Paytongility 2014
I had no idea this photo was being taken until long after the fact.
It has not been a very good year for us in agility. In an entire year of trialing, Payton has only gotten three Qs. Two are in Novice FAST so they don’t even really count. One Open JWW Q. So many near misses in JWW; most of the time it’s just no weave poles, but if we have weave poles, I get so excited he got his poles I blow it for us, gaining us extra refusals from poor cues or doing something that results in a dropped bar. Standard has just been an overall disaster between the weave poles and contacts.
And yet we train. I sign us up. We go.
And we play.
Everybody loves Payton. Even after a horrible run the peanut gallery always tells me he’s a beautiful dog, he has great structure, he looks amazing. His speed is highly desirable if nothing else is. He loves the game, he is happy, he is excited (yes I know.) Over Halloween a friend who last saw Payton when he was a tiny 14 week old puppy finally got to see him run and came up to me after our run and said “I think you should know, that dog is going to be really good really soon. He’s fast, he’s really incredible. He’s going to be great. He really is.” Many many people who have given me a lot of votes of confidence with him, which helps when we have a bad run and all I want to do is sit down and cry.
But this past weekend is when I actually got the best comment of all.
After a run, which didn’t go as planned, we came back to our crate and Payton was sitting in his chair getting cookies for his stay and whatever else he did that was clever (I always tell him exactly what his cookies are for. One cookie for a stay. One cookie for the weaves. One cookie for that obstacle discrimination. Et cetera.) And the lady crated in front of me said “I really like how you handle your dog.”
Thinking she meant “handle” as in handling on the course, I said “oh, thank you.”
But then she continued.
“He has a lot of drive. And you do a really good job of trying to channel that drive instead of trying to just squash it.”
“Oh,” I said, realizing what she meant. “Well thank you. That actually means a lot, because it honestly doesn’t feel like it.”
“Well, it might not feel like it,” she says, “but I can tell by watching you together. You’re doing a really good job with him. You seem like you really know your dog and you really know your breed. I love watching you with him.”
That is probably the best compliment I have gotten with my dogs. And of all the awesome photos I’ve gotten of Payton doing agility this year, I really do think this one is my favorite.
I would much prefer to be posting brags of his Qs, his ribbons, his placements, his MACH points, how close we are to a championship. Instead we are limping along just trying to get some Open Qs, never mind getting OUT of Open. He is not an easy dog, but he is mine, he’s kinda cute, and I kinda like him. I know in other hands he would be treated an entirely different way. It is a balancing act with him and will probably forever be one. But he is mine and I’m glad he is.
I guess I’ll keep him.
At least until we see how next year goes.
Meanwhile Georgie is over here like HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT I THINK I MIGHT GET A MACH IN A YEAR OR SO
Payton’s First Agility Seminar
Yesterday was our Stuart Mah seminar. The day started at 4:30AM; I packed almost everything into the car the night before so I wouldn’t have a lot to mess with in the morning. Roll out of bed, feed the dogs, potty the dogs, get dressed, pack the cooler full of caffeine, put Payton in the car crate, fire up the GPS, and away we go! We left at about 5:15AM and arrived at the seminar location a little bit after 7:40AM. The seminar was small, so we all got plenty of chances to work our dogs.
We started just talking a little about a list on a wipe off board, a list of skills dogs need for agility and a list of skills people need for agility. The list for dogs is obviously much longer, but it was a bit surprising to me how MUCH longer it was. There were definitely skills on the list that Payton doesn’t have. Then we all got the chance to run our dogs on a course Stuart set up. After we ran, he asked us what we thought our dogs needed.
Funny enough, after two weeks of Steak & Weaves, there were NO weave poles in the course. We didn’t see a single weave pole all day. We did, however, see contact equipment, and Payton was spectacular in his judgement of where to jump off in order to precisely clear the yellow completely. Sigh. He also took some great off-courses for me. And barked a lot. Basically, he had a very lovely Payton-esque run, which is what I was hoping for so I could be like “My dog. Let me show him to you.”
So what I said I thought Payton needed was impulse control. Stuart said “that’s part of it.” But more over, what he thinks Payton needs he called “attention to detail.” Payton’s version of agility is to run around the course as fast as he can, taking as many obstacles as he can, often just grabbing whatever he sees in front of him, with very little regard for where I am on the course or what I’m telling him to do. In my description of this, it sounds like a dog who is stressed and is running zoomies around the course – we’ve all seen those dogs. But that’s not quite Payton. Payton instead is so eager to go on, run ahead, and keep trying to take as many obstacles as he can – hit your contact? But there’s a jump right out there. Finish the weave poles? But there’s a tunnel there I would rather do instead. Take THAT jump? But this one is in front of me! The rules just don’t come into play anymore in his eagerness to play the game as fast as possible. In my head I pictured a little kid playing soccer. The kid is so excited he picks up the soccer ball, runs as fast as he can down the field, flings the ball as hard as he can into the goal… then he dives into the goal, grabs the ball, and runs back the other way as fast as he can, flings the ball into THAT goal, repeat. And the whole time he’s doing this he’s screaming at the top of his lungs. And meanwhile all the other kids are standing there going “But dude, that’s not how you play the game!” But he just doesn’t care about how THEY want to play the game, because he has decided he wants to play the game by running as fast as he can and scoring as many goals as possible, not even necessarily for his own team. He doesn’t care that in soccer you’re supposed to move the ball with your feet. He doesn’t care that only the goals scored for YOUR team really matter. He just wants to run fast and score goals and also yell a lot.
That’s Payton playing agility. Except it’s not quite a perfect example, because Payton will generally follow me around a course. He doesn’t run off and start taking jumps at the opposite end of the ring while I’m still standing back by obstacle #3 – but he’s not super concerned if I’m over by jump #5 and he’s on an off-course over that way. In fact the off-course jump might, in Payton’s view of agility, give him bonus points (hint: it doesn’t.)
In some ways, this is good news, but in other ways, it’s bad, because Impulse Control is a Thing that I know, a Thing that I have a concept of how to work on. How to teach my dog attention to detail, I have no idea. I’ve never even heard of that as a Thing.
He also said part of the reason Payton does this is because he doesn’t feel there are any consequences for not playing the game correctly. It’s true; I don’t punish my dog for making mistakes. I try to not even let him know he’s screwed up and I’m unhappy. And it wasn’t until later, while Stuart was talking about something else, that it really occurred to me WHY. Because in my head I think that if I do anything or say anything, I’m going to squash Payton’s enthusiasm and end up with Auggie. A dog who desperately needs the energy to be kept cranked WAY over the top to drive him through a trial, and even then, he might not make course time. So I’ve decided that in exchange for speed and enthusiasm, I give up control. And the end result is we still don’t Q but for entirely different reasons.
I’ve also said before to friends that I feel like Payton and I escalate each other, and definitely some of what Stuart said backs this up. Payton is running fast and loose and loud. I start getting louder. He gets louder (and faster) so I get louder and the cycle just continues. I want Payton to come to me and instead of being calm and quiet, I’m basically shouting PAYTON PAYTON PAYTON at him which is just adding energy and intensity and doesn’t at all signal “chill out” to Payton. Somehow I have to manage to be in enough control of myself and my voice and my tone and volume to communicate better to him. Not exactly a skill I’m good at; my volume level tends to be very reactive… so that will be interesting.
There’s also the issue that I run hard and fast a lot. Payton runs hard and fast so I run hard and fast so Payton runs hard and fast, more of the cycle repeating. Let me drop my psychology degree in here for a second to mention that it’s very self-rewarding for ME TOO to run hard and fast with Payton; excepting the exercise physiological aspects of endorphins and everything from the equation (like the fact that my sport of choice is running and I just plain enjoy it,) which of course comes into play, I have a fast dog who is wildly opposite from my first Molasses Dog and it’s incredibly rewarding in all kinds of ways to run all out with my fast dog. It’s also rewarding to Q though. There has to be a balance there, from me, which might be harder than just training the dog.
Ultimately it almost sounds like it’s going to take more changes in my behavior to force changes in Payton’s behavior, so the onus is really going to primarily be on me. Yes, there will be some extra training going on, but I’m going to have to step up my game and be better about what I do and don’t do with Payton in the ring. Our next trial is over the July 4th weekend, so we shall see if there’s anything to be gained by that point or if I’m just going to continue setting money on fire for a while. All in all, it was a pretty good experience and helpful to have somebody of a high caliber confirm a lot of things I was thinking. I flat out asked about the contacts and weave issues (even though Stuart didn’t see him weave) and he agreed that he feels it’s an overall issue with his lack of attention to detail rather than an obstacle performance issue.
On the positives, Payton was otherwise a delight all day. Sat in his crate quietly even though a major windstorm was brewing outside and the entire building sounded like it was shaking. Let Stuart use him as a demo for his stretching routine. Gained some admirers who asked where I had gotten him because he was a nice, solid dog who rebounded from failures easily and is of course a very cute, enthusiastic boy. In most cases I really believe Payton tries very hard to be a good boy, and while it’s true I was sitting there halfway through the day and thought “I miss Auggie…” it was nice to spend a day with my little baby dog and have some fun. Also, it’s the very first time I’ve ever seen Payton truly tired. He had to use his brain HARD for hours at a time, and even though he was happy to play and wrestle and run around after we got home, when we all finally crawled into bed at night, he lay down right next to me and stayed there, even after Auggie decided it was too hot and jumped off the bed to sleep on the floor. Normally P snuggles for a bit and then moves to the floor, but NOPE… too tired. Can’t even get off the bed. And that alone might have been worth the whole thing.
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.
Payton agility training 12/26/12
Baby P at the training building tonight.
Need to clean the teeter up some more, he thinks it’s faster to get on by hopping on it halfway. So I’m trying to reward both when he gets on it straight and when he exits. I really should decide if I want a 2o2o or not because I keep changing my mind and it’s going to confuse him…
Some handling stuff at the end and also a blooper clip very last. I laugh every time I see it. I’m so mean.
Pepper perch work
After “spin” wasn’t going well with Pepper, I decided to start perch work with her instead.
What’s funny is how many times she was offering me a left head check… I guess she WAS getting the spin shaping after all!
Trick Training: Spin
This week our trick training challenge is “spin.” Auggie and I worked on this one a few years ago but I never really put a cue on it or had it perfect, so cleaning it up will be Auggie’s challenge this week. I haven’t done this at all with Payton or Pepper.
Once again I just started shaping with Payton, clicking for back end swiveling. Payton already knows “pivot” of course, and starts offering that (it’s one of his favourite tricks to offer.) I decided to go ahead and reward that and see if we can’t turn that into spinning.
I tried to lure Pepper but she isn’t handling my arm going behind her back well, so I decided to just try and shape a head turn instead.
After this video I decided Pepper was just having a hard time and maybe she isn’t ready for something of this level yet. Having only just started clicker training with her a few weeks ago and so far only really doing some targeting work, this might just be too much. So I think Pepper will sit this week out in favour of me trying to shape her to do something else, like maybe climb into a box?
Final video! Just Auggie and Payton:
Both of them can only spin one direction reliably – teaching them to spin both directions is my next task!
Trick Training: “Sit Pretty”
The dog forum I belong to is having a trick training challenge. Each week we get a new trick to work on. This week we had “sit pretty” which is a trick I’ve been wanting to train anyway, so I worked on it with all three dogs. At first I just decided to lure with all three, but that wasn’t working very well for Payton who is quite good at shaping anyway, so I scrapped luring with Payton and switched to shaping. It worked out just fine with him. For both Auggie and Pepper, I lured, and then switched to targeting (which is also more or less luring, I know) my thumb. This will turn into my hand signal for the behaviour at a later point.
On with the videos!
This one has all three dogs in it:
Just Payton in this one:
All three dogs for the “final” version here! Of course we still have some cleaning up to do, but this was the end of the week so this is our final video rather than final version of the trick. Auggie is the one struggling the most with this, but I think physically it’s difficult for him. We’ll keep working on it though.
Payton “cop-cop” training – again!
It’s been a while since we worked on this trick, but I haven’t forgotten about it. I still think it’s a really cute trick so we came back to work on it some more.
Here’s two videos of us working on it:
Apologies for this one where you can’t even see my feet, I realize how completely unhelpful that is!
More Clicker Training with Pepper
Second target training session with Pepper! Once again, watch the video, then look below for more on what I did (and why) in this session!
I started this session with the same criteria as we ended last session: I wanted a nose push. She offered to dig at it with her paw pretty quickly, so I started rewarding for any kind of paw touch. I also flipped the frisbee back over at this point since I was no longer trying to catch my cookies in the middle of it. I pretty quickly got her to dig at the frisbee reliably. At this point I started holding out for a sustained touch rather than just digging. This is the first point where she starts to check out a little bit because she’s not sure what I’m wanting… I went a little too quickly for her. So I went back to rewarding for persistent pawing, and started rewarding low to the ground and in front of the frisbee, hoping that would result in her accidentally stepping onto the frisbee and getting the paw touch I was really looking for. It didn’t totally work, but I was also almost out of cookies in my hand so we just ended there with some pawing at the frisbee so we could end on a good note with success!
Clicker Training Pepper
Miss Pepper has never really been trained with the clicker before, at least not that I remember. I have started shaping behaviours a lot more often since getting Payton, so I don’t think I really did a lot with her previously. So now that she’s here, it’s time for the clicker training. Previous to this video, I did one quick session where I asked her for sits and downs and C&T for each. With Payton I really didn’t do any “charging” of the clicker and it has obviously not been a problem for him, but Pepper has four years of learning WITHOUT the clicker so I thought I would put a small deposit into her clicker training bank account before starting. But that is all I did.
I tried to figure out which behaviour I thought would be best to start with and decided one of the easiest things to do – and the easiest to “show” for video purposes – was to teach her how to target an object. Both of my boys are very good at this and even Georgie is pretty quick to try targetting stuff if she thinks it will get her a cookie… so easy enough, right? Right.
Watch the video, then read below for how I approached this training session!
At first I wasn’t sure what she would do when I put the frisbee (my favourite starting target) down on the floor. Would she go sniff it, mouth it, maybe even paw at it right off the bat? So I put the frisbee down and just watched to see what she would do before I decided what to click. Well, I should have predicted she wouldn’t do ANYTHING, but as usual I forgot that she is completely unlike my other dogs. So after a few seconds I knew my first move was to just click for looking at the frisbee. I quickly realized I also needed to use my treat placement to help out and started throwing the cookies towards the frisbee. I flipped it upside down, which is usually how I use it when it’s a food target, because the cookies would then get trapped in the frisbee. This let me reward for sniffing the frisbee, then I started waiting for an actual nose touch rather than just a sniff.
I started waiting for forward paw movement, but before she really started doing that, she actually pushed the frisbee with her nose. This was exciting to me, so I clicked it and decided to reward that for a while. We ended the session there!
Payton learning “shake”
Yeah, yeah, so my puppy is almost a year and a half old and I never bothered to teach him “shake.” I realized this is an issue when I told Payton he might need to start performing tricks on the side of the road to make us money, and then remembered HE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW ANY TRICKS. Are people really going to be impressed by a dog who can sit, stay, and do weave poles? I didn’t think so.
Well, if he’s going to do tricks to bring home the bacon, I guess I’d better train him up. I mean, he should at LEAST be able to shake.
Right off the bat I kept missing opportunities to reward him. DERP. I also realized I shouldn’t have been rewarding with the same hand I wanted him to “shake” – I was using that hand because the clicker was in my other hand, but rewarding with my right hand meant every time I wanted to reward him I had to take my hand (the target) AWAY. Not what I wanted to do! So I switched reward hands.
Obviously the trick isn’t 100% done by the end of this video, but I’ve got the behaviour I’m looking for! Next is to continue to reinforce it in different locations, and then to put it on cue and name it.
Next: “roll over.” Which is always hilarious to see Auggie do because he kind of THROWS himself over. We’ll see if Payton will be any better at it!
Weavin’ Wednesdays
(Sing this to the tune of Maroon 5’s “Payphone.” Without Adam Levine’s really horrible falsetto. Think of Ne-Yo’s falsetto instead. Yeah, that’s it. Now sing.)
I’ve got a Payton, tryin’ to train him,
All of my change I spent on treats
Where has his brain gone,
Baby it’s all wrong,
Tryin’ to do these two by twos
Unfortunately every time I hear that song I FREAK out and practically kill myself trying to change the station, so I can’t parody the rest of the song because I have no idea how it goes.
BUT THAT IS NOT IMPORTANT.
LOOK AT THIS VIDEO.
Make sure you watch all the way to the end!
HE DID IT! Payton can weave!! This is the only time Payton is allowed to say “LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!” Yeaaaaaaah Pay!!
He did it!!!
PAYTON JUMPED INTO THE LAKE!!
We went out last weekend and tried to get him off the baby dock (it’s maybe a foot to the water, and only about a foot of water) and he wasn’t really game. I lowered him in so he would see it wasn’t deep but he still wasn’t game. He DID want to go play in the shallows, there’s a place where people can slide their boats into the water and he was all about playing there, but jumping into the lake… nope.
So I tried again today since it’s supposed to rain and storm all weekend. The first time he actually FELL in. OMFG hahaha. But the second time he actually edged up to it then hopped/slid in. At first I thought it was an accident because he looked shocked when he was standing there… but then he came around the dock and up onto the shore and looked at me, and I was going NUTS and gave him a whole handful of cookies… and he ran back to the edge, looked thoughtful for a second, then hopped in. Again I shoved a handful of cookies in his face, while he was in the water this time – the time before he looked so shocked he didn’t want them – and he came running back up on the shore again, ran to the edge of the dock, looked at me like “Do you see this??” and JUMPED IN.
And he did it again, and again, and again. And every time he came back to the shore like =D =D DID YOU SEE WHAT I JUST DID MOM
I only let him jump in about six times, he kept wanting to jump in but I knew rain was on it’s way and I didn’t want to over do it the very first time. So I toweled him off and we came back home (and just beat the rain.)
I can’t stop smiling. I was so proud and excited I almost cried.
HE JUMPED IN THE LAKE AHHHH
Anybody else have this… um… “problem?”
I’m working on “look at that” with Payton. About a week ago we had our first major success. I was using a hand chopper to chop some nuts for trail mix and I figured he was going to hate the chopper, so I got my treats ready and treated him for being calm while I touched/moved/used the chopper. It took about ten minutes, and only that long because I stupidly decided to make SURE he really was going to hate the chopper first and he went over threshold. (Sometimes he surprises me with what he does and doesn’t decide to bark at, so… I should have just gone with my gut instead of making sure it was a Bad but. Lesson learned.)
I felt so proud of him. I wasn’t crazy chopping going to town, but I chopped three cups of nuts and he didn’t really care by the end. And not once did I whack him or yell at him or intimidate him or even flood him.
So I got out my big pile of Weird Stuff tonight to work on it some more in a controlled setting and without setting him over threshold. The first thing I got out was three tiny pinwheels.
I accidentally taught my dog to spin a pinwheel with his nose.
Then I got out a plunger.
I accidentally taught my dog to put his front feet on a plunger.
Then I got out this big fake plastic lollipop.
My dog decided to jump on top of a moving box.
He thinks there’s more to the game than just looking. He wants to interact with stuff when I put it in the framework of “here’s a clicker and some treats, and there’s a weird thing.” I think this is good but at the same time not. Good that he sees something weird and instead of “THAT IS WEIRD I NEED TO BARK AT IT,” he thinks “This is a game! What can I do to get cookies? LOOK WHAT I CAN DO”
But I won’t always have a clicker and treats with me to re-frame the “game” into a game of LOOK WHAT I CAN DO. And he won’t always be able to interact with the weird stuff beyond just LOOKING at it and then looking back at me, which is part of the point of just teaching a Look At That.
This is a strange problem to have. Definitely not the worst problem in the world to have, but I’m not 100% sure how to go about fixing this. =P
By the way, Auggie is wearing an e-collar to stop him chewing on his foot, and Payton grabbed the edge of the e-collar and was dragging Auggie around by the e-collar. Just thought you should all know that. oh Payton.
Training Challenge 07/20/12
I haven’t posted one of these for a few weeks, mostly because I was recovering from our last agility/rally trial, partially because it’s still really stinkin’ hot outside and it makes it hard to do much work out in the yard, and also because I’ve been busy juggling a few other things. I don’t want to jinx it so I won’t say more just yet, but really fabulous things might be about to happen for the Sheltiechick crew!
So this week, instead of breaking it down day by day, I think instead I will just make a general goal. I have been working on teaching the dogs to swim and yesterday I decided to start adding in more as it relates to Dock Dogs. I bought a small plastic footstool that sits inside the pool (actually, it floats, so unless a dog is sitting/standing on it, it’s floating around the pool…) and had Auggie standing on the stool, click+treating for him nose-bumping our ChuckIt amphibious bumper. Being the rock star that he is, very quickly I had Auggie nose-bumping the bumper when it was floating in the water. Next step will be to get him to actually mouth the bumper.
Payton’s turn was next, and the poor dog made me laugh so hard I almost fell down in the pool, because he was trying to do his pivots in the pool. He kept thinking his back feet should be on the bottom of the pool and his front feet on the stool, and he should then pivot around the stool, right? No, Payton, no! Poor guy. Payton will actually fetch the bumper for me on land but he doesn’t want anything to do with it when he’s in the water, so I think I need to train a “grab the bumper” outside the pool (rather than just “fetch the bumper”) and then move back INTO the pool and generalize “grab the bumper” to him standing on the stool in the pool.
Of course, my parents want to re-roof the house this week, so the pool is due to be emptied and come down. I’m thinking this coming weekend I might actually go to the lake again and see if we can get some swimming done there. I think Payton will do much better now with his new life jacket, and could benefit from being in water that’s actually deep rather than a pool where if he tries he can actually put his back legs on the floor and just flail around with his front legs. Auggie, meanwhile, is doing awesome, particularly if I put a life jacket on him. He doesn’t seem to really need it, but with the life jacket on, his swimming became much smoother. Unfortunately he wears the same size as Georgie but they don’t fit the same, so I will have to buy a third life jacket if I ever intend to have all three dogs in life jackets at the same time. I could order one of the Outward Hound jackets in pink for Georgie and give Auggie her orange one…
So that’s the training plan this week – “GRAB THE BUMPER!” Low key but still a goal regardless.
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.
Training 6/25/12 Wrap-up
After dropping the 2x2s with Payton, I went ahead and switched to weave-a-matics since I already had them dragged outside and ready to go. It was going pretty quickly, I was basically treating them the same as you would 2x2s – get the dog going through the chute of weaves and practice from all angles. Not a big deal and he was going with a lot of drive.
Then we hit the major heat wave that has affected most of the US. I figured it may have not been wise to be outside trying to work a new skill (especially one that had us hitting our heads against the wall with 2x2s) while we were slowly melting, so I axed a lot of the outdoor agility work.
Instead we switched to doing a lot of heeling practice inside. We worked more on the perch and slowly, slowly started getting the progress we needed. I took Saturday off completely with him to let some latent learning set in, but as of tonight we have walking in heel with a C+T every three steps. His left turns are AMAZING (I mean really amazing), his right turns pretty good, overall not terrible at all. I really can’t complain about his progress. I’m a little antsy about how it will translate to a trial setting, but you can never really predict for that.
For Auggie, I decided to keep up with doing some jump work outside, but switched it up a little. Auggie’s current problem is that he likes to hug the right side of jumps… even if we’re doing a left circle, he hugs the right side. He wastes a lot of time on the course altering his path to take the right side of jumps. I’m not sure if this is a physical problem due to his feet, if he’s possibly got a vision problem (all signs point to no vision problem), or if he’s just weird. Personally I think it’s a bit of A and C mixed together. So my challenge is to re-train him to NOT always hit the right side of jumps.
I’ve had a few different ideas on how to approach this, and I’ve decided to do some work with a v-bounce apparatus, or “the spider.” I’ve taken my stick-in-the-ground weave poles and made my own very ghetto v-bounce apparatus, and it may be ghetto, but it does the job. I decided to alter some Susan Salo jump chutes by adding the v-bounce in. I set up a straight chute and put the v-bounce on jumps 1, 3, and 5. I started back-chaining to see what he would do… jump 5, then jump 4, then jump 3. Once we did jump 3 and he kept himself in the center for all the jumps, I switched to all five jumps. We did that for a few reps, then I took the v-bounce off jump 3 entirely and left it just on jump 1 and 5. And he was still running the center line rather than veering off to the side. Whoo-hoo! I even proofed it with some motion and got what I was looking for.
So right now the plan is to do a few more days with the v-bounce in, then remove one more. Probably remove it from jump 1 and leave it on the last jump and see what happens. If it goes well, I’ll take it off jump 5 and work that – and pray that I get a miracle. The idea here is to introduce some new muscle memory to the situation and reward heavily for running the center line.
Obviously running the center isn’t exactly ideal either – you want a dog who can pick his line and either wrap left or right depending on what is most efficient. BUT if I’m given the choice between a dog who wraps right or just runs center, I will take running center. I’m expecting to have to do a lot of work on this, anticipate we may see setbacks with his take offs, but all I can do is cross my fingers and hope we work closer and closer towards a confident, fast dog who can jump safely and appropriately.
Training Challenge for 7/2/12
This week is going to be a bit different, because Thursday night we set off for a three day agility trial for Auggie, which includes two days of rally for Auggie and also – gulp – two days of rally for Payton. That’s right, Payton’s trialing debut is this weekend. And I’m slightly terrified. Anyway, on with the schedule!
Monday
Session 1:
Heeling (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Rally sign practice
Tuesday
Session 1:
Rally sign practice
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Rally sign practice
Wednesday
Session 1:
Rally sign practice
Session 2:
Heeling (P)
Jump chute (A)
Session 3:
Heeling/rally signs (P)
Treadmill (A)
Thursday
Session 1:
Jump chute (A)
Session 2:
Rally sign practice in the hotel room
Friday
Auggie agility trial!
Session 1:
Last desperate attempt to fix any problems with rally signs!
Saturday – Sunday
TRIAL TRIAL TRIAL
I have printed out a full set of rally signs, so we will hit those on July 4th, since I have the day off and can play with them a little. I know one I need to practice is the “bowl of food on the ground” with Auggie. It also occurs to me that Payton doesn’t have a very good Front, so I probably need to teach him that.
Auggie’s jump chutes have changed according to our weekly wrap up, so we’ll continue with those this week and cross our fingers that it may put some deposits in his jumping bank before this weekend’s trial.
Weaves for Pay have been scratched from this week, partially due to the impending rally trial and the need to work more on heeling, and partially just due to the heat. I’ve been taking Auggie out to jump after 8pm at night, and even though it’s still pretty hot and humid then, it’s at least a little cooler than the rest of the day. He’s also still getting some treadmill work to get in better shape and improve his speed. So far he seems to be doing really well, he’ll hop onto the treadmill and doesn’t seem bothered by it, so hopefully that will do some good for us too. It’s always a surprise with Auggie, haha! We are two standard Q’s and one jumper’s Q away from his masters agility titles, and I’m hoping we can clean those up this trial. But it seems I’ve been saying that for a while. Ohhhhh Auggie! <3
Training Schedule for 6/25/12
The training schedule for this week is as follows…
M β W β F
Session 1:
Weaves (Payton)
Session 2:
Weaves (Payton)
Treadmill (Auggie)
Session 3:
Heeling
T β 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 β x4 out, x3 back in
Progressive grid x3
Session 2:
Weaves (P)
Treadmill (A)
Session 3:
Heeling
Sun:
“Rest day” β 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 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.
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…
