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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Another barometer

Dragon and Jasper just played for the first time since immediately after his eye injury in mid-October! I am over the moon! I've said it before but now it feels more true than ever: I have my puppy back!

Agility Foundations, week 2-2 recap

We had a new instructor today, Wendy. We spent the hour doing jumping and contacts review and then a short jumps-and-tunnel sequence so that she could assess where each team was with their handling and training. Her emphasis was on getting the dogs more reved up before their work, and on going back to reward stays frequently. The reminder about reving up was good for me. I tend to get too focused on the "how" and "why" of an exercise and forget to add that extra enthusiasm for Dragon. His performance is of course much better when I am able to get him more excited!

At home, we've done a couple of sessions of plank work on stairs, and it is building his confidence nicely. Here, too, it greatly helps if I jump around, run him in a circle, wrestle with him, and send him straight to the board instead of doing a lead out. In the meantime I think that I will not put him on the dog walk at all in class, not even to backchain it.

Agility Foundation, week 6 recap

I took Dragon's new N2N crate to class. I kept the front flap rolled up so that I could reward him for choosing to stay inside rather than forcing him to stay and possibly stressing him. A few times when I walked too far away he started to slowly creep out of the opening and I had to return and put him back inside.

Before the class started I pulled out the little French linen tug toy I bought from Denise Fenzi. I was pleasantly surprised by his enthusiasm! We did three rounds of tugging and then running into the crate and then I put the tug away for the day.

Later during class I also wrestled with him. Coincidentally, Denise recently wrote a blog post about playing with your dog with your hands. I realized when I read the post that I push my hands into Tiny Dog a bit much when we wrestle. I switched to doing a light tap and then pulling my hands away and he quickly started diving at my hands with increased enthusiasm. It's a good session when the backs of my hands are covered with red marks afterwards. I want that drive.

We did contacts again this week. I would place Tiny Dog on the a-frame or dog walk and then let him run down toward his toy. I asked Suzanne how she will teach the whole obstacle, once we've got the contact foundation. She said that the dog walk lowers partially and then she backchains it. For the a-frame she lowers it almost all the way to the ground. Right now Dragon doesn't mind going down the contact, but he doesn't enjoy it and is slow and careful. I think I'll see a change once we're doing the whole obstacle and he can get some speed.

We also did the teeter, lowered almost to the ground and with sandbags underneath so that it just moved a wee bit. Dragon ran over it with good speed, thanks to the practice we've done at home for the past couple of weeks. Since it was so flat that it looked like just a board on the ground, I didn't use his foot target. I told Suzanne that right now, if I put his foot target on the mini-teeter at home, he slows down way before he reaches it, but if I don't put it down he's more likely to run quickly to the end, where he'll either stop and wait or just keep running like his other contacts. I've been playing around with the different options to try to figure out what works best for him. She recommended that I stick with the foot target and go back to building speed with no tipping. I signed up for a 30 minute lesson with her on Monday to work on contacts. I feel like I need extra guidance on this.

For circle work we did a simple jump > tunnel > jump > front cross and go back the same way. Then we stepped up the complexity and did jump > tunnel > front cross before a jump to another jump. All of us except for the one experienced agility handler had trouble getting into the right position for the front cross. One person ran into the jump. Comedy gold.

eye recheck, and agility recap: Focus and Motivation class, week 5

This morning we had another checkup with the ophthalmologist. Everything is looking good. He still has blood in his eye (it takes a very long time to reabsorb) but the healing is continuing without any problems. We are cleared to practice the teeter again!! He is no longer taking the Atropine, and the Neopolydex and Cosopt are now only once a day instead of twice. The Prednisone is continuing twice a day. The next checkup is in February.

Tonight was the last night of this agility session -- next week we become an offical Agility Foundations class!

Today was great. Dragon did not try to sniff/explore during the working time at all. His focus was nearly 100%. The only couple of snafus were when I told him to "take a break" out of habit to let him know that an exercise was finished, and he disengaged and wandered off. Whoops! I need to remember to use a different transition when I actually expect him to stay by me. Usually I pick him up or trot with him to a different area to start a different exercise. He was also more comfortable staying on his mat and chewing his bully stick when I had to move closer to the instructor to listen.

We warmed up with more circle work. I've been working specifically on accelerating during both circle work and obedience heeling. We moved on to running to a nose target. I baited the target a couple of times but for most reps it was empty and he still stopped on it as I kept running past. Success! I just need to watch out because I tend to turn my body toward him to check whether he's stopped, and I know that that's a huge cue to him. I now need to practice having him run to the nose target as I do increasingly more distracting things, such as front cross, run in a different direction, do jumping jacks, etc. We also practiced running to the target over a flat plank, and down the weighted side of a teeter that was lowered nearly to the ground.

We practiced running between jumps standards and coming to front if I was stopped, running toward a toy on the ground if I was moving forward, and running to me and continuing on toward a thrown toy if I was moving forward. We're a bit ahead of the rest of the class in this, although I do need to practice it more. Dragon was more confident in discriminating whether to run ahead or come to me compared to last time we practiced. I need to practice running ahead toward a thrown toy the most.

At the end we played the bang game with the teeter. It was only a couple of inches of the ground and it moved very slowly and made almost no noise when Tiny Dog jumped on it, haha. I was super proud that he was comfortable on it, though. Our months of work are really paying off! At the end of class I raised the end to about six inches and practiced having him hop on and ride it down, and it was the perfect level of difficulty -- he didn't jump on smoothly at first but after a handful of reps had no hesitation.

Another wonderful thing is that he tugged with me! After running to his food toy he would pick it up and tug with me for a few seconds, and then I would mark and reward the tugging with the food inside. It's working very well -- a few times he was super into the tugging, pulling backwards with his whole body, and didn't even let go when I clicked. I have my dog back again!

It's playtime!

Last week, Dragon wanted to wrestle with me for the first time in about a month.

Last night and one time last week, he muzzle-punched the cat and tried to get him to play.

This morning after chasing a thrown food-stuffable toy a few times, he grabbed it as I was holding it and started tugging.

My puppy is feeling better!! I am over the moon.

This is the food toy I made, by the way:



It's made of fleece. The flap has a magnetic close.

Focus and Motivation agility class, week 3

We worked on restrained recalls, restrained recall through a tunnel, circle work, nose targets, and sending the dog forward to a toy.

Dragon won't play with toys right now. I had to go through the whole explanation of, "No, he does have toy drive, and I know how to build toy drive, he just won't play right now because of his eye injury" with both the instructor and the assistant. But I was really happy with the instructor's response of, "Well the border collie people all think that your dog has to tug, but my previous dog never tugged a day in her life. I just used toys with food inside to get her to drive ahead toward something." So I'm turning one of Dragon's old torn-up plush toys into a food pouch that I can toss ahead. That should be good for building drive to run ahead because the prednisone makes him SUPER HUNGRY. Still, I want my playful, tuggy dog back!!

He was much better about staying on his mat during downtime, and a bit more focused as we walked around the yard between exercises. I don't allow him to do his own thing on the field. He's either doing an exercise, walking next to me with attention instead of sniffing at the end of the leash, or he's resting and free to look around while in my arms or on his mat. We also practiced a bit of obedience heeling and I brought his dumbbell and liver treats to practice after class.

During most of the time that the instructor is talking to the class, it's super basic stuff and I'm a little bored, but occassionally I'll notice a hole in our foundation. I need to work more on Dragon driving to his nose target independent of my movement, and especially while I keep running ahead. While we don't get many reps in front of the instructor (we only did two recalls and two runs through the tunnel), the biggest upside of doing a group class is that she sees us week after week, and so we're getting steady advice throughout the training process. When I was doing privates with Moe, it was nice to have her undivided attention, but I can end up training the wrong thing or leaving big holes when I'm left to train mostly on my own.

Following up on play concerns

I brought up my concern about Dragon not wanting to play with my trainer friend Elissa. She reassured me not to worry about it, and not to bother trying to get him to play until he's clearly feeling better and initiating play on his own. Otherwise I might end up altering his play style weirdly or teaching him to be worried or suspicious of playtime. So, although I'll miss it, I'll put away the toys until he shows me that he wants to play, and just use food in training. He's normally a playful dog, so in the end I should be able to get his play drive back up again.

In the meantime we're making steady progress with his obedience training. I just received a teeny plastic dumbbell in the mail and I did a session of dumbbell = liver treats, woohoo!

Loss of enthusiasm

Dragon has almost completely lost interest in tugging since his eye injury three weeks ago. Even the rabbit fur tug only brings out half-hearted chasing and mouthing. (Before the injury, he went crazy for it and would chase it in circles and was putting noticeable wear on it.) Even his drive to chase a rolling ball has diminished. I am sad to lose the opportunity to play with him in this way. It was a fun way to bond and get some energy out, as well as a great reinforcer in training.

I've been bringing the rabbit tug out every few days when he pesters me for something to do, and putting a lot of energy into encouraging him to chase it and mouth it. I'm trying not to put pressure on him and stress over it, though. I'm telling myself that while switching to using just food as a reinforcer for a few months will impact his play drive for a while, he is a very playful dog and in the end I should be able to get all that tugging joy back. It won't affect him permanently. (I should say that I wasn't looking to play vigorous games of tug anyway, since we want to avoid jarring/shaking actions. Just any excitment over a gentle tug game...)

On the other hand, I'm happy that the prednisone is getting him to consistently eat all his meals, which was a struggle before. Silver lining.