Advertising

If you haven't seen it, this is what the logo for my dog training business, Ruff Translation, looks like. (The background is yellow because that's straight from the webpage, which has a yellow background.)

I paid someone with an embroidery machine to make me a few patches with my logo on them. I just finished sewing them onto a new jacket for Dragon:



Now every time we go to the park or somewhere else to practice our training, he can advertise my services! The patches are open at the top so that they're actually pockets, held shut with blue velcro. Each pocket carries five business cards and two bright blue poop bags.



He's truly a working dog now.

More handmade collars!

Apparently you can never have too many!






Yellow butterflies, because he's a papillon!


Green squares.


Brown swirls. This is my favorite one of this batch.


Orange zig-zag-y pattern.


Blue/purple leaves. He has a lot of nature-themed ones.


Brown crooked checkerboard. Brown looks quite good on him.

This will be it for a while. I feel like I've finally saturated the collar-making urge.

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!

2 more collars

Just can't stop! It's too much fun!


Fun little collar.




My new favorite!


The angle here isn't the best because Tiny Dog was sleepy and didn't want to leave his bed.

Photo tutorial: making cotton collars

This is for a non-adjustable one, since Dragon is full grown and I know exactly what length of collar he needs. Once you understand these instructions, it's easy to make one that's adjustable; you just need some extra hardware.

His collars are made by sewing cotton fabric around a cotton strap. This is NOT as durable as sturdy ribbon sewn onto a nylon strap, and is also more complicated to make. However I like it because of the nearly endless range of color and pattern options on cotton prints, and Tiny Dog is not very hard on his clothes.

Sorry that some of the pictures are a wee bit blurry!

What you'll need:

Wonder tape (two-sided sticky fabric "tape" that can be sewn through without gunking up your needle), measuring tape, plastic or metal snap buckle (1 inch used here), seam rippers (probably), thread to complement or nicely contract your fabic, 1 inch cotton strap (I like to use white because cotton fabric is slightly porous and this keeps the colors nice and bright), D-ring (1 inch), big honkin' needle, cotton fabric (I suggest buying pre-cut quilting squares so you don't have to stand in line for the cutting table to get a tiny amount of fabric), and fabric scissors. Not pictured: a few pins, and a sewing machine.

I bought the D-rings at my local fabric store. They also had the buckles (called "parachute buckles") but they only had ugly ones and not in fun colors. I recommend ordering buckles from Creative Designworks. This amazing site is just for people who want to make their own collars and leashes, and they also have rings and snap hooks of all different sizes and colors, chain martingale loops, colored nylon straps, slides for making adjustable collars, and more.

A word of warning about the plastic buckles: they are VERY loud when they snap shut. Dragon always gets a treat when I buckle or unbuckle them, and so he comes running over when he sees me pull out a collar. A more sensitive dog might be frightened by it.

Step 1: Put on some good music. I recommend Cher.


2. Measure your dog's neck. Or if he's making frightened faces at you...


2b. Measure the length of a collar that's already fitted to him. Here the buckles are the same size, so I can just measure the length between them (10 inches). If you're using different sized buckles, you'll have to do some maths.


3. Cut a length of cotton strap that is the collar length (10 inches) plus about 5 inches extra. Add more extra if you want the D-ring to be far away from the buckle. I cut just 14 inches because I've made a bunch of collars for Dragon already and I'm positive that it will be the right length.


4. Lay out the back side of your cotton print and cut out a rectangular piece that is:
(a) about three times the width of your cotton strap (3 inches), and
(b) the length of your cotton strap plus 2 inches (16 inches total)


5. Lay the strap over the fabric rectangle and place a strip of wonder tape going all the way across the top edge of the strap. Peel off the backing of the wonder tape.


6. Fold the top edge of the fabric onto the wonder tape and press down. You'll want to also use two very small pieces of tape to secure the fabric on either end of the strap.


7. Another strip of wonder tape along the bottom edge of the strap.


8. Fold the bottom part of the fabric over the strap. There will be a bunch of extra sticking out over the top. Make sure that you pull it evenly as you're pressing it down over the wonder tape. The side of the strap/fabric combo that's down on the table will be the outside of the collar.


9. Cotton fabrics hold onto creases well. That's a downside if you didn't take your clothes out of the dryer quickly enough, but an upside for this project. Take the extra fabric that's sticking out over the top and fold it underneath, so that the fraying edge is hidden. Press down with your fingers to create a crease.


10. You can see the crease here. Pull it up enough to put yet another strip of wonder tape underneath, and then you'll press your folded fabric over the tape. We need this much wonder tape in order to keep the fabric secured in place. Otherwise it'd get stretched this way and that and you'd end up with something crooked or bunched going through the machine.


11. This is what your collar now looks like. The cotton strap is completely covered, and two of the fraying edges of the fabric are hidden/protected.


12. Time to get the last two edges. Put a piece of wonder tape right before where the cotton strap ends. Take the inch of fabric sticking out past the edge and fold it in inwards.


13. Roll it forward and secure on the tape. Do the same to the other side.


14. Now we have a no-sew collar! But it will start to come apart if you don't quickly sew it down, so let's get to the next step!


15. Start sewing along one of the folded over edges.


16. When you get to the corner, pivot the collar so you're sewing toward the very end. Pivot again along the very edge of the collar. Then pivot, sew down the length of the collar, and do the same spiral to secure the other end.


17. It should look like this: every fold is secured, with a minimal amount of sewing. That makes it more pretty.


18. Pull the thread through to the underside of the collar. Tie the two ends together.


19. Thread both pieces through your large needle, and pull the needle between the fabric and the strap.


20. Pull the thread taut and snip it right where it comes out of the fabric.


21. My camera did a great macro zoom on the wrong part of the collar. Anyway, the above technique completely hides the knot and thread ends, and protects them from wear. That's a pro tip, right there.


22. Oh look, it's coming together! Pull your collar through the D-ring and strap pieces. If you're picky like me, decide which way the collar should orient and which side you want the D-ring to be on before you sew anything down. I want the seam on the collar to be on the bottom so it's less visible, and the D-ring to be on Dragon's right side so that when he's heeling the leash clip doesn't hit against the buckle.


23. Adjust the length and pin everything in place. Here you can see that if you want the D-ring to be secured farther away from the buckle, you need extra length. I don't do that because it makes the collar bulkier and less soft and pliable where there are two layers.


24. If you have a very calm dog who will hold still, you can double check the fit at this point. Don't poke him with the pins.


25. Sew the layers together.


26. Almost done! Tie off the threads using the same method shown above.


27. Ta-da! You have a complete custom collar!

 
28. Put it on the dog and take lots of pictures.


I am aware that the 1 inch buckle is kind of huge on Tiny Dog. I wanted a wide collar that would be easy to get ahold of for attaching and unattaching the leash during competition. It's fitted quite loosely on his neck so that he can still bend his head and neck downwards..


The plan had been to make him "a" show collar, since his regular collar is teeny tiny and buried underneath his neck fur. But then I couldn't choose between all the awesome fabrics...


I bought tiny leash clips and made 2 matching, lightweight, 4 foot show leads.


And one more ultra-thin, ultra-light, 4 foot show lead.

I hope you find this tutorial helpful! If you decide to make any collars, please post photos! And feel free to link to this post if you're inclined to share it.