Mom! There's a Cat in the Tunnel!

So, I found out just how valuable video can be in training yesterday. I also found out how oblivious I am to my surroundings. When Dare and I went out to train there was a pheasant in the agility field. He wandered off, and Dare didn't mind him being out there anyway, so I just set up the camera and off we went. I did know that Gertie our cat had also come out to train, but I didn't pay much attention to her either.

Well, I was working with Dare on her 2o/2o contact on the dogwalk, and I also wanted to throw in a little mix of obstacle discrimination with the tunnel. So, I set her up to do the tunnel first and then we'd do the dogwalk. Well, as you'll see in the video. Dare was distracted, and I wasn't paying any attention to why she was distracted. I just kept on working. Oblivious!!!! We ended the session on what I thought was a good note and I came in.

It wasn't until I watched the video clips back later on in the evening that I realized what was going on out there. Boy did I feel foolish. LOL It kind of looks like Dare is bouncing up to tell me "Mom!!! There's a cat in my tunnel!!! Mom!!!" on the way to turn off the camera. I can't tell you how grateful I am that I have a girl like Dare to work with that is able to deal with these type of distractions and being handler impaired besides. She is such a good girl! :-) Here's the video.

Obedience Lesson

Dare got to have an obedience lesson on Monday. I had every intention of posting about it before now, but I haven't had a chance. I wanted to get in writing what we were working on though, before I forget.

We worked on her heeling and guess what? I've been rewarding her for being in a forged position. LOL That paired up with the fact that she'd like to push me to "go faster mom, faster!" is really going to end up getting us in trouble. So, we worked on getting me used to what it looks like when she is actually in heel position standing in place, with a mirror so I could actually see what the whole picture looks like. Then we started heeling, really, really slow. Fortunately Dare is a quick learner and she's adjusting to the new position much more quickly than I am.

We also showed her how our retrieving games are coming along. She pointed out something interesting to me. She said that the Shelties have a tendency to really make a wide loop when they retrieve, so to clean that up a bit for obedience she had me throw the toy out and watch which way Dare turned to pick up the toy to run back. Then, I am to turn the opposite direction, so that instead of looping wide, it makes it like a tight figure eight when she returns. The only hard part is me figuring out which direction to turn. LOL

We also showed her our recall work. Dare did a great job on her "wait" and she is running in with really nice speed and enthusiasm. From that recall though, we got to looking at her sits. The best way I can describe it is like she's slouching. It's not really like a rock sit and it's not like it's off to one side or the other, but it's slouchy. (I think it's something you'd have to see, because I can't describe it very well). Anyway, she wants us to work on having her sit up straight and rewarding her up higher. Sounds simple, right? Well, that took a good portion of our lesson. :-P We've worked on it the last couple days though, and Dare is getting it figured out. Now I think I just need to work on building duration. She sits nicely and gets her treat, then it's like she relaxes back into her slouchy position again. LOL So, yesterday, I tried to focus on her being able to hold her position for a little longer. We are still just at a few seconds at this point, but I think it's probably like for me. If I have to sit up straight, it's using different muscles than I'm used to using and it's easier to just go back to the comfortable position again, until you build up the new muscles.

Anyway, that's a review of what we worked on in our lesson. Dare got to come along with Twist and Layla this weekend for Twist's obedience trial. If we do anything fun, I'll try to get pictures or video and post those.

Dare's Tricky

I keep meaning to work more on tricks and I don't always get around to it, but I thought I'd share Dare's latest trick. I think it's pretty cute. The best part was how simple it was to teach.



So, all I did was show Dare how to pull the kleenex out of the box once, and then I set it on the ground and told her to "get it". She figured it out with no problem. :-) The only thing that I've noticed is that if she's too excited she tries to grab the whole box instead of just one tissue. That, or she'll grab the tissue and then want to tug with it instead of just giving it to me. LOL

Keeping Track of Training

I found something really cool when I joined the Training Levels yahoo group. They had a link to something called the training tracker. Honestly, I don't know who took the time to develop this site or program, but it's an awesome tool. It is designed to allow you to log in your training sessions, what level of skills you're working on, and then what tests you've completed. Not only is it a way to track your progress on whatever skill and whatever level you're on, it automatically calculates your percentage of success with each behavior in a session.

Anyway, if you can't already tell, I'm liking it. One of the things that it's helping me to see is that I more often than I realized, I am getting an inconsistent response to cues, or having to give repeated cues. It seems funny to me that I was ignoring these things. You'd think it would be pretty obvious, but I guess I just needed to see on paper that some behaviors were successful only about 50% of the time.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, our weakest point is the one skill that most dogs learn first. "Sit" using a verbal cue only. LOL Maybe I didn't give it much attention, just assumed that she knew it. After seeing what our rate of success was on this skill, I realized it needed our attention. One of the things that was interesting is that when I'd give the verbal cue to sit when was facing me, she would flip around to sit in heel position. I thought about why this might be happening, and then realized that usually when the dogs are facing me, I am working on hand signals, not verbals. So, probably the most I have used a verbal Sit cue is when my dogs are in Heel position and we are doodling. For instance, I'll say, "up sit" when I want them to take one step with me and sit again in heel position. I think that inadvertantly, I've paired the verbal sit with being at my side. LOL

I decided to eliminate the possibility of her swinging into heel position by working with a wall on my left side. That kept her facing me and she seems to be understanding quickly that Sit just means sit, not get into heel position. Tonight she was 5 for 5 on sitting quickly and straight in front of me without the wall. Woohoo!

Anyway, to whoever came up with the training tracker, a big thank you from both Dare and I!

Level 2 Distance

I'm trying to decide what exactly to do with this skill. LOL When I read the description of this skill, the first thing that popped into my head was that it was a chance to start teaching an "out" for agility. Then I started to analyze (or overanalyze, as usual).

The way the skill is described in the levels and the videos of other dogs that I've seen doing the skill are different than how I want to teach an "out". It seems to have the goal of teaching the dog circle the object, since the reward seems to be given back at the person. The main difference is that when I teach an "out", for agility I want to reward the dog's movement "out" laterally from me and I want the dog to stay out away until I cue them to move back in towards me again. So, to reinforce that, I would toss a toy or a treat to the dog once they are out away from me. See my dilemna? No? I don't blame you, I'm probably just crazy.

Anyway...I think in reading and re-reading I've finally come to a decision. I will teach Dare this skill, but I will use the herding cues that we used of "away" and "go by" depending on the direction that I'll be sending her around the object (either clockwise or counterclockwise). Then I can teach the "out" cue for agility the way I saw it taught at the Jim Basic distance seminar last year with no conflict.

I hope....

Leash work

We've been working on our loose leash walking the last couple of days. According to the directions you choose something that the dog that finds really appealing and attempt to walk towards it with a loose leash. The way it works is that the forward movement towards the desired object only continues as long as the dog can keep the leash loose. If the leash tightens, forward motion stops and you walk backwards away from the object. Then when the leash is loose again the forward motion to the object continues again.

I chose the barn where we train because if Dare has the chance she'll do whatever she can to get there fast. If she's not on a leash, she'll just charge out there and bounce by the door. (I know, I know, I probably shouldn't even admit that) LOL Anyway, yesterday Dare and I worked on our Loose Leash Walking. It took us several tries before we got there, but by the end of the session, she was getting the idea.

Today I was going to get video of Dare just rushing out to the barn off leash and then video of LLW to the barn to compare and guess what? She waited at the gate until I released her and then instead of rushing off for the barn like usual, she just turned back around and wouldn't leave me. LOL Woot! I really wasn't expecting that. So, I just put the leash on her and we did our loose leash walking. She was so much better than yesterday it was just great. It's still not perfect by any means, but I'm really happy with her.

Working on Level 2 Skills

I'm pretty confident in Dare's ability to pass the level 2 "Come" skill. She's coming really enthusiastically from 40' away. :-) I do think there are parts of the "continuing education" portion of this skill that we could still work on. They include calling her with my back to her. (I love how changing your body position can really test how well the dog understands the skill). Putting on and taking off the collar before she gets the treat. Holding off the click till she looks up and cueing a sit.

The "Crate" skill is pretty good too. I think she'll be able to pass this level without trouble.

"Distance" This one I am pretty excited about. I have always wanted better distance skills for agility, and I promised myself that my younger dogs would have a foundation that Zoe didn't get. I decided to take advantage of the big pole that is in the barn to begin with. She is doing fine, but I do notice that she seems to have an easier time going "out" from my right side than she does on my left. Today I got out the jump that I'd been using with Layla and set it next to the pole that she's been going out around. I didn't put a bar up on the jump, but thought I'd start incorporating the jump into the picture for her.

The Down and Downstay and the Sit and Sitstay are all coming along nicely. The formal return after the stay isn't required, but we've been incorporating that anyway.

The Stand is a little behind the sit and down stay. I am still working on building up duration for the standstay. We are not at the full 10 sec. of stay yet, but it's getting better.

Go to Mat is great. I don't foresee any issues with this skill.

Handling: I think we should be able to pass this skill too, especially with the little extra bits of training we did prior to the CGC.

Leashwork: Here is the description. "Handler stands in one spot with the dog on a loose leash. The dog keeps the lead loose for 60 seconds with one distraction. Handler may talk to the dog and use any loose leash cues, but may NOT give cues to Watch, Heel, Sit, Down, Stand, or Stay. This behaviour is about testing Loose Leash as a default behaviour." Somehow, I seem to have totally overlooked this skill. LOL I don't know how, but I haven't even given it a second thought, until I was going down the list today. So...needless to say, I think we have a lot of work to do before we are ready to test this one.

Target: She's got it down pat. :-) "Done!" as Zoe would say. hehe

Watch: She's at about 5 seconds, consistantly, but 10 seconds is going to take a bit more work.

Zen: Seems to have been lost somewhere along the way with the leashwork. Hmmm...if you asked me about what I think some of the most important skills in this level would be, it would probably be the two that I have overlooked. :-P Guess we better get busy.

I hope to have video later this week of training progress.