and there he did, indeed, stay, as two small boys slowly approached and politely asked if they could pet my dog.
I’m just so proud… I never thought we could have so many positive experiences so quickly, and have it make such a fast, positive impact on my little guy. He is really getting to LOVE little kids… it’s just amazing and wonderful and EEEE SO PROUD OF AUGGIE.
Farmer’s Market
Have pics but haven’t gotten around to uploading them yet.
Took the Auggie Doggie to the Farmer’s Market this Saturday. It was a somewhat short visit because the Dog Treat Lady was not there, but still a really great visit. (I, on the other hand, got a lovely pecan pie; my mom picked up some sunflowers and a few other yummy treats.)
First we practiced a nice sit and look both ways before crossing the street. (Okay, I look both ways. Auggie just sits there and looks cute, patiently waiting for me to say “Okay, cross!”) Then we met a few nice dogs and had some little kids ask to pet him. Fielded the usual questions about what kind of dog he is, what their temperaments are like, how often I have to brush his coat, and the not-so-usual “How much do miniature collies (*cringe*) cost?” whereupon I very quickly started blathering about sheltie rescue, dropping a plug for CISR. Oh yeah, and we got lots of “LOLOLOL MINI-LASSIE!” comments.
Auggie needs a shirt that says “I Am Not A Mini Lassie” on one side, and “I Am A Boy Dog” on the other side.
Had some very positive experiences. I was standing at a fudge tent waiting for my mom to buy herself some fudge (which Auggie was very interested in) and turn around to suddenly find a large collie looking at my little guy, tail wagging. Auggie was VERY interested in this potential playmate that looked a lot like him, except at LEAST twice his size. This display of Collie + Sheltie attracted some attention from passers-by, including from a few children who were interested in petting both fluffy dogs. Little Auggie could NOT have cared any less about the children, because he was so interested in the big collie, so there went that opportunity to socialize with some kiddos. Whoops!
Still, he learns super fast and it seems he starting to associate little children with “If I sit near this small person, I will get petted.” He headed over to a little kid towards the end of our round of the market, sat, and then looked back and forth at the kid and at me expectantly. Like “Look, Mom, I’m sitting! Now I get petted and you tell me I’m a good boy, right?” Well, it only works like that if the kid is LOOKING at you and WANTS to pet you, bratface. This kid had her back to him and never even noticed he was sitting there. Silly dog.
Pics later if I get around to getting them off the computer… there’s only a couple of them.
A few agility videos
Took these videos for a friend of mine to show her some things.ย So now, I share them with the rest of the internets!
Auggie on the weave poles!
And, the far more amazing (trust me, it really is) 2o2o contact on the mini a-frame! This is not at the full incline and, being “mini,” it is not full height, but this is HUGE HUGE HUGE for us.
