Pictures from obedience training

Denise is preparing to write a book, and took pictures of me heeling and playing with Dragon during our lesson. We may be in the final version of the book. You can bet I would be stoked about that! Here are some of the pictures we got:


Jumping into position on my right side as a warm-up.


Happy heeling -- love this one!!


Jumping all the way off the ground to do a hand touch -- another wow!


Automatic sit at heel and expecting a treat, hehe.


LOVE this picture for an analysis of body language. Look at the original-sized photo here to see better. Dragon's ears are down and slightly back, his lips are puckered forward, and at first glance he's leaning away from me. The first reaction that a person is likely to have to this picture is that the dog is threatened and moving away from the hand. In fact, he was pulling back only to ready himself for another playful strike. Looking at the detail of the zoomed-in photo, you can see that his eyes are soft rather than widened in fear. His back legs are braced to go forward, and his front right leg is held high up against his chest. He's ready to jump forward or shift side-to-side, rather than pulling backwards as the front left leg might make you think. His tail is very, very high up in excitement. This dog is in the middle of a fun game, and not intimidated by the hand coming right at him.


I often clap as part of my reward sequence. Dragon's mouth is puckered again -- it looks like he's barking in excitement, but I think he was just readying for more play-biting.


Funny face. I'm pushing him sideways as part of the wrestling game.


Happy dog getting into position.


Playing.


Hand-biting.


More hand-biting. He likes to roll over during play but only does it if he's very comfortable with the area.


Tug with my finger.


More tugging. He used to do this more when he was younger; now he prefers to latch on to the back of my hand.

These pictures bring a big grin to my face. Hoorah for positive training!

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!

Another obedience lesson with Denise Fenzi

We had a wonderful lesson last week. As always, I was proud to show off our progress, and happy to get pointers on where to go from here. Dragon was SO focused and enthusiastic. Denise commented on it many times and it felt great to work with such an eager partner. Of course, we have lots of work ahead of us to get that same focus and enthusiasm in high-distraction settings like trials!

Dragon does fairly nice fronts but he doesn't have a lot of enthusiasm, and I asked Denise for advice on creating it. She suggested that I teach him to go through my legs, turn around, and come up into heel position. This would encourage him to come in straight and close (anticipating going through the legs), break up the monotony, and create more movement and therefore fun with fronts. I've been trying it out already and Dragon thinks it's a fun trick. Score!

The other thing that I really needed her advice on was leather articles. Dragon can do metal canning rings, plastic medicine bottles, and plastic pens with consistent, nearly 100% accuracy. Yet with the leather rings, he kept guessing and bringing back random ones. Denise had us warm up with the metal rings, warm him up with a single, well-scented leather ring, and then put down one more decoy leather ring. She had us work in the corner so that I was hiding what I was doing with my body, to make him more interested. She also had me treat once in front for Dragon retrieving the correct ring, and then toss a treat away for him to chase while I reset the rings. This worked well and after some incorrect guesses Dragon suddenly started to sniff them out properly.

We repeated it at home, and after some initial frustration and confusion again, Dragon seemed to sort it out. I think I'm finally "explaining" the exercise properly to him. I'm not sure how he got mixed up with it in the first place, considering how quickly he caught on to metal and two types of plastic!

We got to show off our amazing stand for exam. I'd expected this exercise to be extremely difficult for Tiny Dog, because he gets easily initimidated by people leaning over him and reaching for him. However we progressed slowly with the foundation (again provided by Denise) and have been practicing a LOT, and he performed perfectly for her! Now to continue practicing in new environments, and with lots of men, with whom he's more shy.

The rest of the exercises to work on were suggested by Denise. Of course she had us demonstrate our heeling, and Dragon was on fire (pun intended). I hope and pray that we will someday be able to have enthusiasm like that in the ring. I didn't talk to him very much, as she pointed out during our last lesson that I talked too much and he didn't needed it. But I did give him a particular smile with my lips parted a bit, which I've been conditioning as part of a keep going signal or trigger. I give him the smile and blow air between the apex of my tongue and my hard palate, making a soft "hhiiii" noise. He already perks up when he hears it and/or sees the smile. At this point it is always followed shortly by a treat or play, but eventually it will be able to bridge longer stretches of work.

Denise set up ring gates with a break in the middle to mimic the ring entrance. She instructed me to warm Dragon up, heel into the ring, and party. I used his rubber ball for this, his #1 reward. He quickly started to pattern and forge in anticipation of the ball being thrown forward. When he forged I would slow down and rotate my left shoulder backwards, and he would hop back into position. When he was more in control of his pace, we extended the pattern so that we heeled a few extra steps before tossing the ball. One of our homework assignments is to work with ring gates or appropriate stand-ins and continue the conditioning of "passing through a gate = focused work = party!!"

We practiced the go out and jumps for the first time. Since Tiny Dog drives into his crate very well, we set it up past the jumps and I sent him to it. Then I would give him a huge signal (actually whole body movement) at one jump or the other. Since he already has high value for taking jumps on cue thanks to agility, he quickly figured out what I wanted. For homework I will teach him to target a post, stick, or similar, possibly with the help of blue painter's tape, and then turn around and sit. I've also already done a session of sending him to his sit platform and then taking a jump on cue.

We discussed my use of a non-reward marker for Dragon's loss of focus during known work (not when learning something new). I saw a quick improvement over his focus when I started using it. I think that Denise was spot-on: he did not understand that keeping attention on me and ignoring distractions was a criteria. Now he will look away if he is nervous or there is a big distraction, but he's able to ignore the little things and doesn't stop to look around as much. I'm sure that this was a big part of why he was much more focused during this lesson compared to last time. Of course I am always watching his body language to assess whether the NRM is stressing him out or simply providing useful information.

That was a lot to get done in 30 minutes! We scheduled another lesson a month away.

Handling and nosework

Yesterday I met up with Sarah and her dog Frankie. We've been online acquaintances but had never met in person before. We decided to use each other as decoys in training our dogs. Frankie is reactive toward strangers, so I was the decoy for a couple of BAT sessions. In return, Sarah acted as a mild distraction for Dragon while he was heeling with me. She just walked around and I heeled him closer and farther and rewarded him for looking at me instead of her.

For another excercise I would walk Dragon up to Sarah, put him in a stand-stay, and had her lean down and do a short exam (as for obedience). I would throw his ball forward for him to chase as a reward.

Later I held Dragon in my arms, gave Sarah the treats, and she did some desensitizing to reaching over his head. Hands reaching as he's being carried is a trigger for Tiny Dog and he snaps at the hands to make them go away.

We ended up doing some nosework as well, as Sarah had her kit with her and noted that the clutter-filled loft at Metro Dog was a great space to practice in. I'd never thought of that! Frankie is very advanced and she placed five simultaneous hides for him, using all three odors. It was so cool to watch him work. He got down to business right away, even when the scent carried him closely past me, the scary stranger. Then Sarah kindly did some hides for Tiny Dog and gave me advice. When I first brought him up to the loft and gave the cue "searching", he started zooming around in a circle in excitement. It was hilarious, but she noted that on one of the runs he caught a whiff of the hide, slowed down, and then started running again. We had done an unpaired hide to test his response. She suggested that if we had paired it, he probably would have gotten down to business right away, and that means we should go back to pairing more often. Will do! We did a few more hides paired with food, and he found them reasonably quickly.

Sarah and I agreed that it was rewarding to work with other trainers who have experience with shy/fearful dogs and know BAT, so we didn't have to do any extra explaining to each other. We will work together again!

Teaching attention

During our lesson Denise said to me, "You train behaviors, I train ring readiness." That short sentence sent a jolt through me. I haven't been making the effort to get Dragon out and about for practice. I've been focusing on first getting the behaviors solid at home and at the training space at work. However it's past time that we started proofing more! Currently Dragon breaks off to stare at motion by people, animals, or things in the environment, reacts to sounds, and of course loves to sniff new territory.

There are a handful of different methods for training attention among distractions or in new environments. For example, Michelle Pouliot likes to isolate the issue by rewarding eye contact as the dog does a stand-stay on a platform and the handler moves around and/or works toward longer duration. She noted at the seminar we attended that a great way to teach eye contact in various environments is to go to new places and just focus on rewarding eye contact for a couple of minutes. Dragon has had some reward history for isolated eye contact here and there. I decided to try driving to a new but quiet area (just two blocks away, but not along the route we usually walk) and click/treating Dragon for offered eye contact and see what the result was. Surprisingly, the result was that he became frustrated. Sure, the treats for eye contact were nice, but he wanted to either walk and sniff around or to get more engagement from me. I was leaving him mentally stranded by offering no engagement or direction other than C/T and praise for eye contact. The training session was boring and didn't feel good, and listening to that gut instinct is critically imporant. (Not to say that this training method doesn't work, it just isn't a good fit for us at this time.)

I thought of other methods for teaching focus. One is Control Unleashed's "Take a Break" game. I've used this a bit in the past. I do frequently give Dragon breaks to look and sniff around when we're in a distracting area. (Unless we're on the agility field, where I don't allow him to sniff to prevent him from rooting around for treats.) I should return to this more. I like that it encourages the dog to ask to work, rather than relying on the handler to initiate.

Denise also sets up wonderful training sessions in which decoys are present and she turns them into a cue for her dogs to pay more attention to her. I am not so skilled at this, but I have been working on it in the lobby at work. I give Dragon verbal feedback and a high rate of reinforcement for heeling/doing tricks while other people are bringing dogs through, sometimes barking and pulling and jumping. He is improving.

As I thought of these things and practiced with Dragon on the street outside our apartment, I realized that there was also something else holding us back -- Tiny Dog had developed a habit of stopping to look around after eating a treat or breaking off play with me. He did this nearly every time we worked outside our home or the distraction-free training room at work. I hadn't worried about this when I first started training him outdoors. I assumed that after some time, his needing to look around would fade away and the training would be fun enough that he would re-engage right away. Instead, it became in a habit. I realized that I needed to stop him from taking the opportunity to disconnect and check out the environment, and instead do my best to immediately get him moving with me and following my cues again.

I've been focusing on that for the past week, as we trained outside in the dark, at the little park just off our regular walking route, and at Point Isabel on a crowded Saturday morning. At first I had to wave my hand in front of his face and cue touches to get him to look at me while swallowing his treats. Slowly but steadily is response is improving, and with it, I am seeing a greater ability to ignore distractions. I was worried in the beginning that I would be putting too much pressure on him and I watched for signs of stress, but I honestly think his reaction is, "Oh, are we not pausing after each treat anymore? Okay, I can do that."

Of course at the same time I am making sure to keep the sessions fairly short, and mixing together obedience training with lots of tricks. We're doing lots of right-side heeling so that we can work on moving together past distractions without my worrying about getting the footwork or position "just right". We're switching sides, doing leg weaves, spins, meerkat, playbow, backing up, changing positions, and hitting positions out of motion. And we're both having fun!

I would like to plan out a freestyle routine for us soon, and working on that will provide a great foundation for performing obedience as well, since we will need to do long chains of behaviors without primary reinforcers (food, play, petting). Obedience, freestyle, and agility may be very different sports, but my consistent training methods for each mean that any time we are working on one, we are improving our ability to work together as a team for any one of them.

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.

Obedience lesson with Denise Fenzi

Last Wednesday I had a 30 minute lesson with Denise Fenzi, a competion obedience trainer who uses positive methods (a rarity in this sport). We've had a couple of lessons with her before, but nowadays most of my training budget goes to our ongoing agility lessons, so it's been a few months since I last saw her.

As usual we started with heeling, since it's so important in competition. Denise liked his turns (both left and right) and his halts. He over-rotated on the left turns, but that's because he was putting in too much effort, and that's a better problem to have than not enough effort. For the first couple of minutes I didn't use any treats or toys to reward him, I just stopped and wrestled with him -- that's a big improvement in our training since Denise last saw us. His attention was drifting a fair amount, since he wanted to sniff and explore. I blabbed at him too much. I do that when I'm nervous. She had me do some large circles to the right so that I could concentrate on my rhythm and connection to him without worrying about footwork. She cued me to alternate praise, silence, and rewards. He doesn't need me to talk to him as much as I do when I'm nervous. Instead he needs me to praise him for making an effort to focus on the work.

We talked about working around distractions or in new environments. Denise noticed that I would call him back to me when he ran off and resume work. She commented that it seemed he had no idea that running off was "wrong". She suggested I use a clear no reward marker to communicate that he shouldn't run off to greet the neighbors or check out a smell. If I have to use it more than a handful of times, then it's not effective and I need to try a different tactic. I don't use NRMs often but I think she's right that this would be the right situation for it.

I had his crate set up and I would cue him to go in when we would stop to talk. If I didn't, he would immediately wander off to explore. He needs a clear structure of "down time in crate" versus "engaged work time". No grey area in which I expect him to just hang out with me while I pet him. 

We practiced fronts and the recall next. Last time I saw her, we were just laying a foundation for fronts, using my hands to guide him to sit straight and then tossing a treat between my legs for him to chase. After that we went through a phase in which he would put his front paws on my feet and/or sit pretty. I fixed this by feeding him low to keep his body lowered toward the ground, and I didn't reward the times that he put his feet on my feet. We also spent a lot of time with me pivoting in place and rewarding him for adjusting to be straight again. His fronts are looking much better in terms of the angle. Oddly, he kept standing up from the sit every time I rewarded him at Denise's, something he never does at home. It must have been because he was nervous and/or I was moving a bit differently out of nerves. Denise suggested I feed him from up high again, as it looked to her like I was cuing a stand. Also if he stood up, I would pull the treat away, and he caught on quickly to that part.

We moved on to the dumbbell. Dragon had been doing very well with this, however shortly before our lesson he had dropped the dumbbell onto the wooden floor at my parents' house, and the sound traumatized him. He associated it with coming close to me and my reaching my hand to take the dumbbell from him. The result was that during our lesson he would pick it up when I tossed it, but he didn't want to bring it in close, and he refused to take it into his mouth when I held it out for him. Denise was coaching me to hold my hands close to my body to encourage him to come in, rather than reaching my hands toward him, but each time he felt the dumbbell's weight shift as I took it he would jump back with a scared look. This was very disappointing to me. I had known that he hated the noise and motion of dropping things, but thus far I'd managed to avoid that happening with the dumbbell by carefully reaching and taking it from him. Despite all the time we'd already spent on the dumbbell, the one time he dropped it on a wooden floor outweighed the positive history.

Denise tried to help him work through his fear by kneeling down and placing the dumbbell  close to her body and giving him lots of happy talk and encouragement to lean in and pick it up. He was extremely conflicted. He circled her, darting his head forward and back, he rubbed against my legs and climbed on me for support, and a few times he did mouth the dumbbell but did not pick it up fully. We gave up with that exercise.

The last exercise we did was the stand for exam, which went better than expected. I'd been practicing here and there with my coworkers, but mostly we focused on the "person approaching while dog holds a stay" rather than the actual exam. We did just a few reps with Denise approaching and then she was able to give him a light pat down while he held his stand-stay. Good dog! She recommended that I work on this by myself as well. We want him to be focusing his attention on something else besides the person touching him. Usually that "something else" is me standing just a little distance away. If I'm by myself, I can set a treat on the ground for him to focus on while I play judge.

The next lesson will be in a few weeks. I'm about to also post a follow-up of how our next handful of training sessions at home went.

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.

Using a platform to teach changes in position (fronts, finishes, etc)

I'm using the platform to reinforce the proper movements as Dragon does left and right finishes and moves into front position (for obedience or rally). This helps him learn how to swing his back end around properly. He already moved from front to heel quite well, but the reverse tended to be crooked. His right finish has been shaped solely with a platform so far. The platform can also help with building confidence in close, automatic tuck sits.

Canine Good Citizen, crates, and nasty teeth

Agility class was cancelled due to rain. We did a little practice at home instead. I hauled the mini-teeter and a-frame outside. Last week I lowered the teeter's PVC frame as much as I could. The first time he ran over it he gained confidence quickly, but when it was moved outdoors, the behavior predictably deteriorated. He was just starting to gain confidence in running for the foot target at the end instead of slowing down at the pivot point when the neighbor's dogs ran over and started barking at the fence line. I could have moved the teeter into the street, but I decided to just end the exercise. I removed the PVC frame from the teeter board and put it underneath the a-frame out in the street. The a-frame's boards aren't all that thick and are a bit springy. This makes him slow down when he runs over it. Again, with practice he was gaining speed and confidence, but I'm guessing that at a certain point I just won't be able to use the mini a-frame; it'll be steep enough that he should be running up quickly but the springy boards will prevent him from doing so. That's okay with me -- I knew when I made this equipment that it might not hold up all that well. I'm an amateur builder.

At one point he started sticking his tongue in and out like he had a piece of treat stuck between his teeth. I gently pulled back his lips and was horrified to see how much plaque he's built up. In this respect, I'm a bad owner. I brush him every two or three days, I weigh him whenever I can, and I keep mental track of the quality of his bowel movements, but I have been completely neglecting his teeth. I should know better, too, since his papillon buddy Jacques has dental problems and his momma has told me how careful she is about his teeth. I resolved to start brushing his teeth very soon.

In the afternoon we went to Pet Food Express and I used the second portion of my Christmas money and a 20% off coupon I'd been saving to buy him a 21" Noz to Noz soft crate. I'd been waffling on this -- I'd heard nice things about how they're easy to set up and so portable, but on the other hand, he's a tiny dog, and am I just being lazy about not wanting to break down/set up and carry his wire crate? But I lifted up the N2N crate and it was sooo light and easy to manipulate that I was instantly sold. Plus, it was green. You'd think, based on my room, that green is my favorite color ever. When I moved into this apartment the walls were already painted green, and my laptop and comforter are green, so then I started selecting other green things to match... it just snowballed from there. I guess green is Dragon's official color -- it fits, right? (Ira's official color was purple -- he had a purple bed and leash and a couple of purple collars.)

I also restocked my supply of bully sticks and antlers and pig bones, and bought doggy toothpaste and brush.

After the store we drove to an auto shop to replace my cracked windshield. I brought Dragon's mat along. I set it down by my chair in the lobby, and he laid on it for 45 minutes without any fuss. He even laid his head down here and there. Toward the end I dozed off for about five minutes and he hadn't moved when I woke up. Good dog.

When we got home I set up the N2N crate. Dragon immediately went inside and stared at me for treats. I gave him a treat, released him, and gave him a treat for coming out. He ate it and immediately ran back in for more. We repeated this two more times and then I had to physically block him with my arm to keep him from running inside again. I'm going to start using this crate during agility class instead of his mat. I need to start early if I want him to be able to relax inside it when we're trialing. At the beginning I'll keep the door open so that he's not locked inside, he's choosing to stay in in order to earn treats. In that way, it will be exactly like his mat, but it will be a more difficult challenge since his visibility will be greatly reduced.

And now the most exciting part of the day -- we took the Canine Good Citizen test! We took it at Metro Dog, my workplace, which was a boon because Dragon is used to working there and the location has a strong reinforcement history. He passed with flying colors. On the "heel past another dog" portion, he even outshined the tester's dog, who was not in a working mood and didn't want to sit! I had him heel for the "loose leash walking" and "walking through a crowd" portions and he did beautifully. The sit, down, stay, and recall were of course no problem. He did not get spooked during the visual or sound startle portions, which was thanks to all the counter-conditioning I've done with him. I am so proud of my boy! His full name is now Cinnamon Snapdragon CGC. (Today CGC, tomorrow OTCH and MACH!)

His friend Brooky the schnauzer mix also passed the test!

The end of the day left me wondering, "How am I going to brush his teeth??" I had him hop up on the bed and lie down, so that his mouth was closer to my eye level. I put my left hand above his muzzle and lifted his lips a bit, and clicked and gave a treat with my right hand. He didn't like it but quickly caught on to the game. I probably should have broken it down further, starting with just teaching him to raise his muzzle up to my fingers. (Be a splitter, not a lumper!) The hard part, though, is shaping the action of opening his mouth and holding it open. Any ideas?

Agility Foundation, week 5 recap, plus shopping fun

Circle work: jump, tunnel, jump, stop and reward, turn around and do it again. Tunnel, jump, same tunnel again in a tight circle. Doing well with driving ahead toward the next obstacle.

Turns next to the jump standard: 180 post turn, 360 post turn coming over the jump a second time, and front cross. I hadn't done the front cross next to a jump standard before. He's finally starting to develop his collected jumping skills.

We were on the other side of the agility field this time, where all the standard equipment is. (Usually we're on the side that has a jumpers course set up.) We worked with a full-height teeter, just getting the dogs to bang the end and, if ready, go into 2o2o. Dragon happily jumped all the way onto the end. Suzanne said that next week we'll lower that teeter almost all the way to the ground and put sandbags under it and slowly start making it more tippy from there.

We also worked with the dog walk and a-frame for the first time. Most of the dogs were just asked to get into 2o2o at the bottom and the handlers proofed their positioning and movement while their dogs stayed. Tiny Dog is the only dog doing running contacts. I had him walk partway up the ramp and then run off toward a toy thrown forward. Because the a-frame was rubberized, he was able to just walk up it. I was very proud that he had no fear! A couple of times one of his back feet slipped off the side of the walk as he was turning around on it (eep!) but he just pulled it back up and was not fazed. I guess after you fall out of trees a few times, the wide dog walk isn't so scary. I'm not sure how Suzanne will be progressing with teaching this equipment.

Lastly we had the dogs go through a tunnel which had one end right next to the dog walk (we blocked the up ramp) and the other end underneath the middle of the walk. Some of the dogs balked but Dragon had no problem.

We were going to start on introducing the chute as well, but ran out of time.

At home, I bought more PVC so that I could switch out the height of my teeter. I lowered it as much as possible (about four inches at the pivot point) and practiced having him run across with his mat at the end, and again with his foot target at the end. He has more drive to reach the mat quickly because of the stronger reinforcement history, but isn't sure about lying down quickly. He was a bit slower to reach the foot target but did the proper weight shift at the end and held his position beautifully as I moved ahead. I had told Suzanne that I would use his mat on the teeter but I think I'm going to use the foot target at the end after all. It also has the benefit of not sliding around like the mat might, and not creating as much of a height difference when he reaches it.

In preparation for the chute, I folded up an old bed sheet and draped it over a chair, and practiced sending him underneath. No problems with that.

Other agility news: I received Susan Garrett's Success with One Jump DVD for Christmas. I also received some cash which I used to buy her 2x2 Weaves DVD, and I'm going to buy him a soft crate with the remainder. He's been staying on his mat beautifully during class, but I need to start transitioning him to being in a crate and having me leave his sight here and there.

In non-agility news, I took him shopping yesterday. We went to a salvage yard, a hardware store, and even a dog-friendly discount fabric store. He was perfectly behaved. We practiced heeling, and it reminded me that I need to commit to getting him out into various distracting environments to practice this stuff. He lost focus when people were walking by.

Tricks showcase for November 2011

I made another big montage of nearly all the tricks we've been working on! It's always a fun project for me, because I think about how far Dragon has come. When I made the last tricks showcase in April, he was still learning heel position by pivoting around on a bowl. Now he's doing full heeling in a semi-distracting environment, and I'm working on fixing up some of my footwork. In April I had just gotten him to retrieve a teeny little leash tab, and now he'll retrieve his harness, toys, dumbbell, metal canning rings, leather rings, pens, plastic bottles... (I love teaching retrieving!) This month also shows him at his best on the wobble board -- on a pivot eight inches off the ground, with my foot kicking the board up and down.



My favorite moments:
The pivoting right at the beginning
Stacking bowls at 1:21 (that's such a cool trick)
Trying to find the platform with his back feet at 3:44
I walk away from the wobble board and he's still tipping it at 5:00

So proud of my puppy!

Second obedience lesson with Denise Fenzi

Oh, how I love working with Denise. Her attitude puts me right at ease because she is upbeat, casual, and flexible. Her pointers are always spot-on and I end the lesson feeling like I know exactly what we should do, and energized to do it.

Last time I met her we mostly worked on heeling. We started off by reviewing heeling again, and I showed her our progress. Dragon had great position when he was paying attention, nice and close and pivoting beautifully. There was a small issue with his attention drifting. Denise had me tell him to take a break (signalling that he had lost the opportunity for reinforcement) and back up whenever he looked away. If he heeled nicely and payed attention for 3-5 seconds, then he would be paid. It can be surprisingly hard with a small dog to tell whether he's paying attention. I don't expect Dragon to look at my face the entire time because that's hard on his body, but he should be looking upwards and towards my legs. I will have to work harder to be able to recognize right away whether he's focusing or looking past my legs at something else. I'm raising my criteria and working on getting beautiful, attentive heeling before I ask for more duration.

We briefly discussed sitting at heel. I've been using a clear hand gesture/target to get him to sit nicely in position, to build up a good history of reinforcement. Denise cautioned me not to name the sit at heel. If I have to cue it, he won't do it automatically. If I wait him out and he does it and gets rewarded, then he'll learn faster to do it automatically. (When we practicing heeling on the rally course after I finished teaching class this evening, I practiced planting my right foot and shifting my weight slightly sideways as a cue to sit. He responded very well to this.)

From heeling we moved on to making training plans for all the rest of the AKC Novice exercises.

Fronts: During our last lesson, Denise had suggested that I use a front foot target and click for his butt being straight on, but he's been reinforced too much for pivoting from side to side and this was a frustrating exercise. I had decided to switch to backing up and using my hands down low to guide him in close to my legs. By now this had progressed to having my hands up higher and making an upwards motion, and Dragon would sit almost right between my feet. Then I would bend my knees outwards and throw the treat between my legs for him to chase (encourages him to get in close to my legs). Denise liked what we were doing and added that I should stop backing up when he looks at me, so that he gets to do the front and get reinforced if he's offering attention. I can also already fade the hand movement more. Once he's got that down I'll slow down my backwards movement until he's coming to front without my feet moving at all.

Stand/Sit for Exam: The Beginner Novice class has a sit for exam instead of a stand, and Denise recommended teaching that first. It's an easier behavior for the dog to be successful in, since he's less likely to shuffle his feet or move away. We used a CAT-like method to teach him to focus on me as a way to make the inherently-uncomfortable exercise end. Denise would step foward, click when Dragon looked at me, and then back away as I treated him. Build up to the scary stranger stepping forward and reaching, looming over the dog, waving stuff around, etc. I really like this method -- the dog learns that he can make the exercise end by standing still and watching the handler. It always works in the ring! Obviously you have to build it up slowly, so that the dog doesn't start breaking because he's too nervous about the stranger walking right up to him and looming over him. (Also, Denise didn't mention this, but using a stand platform would be a good way to set the dog up for success when transitioning from a sit for exam to a stand for exam.)

Retrieve: Dragon showed off his strong "bring to hand" behavior with his little leash tab. We talked about how dogs have trouble keeping items in their mouths as they sit. Butt goes down = mouth opens up. She liked that I'd been working on having Dragon do other tricks while holding onto his tab, and brought up using a platform, which was also on my to-do list once he was more solid with standing squarely on his new, narrow platform. We did practice with a large platform she had on hand, and lo and behold, Dragon was able to pick up the tab, get on the platform in front of me, and promptly sit with the tab in his mouth. Platforms are magic.

I need to order a dumbbell.

Broad Jump: I need to get some white boards to practice this. We did some jumping with her practice set, and I cued "hup" like I do for agility jumps, and he had no trouble with it. She recommended teaching him to go out to a target after jumping, and also putting a block by the corner of the broad jump to prevent the dog from learning to take shortcuts in training.

Stays: We ran out of time to practice but I said that his stays are great, in many different environments. I need to start practicing them with other dogs around. This will be easy if I remember to do it at work, where there is no shortage of both trained dogs who will hold their stays and green dogs who will be squirmy and break stays, for proofing.

I was amazed to realize how everything is coming together so well. I feel like we have a good foundation going.

Denise Fenzi seminar: Drives and Motivation, day 2

Day 2 was even better than yesterday. Dragon did not cry in his crate other than some very minimal, quiet whining immediately after I crated him. All the dogs got to work more. And of course Denise gave us more fabulous info. The day felt much longer because we covered a greater variety of topics.

We started off talking about ways to make treats more interesting and being more engaging when you're using them, rather than the dreaded "pez dispenser" training. One way is to wiggle the treat right in front of the dog's nose and make him chase it around to earn it. This combines both food and prey drives, so it's building up both of them, and transferring value from the stronger one to the other. Dragon loved this game and we used it to snap him smartly into heel position.

Next we were introduced to one of Denise's signature training tricks, which is aligning the fingers of your left hand along your dog's muzzle as you feed him, creating a tactile cue to move him around in heel position. She used Dragon as a demo dog for this. They'd already done this once before when I had a private lesson with Denise. The first time he'd been shy about getting under her hand or too close to her body. This time he was still a bit nervous but allowed her to position him. Then I asked him to do the same and was even able to get him to side-step as I moved to the right. Proud mama.

Another favorite trick is what Denise calls "squish" -- teaching the dog to relax yet remain ready for work/play while lightly pressed against the human's legs, then focus on the handler when they let go and move away. Dragon likes to rub against my legs on his own terms but was unsure about my hands actually restraining him. I think that if I practice it some more, keeping the squish time very short at first, he will learn to enjoy it. Squishing avoids the grey area where the dog is unsure whether he's working or not, and keeps him ready to engage without over-working him with a long warm-up. (With a tiny dog one can also practice picking the dog up to "pause" the training session, and then put him down and get right to work.)

Denise discussed how utilizing the hunt drive and having a dog search for an object builds his interest in it. For under-confident dogs, teach them to be more pushy by hiding treats on your body or in your hand and rewarding them for moving into your space. There was a long discussion about "dominance" and how in the ideal training relationship the dominance/power levels are almost equal between dog and human, with just slightly more power to the human.

We discussed reasons that a dog may be unable to perform in a particular environment: fear, proximity of dogs/people, novelty of the environment, distractions, and the dog being overworked and tired or bored. We discussed ways to work through those issues. (After I got home I finally, for the first time, properly taught Dragon the Give Me A Break game from Control Unleashed. Took me long enough.)

We played a great game to teach our dogs to ignore distracting people, with a systematic way of increasing the criteria. I won't go into all the details of the system but I started off with calling Dragon away from his friend Cate while she held food, then calling him away while she moved the food around, then calling him away while she did that and cooed at him. Other people are a huge distraction for him since we almost always train alone, so I will definately need to remember to recruit helpers to practice this. The best part of this game is that it eventually reframes the judge in the ring as just a proofing exercise to be ignored.

Finally we discussed playing without toys, using the dog's sense of hearing (what noises and conditioned phrases get your dog's attention?), vision (dogs respond to stalking motions and to running away), and touch (tapping or pushing your dog away to take advantage of the opposition reflex). We played with our dogs one-on-one in front of everyone. Unfortunately by this time Dragon was tired and only interested in sitting on my lap and looking around. He humored me by following me as I danced around, and let me give him little pushes, but he didn't care to wrestle. It was the end of a long weekend for him.

We have plenty to work on now -- or should I say, a lot to play around with? And I'll be scheduling our next obedience lesson with Denise soon.

first rally o course

Today was the first day of a new session of the Intro to Rally Obedience class I co-teach at Metro Dog. After the students left I brought out Dragon and we went through the course. Initially he was a bit suspicious of the signs but after sniffing a few he was willing to work around them. He did the course beautifully! I was so proud, and I really wish that I'd gotten it on video! I rewarded him every two or three signs with a game of tug. He did start to lose interest in the tug toy around the tenth sign or so, so I switched to treats. If I'd been using his very favorite toy (a tennis ball on a string) he probably would have worked a bit longer. He doesn't yet have much stamina for long chains of tricks or heeling for a long time. I think that I tend to fall into the same trap as many people who enjoy teaching tricks -- I spend a lot of time getting brand new behaviors, but I don't spend as much time getting them on cue, proofing them, and building stamina for behavior chains with lower reinforcement schedules. Hmmm, this is something I need to start fixing ASAP or I'll be working against our plans to compete!

This weekend we have a working spot in a Denise Fenzi seminar about drives and motivation. I can't wait! I just hope I manage to get up at 5 AM both days -- I usually get to sleep in until 9!

First formal obedience lesson

Dragon and I had our first lesson with Denise Fenzi on Thursday morning. I have been reading about the sport of competition obedience, and about how to train for it using positive methods on the Click Comp Obed list, but I didn't have any direct experience with it. After bumbling along on my own for a bit, I decided that I better call in an expert to help me figure out what I'm doing.

Denise's coaching was wonderful. She started off by asking me to show her what little progress we'd made with heeling so far, and the rest of the lesson was spent not on training Dragon but on fixing my mechanics/handling and improving my way of communicating with him -- which is exactly what I knew I needed! She was also very attuned to Dragon's comfort level and ability to focus, which I appreciated.

We talked about giving the dog a cue which meant that his window of opportunity to work and earn reinforcement was now open, but that cue doesn't mean that the dog has to work. If the handler has done their part to always make the training fun and rewarding, then it follows that the dog will usually choose to work, and if he doesn't, it's a sign that something might need to change. We also need to let the dog know when the window has closed (such as when the handler is busy talking to someone), and so I would pick up Tiny Dog whenever we took a break.

The biggest chunk of points when trialing in obedience is the heeling patterns. Denise helped me figure out where Dragon should be when heeling -- the space between his giant ears and giant doe eyes should line up with the seam of my pants. I need to reward him so that his head is up and my hand should be against my leg, close to my knee. She had me hold the treat between my thumb and forefinger, with my other three fingers pointing straight down and lightly touching the left side of his muzzle, so that he learns to line up against my hand and I can use that as a guide when pivoting and to help him get into position.


Coordination is not my strong point, so I have to practice just the feeding part.


I should be feeding higher and closer to my knee here.


Then we practiced actually taking some steps. She coached me to move quickly, talk to him, be animated, and look at my feet and not at my dog (especially if he's lagging!). I would back up to get him moving and looking at me, then turn to the right, walk in a right circle, and reward him when he drove into heel position. (This is a varient of the "choose to heel" method.)

Our homework is to practice more of that, along with our left pivots, and practice more on our right side to balance him out. (I had initially trained both the left and right sides evenly with Silvia Trkman's method, but was practicing the right side less and less -- oops!) Left turns tend to slow the dog down, so I shouldn't do any left turns yet other than our stationary pivots.

Last part was introducing sitting in front. I'll use a little platform for his front feet to get him to pivot so that he's lined up in front of me. (I'll have to hold my hands low at first to keep him in front and not pivoting to my side.) Denise also likes to teach dogs to drive between the handler's legs to get speed and close fronts. Dragon is nervous about going under my legs, so I'm starting by tossing treats between my legs.

I'm now really looking forward to training for obedience!