Agility recap

I haven't been posting about our weekly agility classes lately. We just learned the serpentine, and we need to put in a lot more practice because Dragon tends to look forward and just keep running instead of looking at me and seeing that I'm giving the serp cue.

We also just started working on the chute/closed tunnel. Dragon was nervous about the fabric at first. I shaped him to step on it and then go on through the tunnel, and now he doesn't mind running through it while the fabric is held up. Slowly we're holding the fabric less open.

The teeter re-training looks good so far. Today Wendy and I called him back and forth across the teeter and Tiny Dog ran quickly back and forth while it dipped about six inches up and down. There were sandbags underneath to control the height and so that it wouldn't make much noise. We also did the classic bang game and he was happy to have me raise him up and let him ride it down. I'm continuing to give him treats every time another dog makes it bang.

Wendy set up a sequence of 11(!) obstacles, including sends, a 180, a front cross, and a serp. Dragon did it well, and I was so proud. We're getting to the point now that I'm learning some finer points of handling sequences, like stepping here or standing there for the front cross. Real agility stuff! Although the only obstacles we used were jumps and tunnels.

Still have a long way to go for reliable dog walk and a-frame running contacts. Haven't been practicing lately.

The crate training has taken a setback and he leaves it to wander around if he loses sight of me. Or if the door is closed, he whines super loud. So annoying.

2x2 weaves: sessions 15-17

Session 15 (classroom):
2 sets of poles! Whoo! He was confused. Did a short session with the poles open. Rewarded going through the first set a few times, and then both sets.

Session 16 (classroom):
Still confused. I moved them closer together and that helped him. Sometimes he would run right through both sets, and other times he would just take the second pair. Sometimes he didn't want to go out at all because he was confused and afraid of being wrong. If that happened I helped him by moving really close to the first pair.

Can't take any shortcuts. Need to do lots of rewards just for going through both sets when they are totally open.

Session 17 (agility field):
I set the two pairs closer together and this time Dragon understood that he should run through both sets. I did some straight on entries and then started working from 6 toward 3 o'clock. Here and there he had too much speed going in and couldn't slow down and collect well enough to go through the second pair. The 2x2 method shapes the dog to learn how to do so on his own, so we will just keep practicing until he figures it out!

2x2 weaves: ready for the next step!

Session 14 (classroom at work):
Worked all the way around the clock: from 1 o'clock sending from my left side, all the way to (for the first time!) 11 o'clock from my right side!! It looks like Dragon finally, totally understands the concept of the first pole always being on his left. The only time he didn't do the correct entry was a few times when he crossed in front of my feet to do an entry that would have been correct if the imaginary 12 poles had been extending in the other direction. I would resend him, making sure to extend my sending arm and leg more, and then he wouldn't cross in front of me and got the entrance correctly. Next session we will add the second set of 2 poles!

2x2 weave pole sessions 12-13

Session 12 (classroom at work):
Spent most of the session working off-side entries from 7-8 o'clock, with me running full speed. This was difficult for Dragon. He would repeatedly go around the first pole correctly but then put on speed and run past both poles. I would slow down for a few reps and then build back up, but again he would have trouble. We also did a few stationary sends from 9 o'clock, and he wasn't reliably doing the correct entry. Ended the session feeling like we still had a looong way to go. This session was right before my shift started at the daycare.

Session 13 (classroom):
This session was right after my shift, on the same day. I wanted to warm him up by doing on-side sends from 2 o'clock, from my left side. Twice in a row, Dragon cut across my front to do an off-side entry going in the opposite direction. I gave him some praise and petting, since it was partially correct, got a proper on-side entry, and then switched to off-side again.

He got it.

All of a sudden, Dragon could do off-side entries sent from 8, 9, even 10 o'clock! With me running! He confidently went around the first pole, slowed, collected, went through in the correct direction, and then blasted forward along the reward line.

We ended with me doing a little proofing of his independence, by doing funny things like jumping up and down and waving my arms, or "tripping" and falling. He looked at me but continued running. Wow!

Next session, I will review the clock again to solidify his understanding, and then we will be ready to add the second set of poles!

2x2 weaves sessions 8-11

Note: I realized that I was orienting my "clock" differently than the official 2x2 DVD does, so I've gone back and editted my previous entries to bring everything in line. 12 o'clock now refers to the direction the weave poles would extend if all 12 poles were up in line.

Session 8 (local field):
Nailed a number of on-side entries, sending from the left side of my body, and wrapping more than he had before we did the session with the food toy. I tossed the ball closer to the right-hand pole also, rather than throwing it way out for him to chase as I did at first. I realized as I was watching Susan Garrett's DVD that he really needs to learn how to collect better, so we'll continue working on this.

Started working off-side entries again, even reached 8 o'clock once, but then a little girl and her chihuahua puppy came to the field and she was screaming and they were running back and forth. This was way too much of a distraction for Dragon, and he kept staring and tried to join in the chase a couple of times. I got a few more good entries from him but it was a fight so we ended the session. On the bright side, he was curious and excited in a happy way to see the little girl, not alarmed as he used to be around children.

Session 9 (agility field):
Reviewed on-side entries, saw nice wraps. Did a bit of variation with standing, walking, running, spinning in a circle. Worked off-side entries from 6-8 o'clock, on my right side. Got farther than before. Dragon does better if I'm standing still, as then the picture looks much like a send to the backside of a jump. If I run, he runs next to me or goes around both poles. Worked at doing a slow jog when sending from 7 o'clock, or holding still to send from 8 o'clock.

Session 10 (agility field):
Wheee made good progress! Able to do correct entry while I ran beside the poles, starting from 7 and 8 o'clock. Did a lovely collect and bounce through the poles. I worked on slightly delaying the throw of the ball until he had actually exited the poles and was looking forward, as I'd gotten into the habit of throwing it the moment he was starting to go through correctly, and that made him pause to watch for the throw. Then worked on stationary send from 9 o'clock, and he finally got it. Of course we also reviewed the on-side entries (1 through 6 o'clock), with speed, and he got it every time.

Session 11 (agility field):
Review of on-side entries with speed. Stationary sends from 8-9 o'clock, and walking or running sends from 6-8 o'clock. Slowly expanding his understanding of "always go around the first pole, and wrap inwards to go between" when doing off-side entries.

Getting the off-side entries is taking a long time, but we are both enjoying the process. I can see that if we don't get this solid, it will give us lots of trouble in the future.

Teeter update and plan

I had a private lesson with Susanne Cohen just to work on the teeter (although she also had us do a few short jumping sequences to break up the lesson and give Dragon a break). I told her in detail what we've done so far. Discussing everything and then demonstrating it all was helpful -- it solidified in my brain that there's a very specific element of the teeter that Dragon is having trouble with. It's the movment of the board under his feet as he's walking/running across it. He can deal with riding it while he's stationary; our extensive wobble board practice laid a great foundation for that. He can run across straight planks and sloped planks no problem. He doesn't like the bang but it's not the sound that's making him slow down at the pivot point. It's the movement as he's moving.

(By the way, since we're taking a break from practicing the teeter in class, I'm using that time to just counder-condition the noise.)

My current plan of action is to use restrained recalls back and forth along a stationary teeter to get him once again running from end to end without worry. (We did a session of this already, and doing it as a restrained recall makes it more fun/exciting for him.) Then I am going to do the same thing I did on the wobble board -- add movement manually, so that I can carefully control the timing and intensity. I'm going to do it first when he's moving toward me, so that he can see that my arm is moving and that I'm controlling the teeter. At first the movement is going to be as much like a little vibration as I can make it. We'll work from there.

I'm feeling hopeful about this plan because it's working on just the element that is currently causing a problem. (And separately we're working on the banging noises.)

I'm also going to incorporate Silvia Trkman's method of having the dog run across a full height teeter that is held stationary by the owner, and then manually lowered. This will enable him to gain confidence running up the steep ramp, and get a careful, controlled feeling of the full-height fall. I don't want his first experiences with those two elements to be at the same time as we're working on raising the height of the teeter and increasing its fall. The traditional method -- get the dog running across the teeter at a low height and raise it over time -- changes too many variables at once and was not a good fit for Trauma Dog.

Restarting the teeter

Dragon's teeter training was going well a few months back. He would run across the teeter any time we were walking next to it on the field. But at some point something went wrong. He started slowing down at the pivot point here and there. Each time I was able to re-energize him and get him to drive to the target at the end, but finallly last time I raised the teeter, he slowed almost to a stop as he hit the pivot point, and I knew that I needed to retrain the teeter rather than trying to work through this.

It's disheartening, when you've put so much work into something, to see it fall apart. I have done a lot of foundation work for this. Tiny Dog will happily walk around on a very high wobble board, even when I'm forcefully bouncing him up and down, throwing him into the air. He will close cabinet doors and knock things over (though he's still rather sensitive about the noise). He will jump onto the end of the teeter when it's 12 inches in the air, about the limit of how high he can jump and twist to get onto it. But still something went wrong.

I believe that the hardest part about the teeter for him is the unpredictability. Perhaps every time I thought that he was doing well and raised the height, it actually undermined his confidence in the obstacle. I think that I initially did well with raising it in teeny tiny increments, but as it got higher I started lumping, since it was harder to judge the height and I thought he would "be fine".

Wendy, our current instructor, suggested a technique that she used on her papillon, as well as other dog. She gets the dog running across toward a toy or handful of treats, and uses that reward to "drag" the dog across the pivot point, and off the teeter onto a table at the end. The idea is that the dog is so excited about the reward and chasing it down that they don't even really notice the tip. (The teeter is lowered at first and gradually raised, of course.) I tried this with Dragon but it was not the right technique. He doesn't drive hard toward toys or even favorite treats that way. He actually became more nervous about the tip because it would now catch him off guard. After two sessions I could see that this wouldn't work for us.

This morning we went to the field for our own practice time, and ran into Susanne, our previous instructor, with whom I connect very well. She commented that Wendy's technique wouldn't work well for a nervous dog, because of what I'd seen and because the table causes them to be in close proximity to the teeter moving back up again. We brain-stormed other things I could try. One variation on the "bang game" that I really liked was doing it as a restrained recall, with the dog jumping onto the end of the teeter (sideways) to get treats held there by a helper. We're going to try that with the teeter lowered all the way again. I'm going to go back to my foot target or teach a nose target to a piece of tape sticking up an inch above the end of the teeter, and slooowly work height in again. We'll also play around with holding the high end of the full-height teeter up and having him drive up it without any tip. We did that a few times in the past and he was running up without any problem. It reminds me of Silvia Trkman's technique, in which she holds the end of the teeter and slowly lowers it for the dog, over time increasing the speed. If I were very careful and consistent that might be something that would work for Dragon, since it would add in that predictability he craves. I will keep it in mind.

It's inevitable to have setbacks here and there, and I knew from the beginning that this would be Dragon's most difficult obstacle. We will figure it out. There's no rush.

2x2 weaves sessions 4-7

Session 4 (local park):
Dragon nailed the entrance every time when we reviewed 1-6 o'clock on my left side. On my right side at 6 o'clock he did fine, but as I started to etch toward 7 he again faltered but recovered. Then I realized that I'd been practicing only sends, and had not been adding in my movement. I did that, and he fell apart. Was watching me instead of where he was going and ran to the right side of both poles. Had to end the session early because he got distracted by a bug in the grass and decided to stalk it and pounce on it instead of bringing his ball back. Next session will maybe start with distracting movement from me during easy entrances.

Session 5 (agility field):
Just some review in between other exercises. He hit 7 o'clock on my right side almost every time. At 1 and 2 o'clock he initially was shooting ahead toward another jump, going over it, and then wrapping right for the ball. After I did more practice on the other side of the clock he seemed to remember the reward line and started to wrap after going through the poles. He has trouble collecting, though. Something for us to work on separately.

Session 6 (classroom at work):
Started with review. Used a food toy instead of his usual ball so that I could throw it with better aim and have it land closer to the right-hand pole. This way I could encourage him to wrap closer to the pole when sending between 1 and 3 o'clock. It worked well. Then I moved toward the other side of the clock, 6-7. Here he was mostly getting the right entry but he started to stop between the poles and look at me, waiting for me throw the toy. I think that he was scared of me hitting him with it -- it's not really an issue with the ball because of his inherent drive to chase it as fast as possible. (I like having a crazy ball dog!) I added motion and ran along with him to speed him up. It did get him to run instead of stopping but he started missing the entry unless I did an obvious hand signal of when he should move out and in, which defeats the whole purpose of shaping 2x2s. Played around with larger distance and slower speed to allow him more time to focus on the poles and think, and his entry improved. Stopped there.

Session 7 (classroom at work):
Same day as the last session, after my shift at work was over. Used his ball this time and he was fast as usual. He seemed to wrap the right pole better, as I'd hoped. I think I'll set that issue aside until I add the second set of poles and am lining them up, as then he'll have to figure out how to do it on his own. Did both stationary sends and running with him. Worked mostly on 6-7 o'clock again, on my right side, interspersed with easy entries (2-5 o'clock on my left side). Realized I needed to start him farther away from the poles to give him more time to think and adjust his entry. After that he nailed it almost every time. I suppose in a separate session I should work from a very close distance as well, but then I have to be very careful to angle my body and the send properly or he'll fail.

Agility on our own

On Tuesday morning I got up a bit early and drove to the agility field to practice on our own. We are more than ready to be using training the equipment and working sequences on our own. I expected to only practice for 30 minutes or so, but before I knew it, 45 had gone by, and Dragon was eager to keep going, so we stayed for an entire hour (with breaks to rest).

Contacts:
My running contact training had been making me uneasy for a while, and I couldn't pinpoint why. I finally realized that it was because I hadn't taught Dragon a clear criteria for his contacts, I just... hoped he would do it? I'd been thinking about the clear criteria he has for the teeter (stopped contact), weave poles, etc, and realized that my running contact training was not "clean" and precise. Our set-up at home with the plank on the stairs didn't allow me to do that very well. However he was confident enough now at driving up and down planks that he was ready to practice on the real equipment. (Sure, ideally I'd get better contact behavior before practicing on real equipment, but we don't train in an ideal world.)

I had to practice watching Dragon run down the end of the dog walk and a-frame, and then practice timing my clicks properly, before I could effectively communicate what I wanted to him. However by the end I was able to click as he was doing a real run, and withhold any time there was any jumping, even very small. I didn't have him do the whole obstacles, just run down from a few feet up, and I still used the PVC square about two feet past the end of the contact to give him something to drive toward. I think that if I keep this up for a while, he will figure out the criteria, and then we'll be good.

After we finished practicing the a-frame and dog walk, he kept running up them every time we were within 10 feet of the obstacles.

We also practiced the teeter and I raised it up again after a warm-up. Every time I raise it I have to baby him and use a hand target and happy voice to get him to run all the way out to his target instead of stopping midway through. Otherwise looking good, though.

Jumps and sequences:
He was introduced to a triple jump at 12", and sailed over it every time, even when I accidentally cued him to take it backwards.

I worked a lot on doing big pinwheels. Had trouble pointing him out to the middle jump properly instead of turning my feet too quickly toward the third jump.

Did longer sequences of pinwheels, front crosses, and rear crosses, and it was so useful to be able to play around with this without the pressure of a class setting. I was able to figure out myself what went wrong when: my acceleration to get into position made him accelerate and then sail past me to take the triple the wrong way; my feet were pointing in the wrong direction and he took the wrong jump; I tried to rear cross before he was truly driving and committed and he ran to the side of the jump because he thought that I would crash into him. But we also did a lot right!! It was cool to see him responding to exactly what my body was telling him, even when I accidentally "told" him the wrong thing.

The last thing we did was the second 2x2 weave pole session mentioned in the last post.

I plan to practice on our own (or with one or two other students) on the equipment a few times a month. I can see that it will make a huge difference in our skill level.

2x2 weave poles sessions 1-3

I have not yet watched Susan Garrett's 2x2 DVD, but my friend Elissa lent me her set of 3 2x2 poles, and I HAD to get started training right away. I figured it out as I went along.

I've been using Tiny Dog's rubber ball as a reward, as it's his #1 toy, it's easy to throw, and the "fetch" format meshes well with teaching the dog to run out over and over and over.

Day 1:
Had Dragon on my left side. Started with just throwing the ball for going straight between the poles, at 6 o'clock. He figured that out very quickly thanks to jump training and running through PVC square that I made to keep him from jumping contacts. I started to move to the left (toward 5 o'clock). I did this faster than I should have -- I should have built more of a reinforcement history for easy entrances at 2-4 first -- but he mostly managed to figure it out. I figured out quickly that I should throw the ball to the right, making him exit the poles in the direction that he would have gone to continue weaving a full set.

Day 2:
Worked Dragon on my left again, and moved to the right, toward 1 o'clock. Again threw the ball to 12 o'clock, so he was wrapping around the right pole as if to continue weaving. This was easier for him than working the 5 o'clock entrance, since he has a strong history of running out, wrapping around a standing object, and returning toward me.

Day 3:
Started off with Dragon on the left, reviewed 1 through 5 o'clock (no problems!), then moved toward 6 o'clock. After a few mistakes he figured it out and nailed it every time. It was super cool to see him bounce to the right, left, right to go through the poles and chase the ball!

Then I switched him to my right side and worked 6 o'clock again, edging toward 7. This was difficult for him. However I'm assuming that latent learning will fix that up next lesson, just as it did for the left side.


Now I will actually watch the 2x2 DVD, as I'm sure it will make my training more efficient than figuring it out on my own!

Birthday boy! and agility and tricks

So much going on, that I haven't had time to update!! Last Sunday was Cinnamon Snapdragon's second birthday! A few of his friends came over and we went on a two mile hike.










Afterwards we made BLT sandwiches and Dragon got two pieces of fried bacon to celebrate his two years. We napped for an hour and then went to visit more friends, where he is being slowly introduced to their new kitten. He was on a tie-down in the living room with his mat and a bully stick. He settled down nicely and the kitten ended up approaching to within a foot of him that day. He thought that it was a wonderful birthday!

Agility update: The mini-teeter has finished serving its primary purpose, to build his confidence with the movement and banging noises. I introduced movement and height very slowly (after first spending months training with a wobble board) and used high value reinforcement (boiled chicken and rubber balls). It has gone so well that now he has teeter-suck instead of the more common tunnel-suck. Earlier this week I raised the pivot point to about six inches. Next session, he zoomed over the teeter so quickly that he skidded down the contact instead of stopping at the target, and then took another three tries to recover and run it comfortably again. So I will lower it back down to four inches and just use it to practice running a teeter in sequences. We will continue our careful, diligent practice with the real teeter at the agility field.

On the other hand I brought out the mini-dog walk and put the PVC "hoop" right at the bottom and we were able to practice our running contacts. I think that I wasn't careful enough when initially teaching them and that's why he ended up jumping the contact zone in class a few weeks ago. It's extremely difficult for me to click/reward only when he's running and not when he does a little jump because it's so fast. Also I'm limited in the locations available to practice running across a raised plank, and don't have anywhere where he would get full speed like in class. So the running contact failure so far isn't a problem with the method per se (get him to run across it and slowly raise the board, rewarding only running), but rather with my application of it. However I'm a big believer in developing muscle memory and I'm hoping that the hoop will be a huge help.

Speaking of methods not working, I tried using the "go and throw" method of teaching the dog to run forward as fast as he can, but it doesn't work for Dragon because he's scared of the toy hitting him and runs out in a curve like a border collie. Oh well.

Recent tricks we've been working on: weaving backwards through my legs, coming to front from a distance, verbal discriminations with my body turned sideways so he can't cue off subtle body language, and moving from my side to circle around a big inflated ball and stop directly on the other side (for treiball, but I'm teaching it just for fun here and there). On the last one I again have to watch my body language -- if I hold my arm out for too long as I'm signaling him to head out, he will circle too far around. If I lower my arm back down after he's committed to circling the ball but before he reaches the center, he generally hits it dead-on.

Agility recap

Another week, another set of agility skills to learn! I enjoy the complexity of the sport, and how smooth and effortless it looks when everything comes together. But boy is it NOT "effortless"!!

We had a sub last week, Dorothy -- she had started off teaching our class last year but after five weeks had to leave due to scheduling conflicts. She started us off with a sequence that she thought we would be able to handle, but it was longer and a bit more complicated than our dogs were ready for. It was just two jumps in a line > u-shaped tunnel > two more jumps in a line > 180 turn and do it again. Nearly all the dogs (including Tiny Dog) were confused by the 180 turn. I think part of the problem was that the second set of jumps pointed us back to our crating/resting area, so the dogs thought they were done. A couple of the dogs were staring at their handlers between the jumps and had trouble going in a straight line. Dragon was okay with accelerating down the line but the end of the tunnel pointed more toward an off-course jump and each time he powered out of the tunnel and no amount of calling got him off of that jump. Glaring gap in our training!

I've done a LOT of rewarding of driving ahead towards toys or food or obstacles. This was needed to build his speed and his confidence working away from me. But now it is time to go back to the basics we need so that Dragon will turn away from obstacles when needed and be able jump collected and wrap back towards me. Currently he will only wrap if I'm stationary next to the jump. We did deceleration drills with the handler slowing down before/next to the jump and he would either still blast past me with a long stride, or he would lose confidence and slow down and take the jump with barely any momentum, looking worried. Fortunately Susan Garrett has been posting a lot of jump drills on PuppyPeaks (a subscription service showing lots of videos of her training her current puppy). I'm placing or tossing toys into the "reward zone" right next to the jump standard to clarify the training for him. I'm also working on adding a verbal cue to help him understand when he's expected to take the jump and wrap.

We did some more rear crosses and he's doing well with them, as if we'd been training them for a while already!

Next up was the dog walk and guess what -- he started jumping right over the contact zone! Running contacts fail. I'm not disappinted, though. It means that he was really driving forward as fast as he could, which makes me happy. I've decided to continue with running contacts, using the "hoop" method. I made a standing square of PVC and am training him to run through it. I will start putting it into sequences to reinforce running through it as fast as possible. Then I will start putting it at the bottom of the dog walk and training plank. The idea is that if you place it just past the down contact, it forces the dog to keep running (rather than jump) to make it through the "hoop" -- it's just tall enough for the dog to run through. Over time, the hoop can be switched to one made of thinner and thinner material to fade its visibility, or the handler can choose to use it regularly in training and it will just be gone in trials. Wish us luck!

Last big agility note is that he's doing great on the class teeter on its lowest setting, and our homemade teeter set about 5-6" off the ground. Time to raise them up a wee bit!

Follow-up on obedience lesson with Denise Fenzi

Here's the initial report on implementing Denise's suggestions when I had a lesson with her a week ago.

The bad news first: we've regressed further with the dumbbell. We put too much pressure on Dragon during the lesson; he can be very sensitive. I tried putting the dumbbell out at a few feet away from me and I thought that he would still be okay with picking it up and I could click/treat for that. He didn't even want to put his mouth on it.

I changed tactics and decided to lighten the mood by holding the dumbbell firmly in my hand and encouraging him to play with me. He was confused but I got him to bat at my hands and push into me while I was holding it in my right hand. When he was more relaxed about the whole thing I tossed the dumbbell out farther and went back to square one: C/T for looking, for moving toward, for putting his head down toward it, for putting his mouth on it. I stopped there because I could see his anxiety increasing again.

My plan is to pull out the liver treats and reteach him the pick-up as if he didn't know it at all, and continue playing games with him while it's nearby. Crossing my fingers that it won't take us long to overcome this setback. Later I'll use a platform in front of me to encourage him to get close in and stay there as I (very, very carefully) take it. And no more practicing on wooden floors!!

In the meantime I'm working on encouraging him to bring other objects very close to me and right into my hands, rather than having to reach for them myself. Seeing quick progress on it with his toys, tennis ball, and leash tab (his first retrieve object).



Moving on, the problem with him getting up from his sits in front or at heel hasn't appeared again other than here and there when he anticipates. It's possible that I will see it again in future situations when I am more nervous. In the meantime I am occassionally extending the amount of time I expect him to told a sit and giving multiple rewards for it. Not worried about it.


Our stand for exam is continuing to improve. I've practiced setting out his tennis ball or a big treat and releasing him from a stand-stay while he's focusing on it. Then I moved on to feeling him up while he stares at it and immediately releasing him to get it. We also did three repetitions of that with my sister, whom he adores and can barely stand still for, and he did well -- the "exam" was only 1 second to keep him successful.

Other things I have decided to work on: I need to reteach the stand cue. Once he's in the stand, he's great, and he recognizes the cue in the way that I do it for agility start line stays. However his response to the stand cues (both verbal and hand signal) in front and at my side in non-agility settings has diminished. No problem, we'll just start again and be more thorough this time.

We've been working on "go and throw", as outlined in the book Agility Right From the Start. It's a simple method: line your dog up, say the word "go", and then throw a toy forward. As your dog starts to anticipate the toy being thrown and starts running ahead, you deliberately start to delay the throw so that your dog is being rewarded for running farther and farther ahead. My tossing abilities are not great, however at the park he ran forward about 10 feet confidently, which is a great foundation. This isn't just for agility -- it can also provide a good foundation for the go out in obedience.

I mentioned recently that Dragon's appetite for Primal raw food was diminished. I switched to putting it into a food tube rather than on a plate, and making a mini training session out of breakfast and dinner. This has been a phenomenal success. Not only is he eating all the raw food, but his enthusiasm for it quickly started to increase! He now comes into the kitchen and stares at me as I prep his meal. I'm even able to use it as a reward outside.

Agility class recap

Due to many rainy days and Dragon being ill for almost a week, we haven't been practicing agility at home for about three weeks! Of course, there's some stuff that can be worked on in the home (such as jump wraps and the table), but when we're stuck inside I tend to practice tricks and obedience. It's been good to get to the agility field and practice on equipment again. Suzanne was subbing for Wendy this week.

We did a lot of jumping. We worked on adding lateral distance and reinforcing looking ahead at the equipment. Last week we had done rear crosses for the first time while moving (as opposed to stationary foundation, in which the dog does a sit-stay and you practice switching sides and rewarding their head turning). We had done a tunnel > rear cross > jump exercise. I was pleasantly surprised that Dragon did it perfectly! This week we did a send from a stay to a jump, rear crossing as the dog took off. Dragon was again 100% when crossing from right to left, and about 80% the other way. Then we did a send to tunnel with a rear cross, turning toward a jump. The first time I ran alongside the tunnel too far and pushed him to make a very wide turn and miss the jump. Next time I stopped at the plane of the jump and just rotated my body as he exited the tunnel and he got it. It was so exciting to see all this handling stuff coming together!

We did another Susan Salo basic jump grid, five jumps placed 4' apart for Tiny Dog. He now does an adorable bunny hop all the way through the jumps.

Our only contact practice this week was on the dog walk. Suzanne asked if we were ready for the full height dog walk, since it was almost the end of class and it hadn't gotten lowered. I wasn't sure about it but agreed to try it and get a measure of how he handled it. We went across three times, and halfway through each run I would toss his ball forward to keep his momentum up. He did slow down each time at the top of the down ramp, but it wasn't a big speed difference, and less so each time. (Again, this is one of the reasons that I felt running contacts would be a good choice for him; he's always quite careful when climbing down stuff and is unlikely to throw himself over the down contact.)

At this point we had played and jumped and run a LOT. I used about 75% wrestling or tugging as a reward and only 25% was food, mostly to reward walking by my side or start line stays. He was much more worn out than when I used to just give food. I was quite happy with his fierce biting of my hands and pulling on tug toys.

Weekly multi-sport recap

Dragon's bowels are normal again and he's back on his regular food. I still don't know what caused his illness last week but no more need to worry.

On Saturday morning we graduated from our Intro to Odor class. Dragon was introduced to odor early last year by his Auntie Miki, and at this point he's doing mostly unpaired hides. He was able to get some tougher hiding spots than the other students. He loves searching and during our first couple of runs each week he would just prance around the room in excitement before getting serious.

On Wednesday we went to a conformation drop-in, just for fun. The other attendants were experienced while I didn't really know what to do, and Dragon has never been taught to gait or stack like a show dog. However it was an opportunity to practice our own training among other dogs and people and lots of food on the floor. I kept up a high rate of reinforcement for walking at my side, doing stand-stays, and getting brief exams from the instructor. The instructor was supportive of me using the class to practice obedience stuff like heeling and the stand for exam, so I plan to drop in here and there.

Speaking of heeling, we have a 30 minute session scheduled with Denise Fenzi next week! Super excited; I haven't seen her in months due to my training budget going toward agility classes.

Today's agility lesson included our first rear cross work on obstacles. The sequence was a straight tunnel and then rear cross as the dog takes a jump. Somehow Dragon did this beautifully, turning confidently in the right direction, even though we'd never done it before! We also did front crosses with 2-3 jumps. I do much better if I practice without my dog first.

I used a relatively small amount of treats during class and mostly rewarded the sequences with tugging. Dragon was on fire and really eager to tug and wrestle. The instructor gave me some guidance with the tugging and a couple of times I was able to do two things I'd only dreamed of: just holding onto the toy and shaking it minimally while my dog happily tugged on his own, and using the tug as a transport back to our starting point (though I had to move slowly and stop here and there to let him dig in and tug). I was grinning like a fool.

Agility class recap

So happy with how class went today. Dragon has finally been off the prednisone for a week now. His food drive is still good, but his play drive has increased as the steroids have been reduced. It was so easy to get him to wrestle and tug during class, and that kept things upbeat and exciting. He is happy to run to his crate whenever he's cued, but otherwise he wants to keep working and playing.

He does have a wee bit too much obstacle focus. He ran off a few times to take a tunnel and to the (lowered) teeter. It was very cute when he ran away from me to get on and tip the teeter. He stood on the edge and looked at me with a smiling face. I called him back and instead of jumping off, he ran back across the teeter and tipped it again.

When we were actually practicing the teeter he would slow down a couple of feet from the end, wait for it to tip, and then proceed to his target. Uh oh!! I started standing by the end, holding my hand out, and cuing him to do a hand touch. Then he would move all the way to the end.

I did some deceleration drills to get him paying attention to me again and not just running forward toward random obstacles, and that fixed up the issue.

We practiced front crosses with two jumps, open channel weaves (again with the x-pen), and contacts. On the dog walk I wanted more speed from him and so I put his crate on the down side and cued him to run into it ("naptime!"). It definitely helped! In fact, the first time he ran into his crate so fast that he smashed into the back side. I had one of other students record us and you can see the crate bounce up a bit as he hits it. The second time he definitely put on speed when I gave the cue halfway across, but once down he ran around his crate instead of into it. Who can blame him? Perhaps next time we can put a short, straight tunnel there instead.

Dog walk video:

It's hard to see since both times I'm directly in front of he camera, but he DOES speed up when he hears the cue.

Agility recap

Dragon was a bit cheeky in agility class. Three times he ran away from me to go on the teeter. Well, that's not a bad problem to have! We ran the lowered dog walk and he did well when I was running along with him. I can't get him to drive ahead quickly, even when I'm throwing the toy forward. Next week I will position his crate about ten feet past the end and have him run into it. He LOVES running into his crate on cue and will race quickly ahead of me when I send him. I don't really understand it.

I worked on getting him reved up and playing as a reward. I think I ended up wrestling and having him bite my hands as a reward more often than I gave him chicken.

He still gets distracted by other people Doing Things. We'll be playing and then he stops and watches someone else. Ugh.

Private contacts lesson #3 with Susanne

It was only 10 am but it was about 70 degrees, so Dragon quickly started to pant and tire out. Thankfully our lesson was only 30 minutes since we're only focusing on contacts.

We started with the teeter and I got to show off the huge progress he's made. I've spent a lot of time on foundation for the teeter, with months playing on the wobble board, months again practicing just jumping onto the end of a tippy board, and the past couple of months working with my teeter lowered way down. It seems that we've crossed a significant point in Dragon's comfort with the teeter movement. In recent sessions he's been running over to the teeter and walking over it as soon as I take him outside. In the past two sessions at home I've been able to raise the height quite quickly -- the high end went from 5 inches to 11 inches off the ground!

Back to our lesson today. Susanne put the teeter on its lowest setting and we stared at it for a bit. The high end was about 1.5 feet off the ground -- higher than he's ever tipped it before. Normally I would have put a sandbag under the heavy end so that it wouldn't tilt so high, but my gut told me to go ahead and try Dragon on it. My gamble paid off. Dragon did slow down at the beginning of the contact zone the first time he ran across. But the second time he didn't slow down until partway through the contact. The third time he very fast until more than halfway through the contact zone, and the fourth time his toes touched the bottom edge of his target! We stopped there, other than having him also practice jumping onto just the end of the teeter and riding it down. His quick increase in confidence filled me with pride. Susanne also buttered me up with plenty of compliments about the extensive time I've spent on his foundation and confidence-building.

Also noteworthy was the fact that the teeter was next to a pine tree and once I slipped on the pine needles and went skidding on my side. Dragon didn't miss a beat.

One more teeter note is that I often have Dragon run back across the teeter and tip it again rather than releasing him forward from the target. I do this because I've seen a clear increase in his confidence (always looking for that!) when he runs back and forth rather than around and resetting. The interesting thing is that he consistently stops on his target when he's on the target end and runs off the edge when he's on the other (thanks to the running contacts training). I'll have to watch out when the teeter is higher than he doesn't start jumping off before it hits the ground.

Teeter homework is to continue the work we've been doing.

After that we moved on to practicing the dog walk. Again we pushed his training. We've been practicing a lot with a plank on the staircases at home. I said that I thought he was ready to run all the way across the lowered dog walk (about three feet off the ground). Boy, that dog is fast. One end of the dog walk was pointed right at his crate, and the second time across he zoomed past me and into his crate. Woohoo!

Our homework is to continue the plank work at home. On the steeper set of stairs, if I lay the plank flat on the stair edges he will take a little jump on the way down. So I will backtrack on that set with the plank lower, and raise it back up when he's not jumping at all. We're looking for even striding going up and going down. If I get more chances to work the lowered dog walk, I need to practice ahead, behind, and to the side, and just get lots of reps in. When his plank running is consistent we'll be ready to do the same thing on the full height dog walk.

The last thing we did was one of Susan Salo's set point/striding exercises to help not just with his jumping ability, but also his striding on the planks. We put him in a sit two feet back from a jump with no far. Four feet was that was a jump with a bar at 8 inches. I stood two feet in front of that and dropped a toy, and released him to get it. We were looking for smooth, even striding between the jumps and on the final landing. I had been wishing that our group class would do some jump work, because I don't know much about it, but the good news was that I was able to tell when he was jumping too soon and when his striding was off. So we will continue with that exercise at home. I can also challenge him further by putting a third jump four feet beyond the second, again with no bar, and again looking for even bouncing between the jumps and after the last one.

Great contacts session

I put out the teeter on its smallest pivot point and got him reved up. Once he was super excited about it, there was no excess slow down. Next time I will put it back on its PVC base, on the lowest setting. So excited about this.

Then I moved the board onto the staircase leading up to the main house. The neighbor's kids were out and I asked them to help me. Rather than doing a lead out and climbing up and down the stairs myself, I had one of the kids stand at the top of the board while I stood at the bottom, and I sent Tiny Dog up for treats and then called him down for more treats. We were able to raise it up to the fifth step, and he was much more jazzed up than when it's just me doing the exercise. I will definitely use their help again. They loved helping, of course, and it's great for building Dragon's confidence around children. (When I first got him he would growl and be suspicious of children, but through the liberal use of treats he's now happy to see children of the 6-10 age group.)

Back when I built the miniature equipment, I was cautioned by a couple of instructors about using it. Now I'm very happy that I have it. This is a great way to build his confidence and enthusiasm for the obstacles, and it's transferring well to our work in class. Otherwise I would be stuck paying out the nose for us to rent agility space and make progress at a snail's pace.

Multi-sport weekly recap.

Saturday:
Nosework class. We worked outside, along a wall. Did great. Our homework is to go to new interior locations.

Monday:
Went to OSH to practice Nosework. Each hide was in a different aisle, and he didn't get a chance to check out the aisle before we started. Really happy with how focused he was. When we practice in other places, he sometimes stops working and starts just sniffing around and checking things out if he's confused or can't get a whiff of the odor. This time that only occured once.

There was a weird lady who saw him sniffing the merchandise and putting his front feet on a low shelf and started saying, "You can't do that. That's not allowed." I thought that she was upset that he would get the merchandise dirty, which was a fair concern, although this IS a hardware store where no one would expect the items to be germ-free. But then she continued on to say, "This isn't a place for animals." I smiled and I replied, "Dogs are allowed!" She shook her head and said, "That's not right. You shouldn't do that. He shouldn't be here." I decided to ignore her and moved on with my dog as she kept mumbling at us. Later we walked by her, Dragon being perfectly behaved (didn't even try to approach her to sniff), and she again started up, "This isn't a place for animals. You shouldn't do that. You should have him a short leash in here." (He was on a six foot leash, which I was shortening when we passed by people.) "I know you're ignoring me..." We just kept walking. I guess she's afraid of dogs or something. All of the employees we passed smiled at Dragon and said hello and one of them crouched down and pet him.

I finished work early and was able to attend the weekly private agility practice session at Metro Dog. This was my first time being able to join them, since usually I'm working until after they're done. The other students are all much more advanced than me. One of them suggested a few basic exercises for me to work on. We did lateral distance at a lead out of two jumps. Then we did a lead out that either sent him straight ahead or included a front cross. I kept cuing the front cross late. The other student also gave me one of her old tug toys, which Dragon had pulled out of her bag and enjoyed playing with.

Wednesday:
Practiced our contacts at home. Dragon was really reved up and did GREAT on the teeter. The high end was about 6 inches off the ground and he was running across quickly and slamming it down. PERFECT! I used tugging, wrestling, running back and forth, and cuing other fun tricks like his hand target and spinning in order to keep his arousal up.

Then I moved the teeter board onto a set of three stairs leading to the street and practiced running contacts. At first I threw his food toy, but after two throws my tug toy fell out of my pocket and Dragon stopped and stared at it. I invited him to tug and we had a great session using just tugging as his reward for running. This felt wonderful. I tried tugging with him like we used to when he was younger, and before his eye injury. I kneel on the ground and pull him up onto my legs/stomach/chest with the tug, so he uses my body to brace himself backwards. After a few tries, I was able to let him win the tug and then jump back up onto my stomach to bring it back to my hands for more tugging. I like doing this because it gives him an easy way to leverage his weight against the toy, and makes it an intimate game.

After my evening rally class I took him through the course, using wrestling with my hands as the only reward. He was still really high and my hands ended up pock-marked and red. That means it was a good session!

Finally, before bedtime, we did yet another training session for Nosework. I'm glad that Miki told me that I need to stay back and give him more room to work. I'm seeing his search patterns and body language more clearly than before. When he starts the search he tends to run a couple of fast circles around the perimeter of the room, hoping to catch a quick whiff of the odor. If he doesn't, his circles start to slow down and be more careful. He'll go farther into corners and underneath furniture. Then he starts checking higher surfaces, such as chairs, the couch, and the bed, as well as places he's learned from experience that the odor tends to pool in.

As I was getting ready for bed he played with Jasper. Somehow he was still energized!

Thursday:
Did a nosework session with my car. He was a bit distracted and wanted to wander off. There was a high wind so it was a harder session.

In agility class my goal was to tug more, since he'd been so into it all week. Sure enough, he was more exuberant about tugging in class than he'd been before. I was able to use the tug as the sole reward on a couple of easier exercised, and a couple of times when I tossed his food toy as a reward, he wanted to keep tugging on it longer than usual. So happy!

We did a great teeter exercise. A helper stood by the higher end of a lowered teeter with high-value treats. The owner had the dog on leash and allowed him to approach and step on the teeter (however he was comfortable doing so) and eat a bunch of treats from the helper. After a few treats the owner used the leash to pull the dog away before he was done eating. Immediately the dog was allowed to return to the teeter for more treats. Repeat. The teeter was about a foot in the air. The first three times Dragon put his front feet on a bit hesitantly, but by the end he was sailing onto it to get to the treats faster.

The instructor started the class on the weave poles. She's using channel weaves with an x-pen around them. I'm doing to teach Dragon 2x2 weaves, so we skipped this exercise. I'll start with those after his contacts are solid, so I can focus on one category of exercises at a time. I've been neglecting our jump and sequences training while working on the contacts. I just don't have time to do it all.