Another lesson with Denise Fenzi

We had another 30 minute lesson with Denise last Thursday.

We started off by reviewing heeling. Dragon was doing fairly well. Distracted here and there, but clearly knew the point and how to move his butt to stay in position. Denise focused on fixing my handling. I still need reminders to look ahead rather than at my dog -- a very basic thing that nearly everyone has heard and yet struggles with! I am not immune. Another thing she pointed out was that I tended to speed up if he drifted away, to try to attract his attention and get him to catch up. She said that instead of becoming more interesting, I should become still and be less interesting. Heeling is fun, not running away and then coming back. She had me do more circles and loops to the left and right, and said I should do way less straight line heeling, which is boring and difficult. By having me focus more on my body rather than my dog, we took some of the pressure off him and he performed better. Wow! I know I will need more reminders about this...

I rewarded him by wrestling and having him play-bite my hands, which is his favorite game and is easily transferred to the ring environment. Denise is always happy to see this example of "personal play" between us. Confidence booster!

We switched to articles. For months now Dragon has been fluent in metal articles, as well as 100% accurate when working with plastic pens and plastic pill bottles. Yet with the leather articles, his success rate was only 50% or so -- he would guess, often not sniffing the leather rings at all, but just grabbing the first one he reached and retrieving it. I'd talked to Denise about this last time we met, and she suggested that I warm him up with the metal canning rings, then keep the context exactly the same as I switch to the leather rings. It seemed to help at first but then he reverted to guessing. I was baffled.

We went into a little, bare room Denise uses to train close in work and I brought out the leather rings. Dragon sniffed the small pile, mouthed one and carried it over to another, then picked up another, then finally brought one back. Denise commented that he moved them around so much and so quickly that she couldn't tell if it was the right one. I didn't think it was. We tried again and had the same result. At that point we were frustrated because all the articles were quickly getting contaminated and it was hard to keep them straight. So Denise brought out three of her own large, leather dumbbells and had me heavily scent one, and we put them into the same corner. Tiny Dog immediately started to sniff the scented one all over and circle it, trying to figure out how to pick up the large object. I rewarded and with some coaxing he even brought it back to me. We did it again, and again he immediately indicated the correct one and managed to bring it to me. Third time, same thing.

Clearly Dragon does understand the exercise well, but there's something about the leather rings I had made by Paco Collars that throws him off, and he can't pick up my scent properly. I couldn't believe that after all the worry over teaching him articles, this was the answer all along. All I have to do is get a different set of articles, and we should be golden!

Next Denise asked to see his stand for exam, which he did perfectly! As I turned to face him I gave him the toothy smile that I've conditioned to mean "you're on the right track, keep going and you'll get reinforcement". As soon as he saw that his ears went up and he stared at me with big eyes, body tense. He didn't even glance at Denise as she walked up, leaned over, and ran her hand down his back. He even stayed while I returned to heel position. I'm so proud! I used to expect that to be the most difficult exercise for him.

Finally we did the sit-stay with recall to front. One time Dragon stood up when I left him but he stayed correctly twice. When I called "here!" he would start running quickly toward me, but then he would veer off to sniff something part way. Like most of his ring behaviors, we need to proof this in distracting contexts.

With an extra cue, he would come to front nicely. His fronts aren't perfect yet, but they're definitely more enthusiastic and straighter than when we saw Denise last month. Teaching him a "through" finish between my legs has helped a lot. Denise said that we're allowed to use it in the ring for small dogs, since we don't have to move our feet to do it and the dog isn't interfering with our performance. That would be great, although he also does a beautiful left finish.

Overall, Denise and I were both happy to see his excitement about working with me and doing the exercises, and his knowledge of the skills. We have a lot of work ahead of us in terms of distraction training, but Denise sees no problems with taking away the food and toy rewards when we go into the ring, since he loves to wrestle-play and I can use various tricks to keep him engaged and as a reward. Tiny Dog is my first obedience dog, so I am always amazed when we're able to pull this stuff off!