Restarting the teeter

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agility on our own

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Birthday boy! and agility and tricks

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










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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Private contacts lesson #3 with Susanne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great contacts session

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

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

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

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.

Contacts - private agility lesson with Susanne #1

On Monday morning I had a 30 minute private agility lesson with Susanne Cohen, our current class instructor. (Unfortunately the class is changing instructors a second time due to scheduling issues. A shame, because I really liked learning from Susanne!) My goal was to make progress on our contacts, since I didn't have much confidence in teaching them on my own.

We started off with the teeter. Dragon will have running contacts on the dog walk and a-frame, but on the teeter I am using a target at the end, feeding on the target, and giving him a release. The advantage is that it gives him a clear spot to drive into right at the end of the teeter. I am focusing all my training efforts on teaching him to drive to the end rather than slowing down or stopping midway across the board, and many under-confident dogs do.

In my practice at home, we went through a short period of him slowing down as the mini-teeter tipped. However I have licked that problem by putting the board back directly on the ground, pivoting only on the 1.5" pipe attached to the middle, and putting towels underneath the ends of the board to break down the motion into even smaller increments. This morning I took it outside and practiced changing my position (as Susanne says, "ahead, behind, and to the side") as Dragon drove forward to the target. There was a brick lifting the near end of the teeter where he jumped on but the far end was pivoting down a couple of inches as he ran across, and he did great.

The wonderful tip that Susanne gave me during our lesson was to break down the teeter behavior even further between having him bang it to make noise (have already done LOTS with that), having him run across and feel the tip (slooowly integrating this more now), and separately teaching him to run UP a stationary teeter and drive all the way to the end. She shoved a jump pole between the ground and the top edge of the teeter and held in it place as he ran up to his target. He had no problem with this -- he would even stop with his foot fur slightly hanging over the edge. We will practice this more and then start securing the up end slightly lower, so that it moves down a teensy bit as he runs to the end. This is much, much harder for Dragon. He doesn't know how far it will drop down, unlike the lowered teeter that will definitely stop when it hits the ground. Eventually the two methods will meet in the middle.

For the dog walk, we are simply backchaining the boards. I placed him on the down ramp, told him "go!" and then rewarded him with a toy thrown forward. I have to remember to release him when he's looking straight ahead. I click for his paws hitting the lower end of the contact zone. I don't think we'll have any problem with this obstacle at all.

The final contact obstacle is the a-frame. Susanne said that we are not ready to train the a-frame yet. Sure, in class she had people practice their 2o2o at the base, and I had been putting Dragon on it and having him run down. However she was not planning on teaching the actual obstacle any time soon, and we don't expect the new instructor to do so, either.

We have a couple of options for it. We could backchain it, same as the dog walk. We could use a guide wire or box to keep him from jumping off. She said that some people like to use a big, obvious guide and some people taper it down over time so that the dog doesn't see it until they're right at it. The third method was to use a PVC box as a target. I forgot who she said it was that developed that technique. You build a rectangle with the same dimensions as the contact zone and teach the dog to stand in it with all four feet, facing straight forward. Then you teach them to run into and out of the box with all four feet. Then you add jumps in front as stride regulators. Finally you put the box onto the contact zone of the a-frame and reward the dog for hitting his feet in the box. Susanne said that this method is very thorough and she's seen good results from it. I am a little bit reluctant to commit to all those props. I honestly can't see Dragon being a dog who would jump off the a-frame and miss the contact zone. He is too careful when going down stuff. However maybe that is naive -- after all, I am working hard to increase his speed and drive. As of right now I'm not sure which method I will use.

I bought a package with two more lessons, spread one week apart. My bank account is not happy, but damn, this sport is addictive and I want to be competitive.

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.

Agility Foundation, week 3 recap

Circle work, including accelerating into 2 tunnels, deceleration to test dog staying with us, and front cross.  Even with these very short sequences, I have to run through it in my head multiple times before I can do it smoothly with my dog. It's clear that someday when we're competing, remembering the course and how I planned to run it will be one of my weaknesses.

Contact training, along a 12 foot dog walk ramp, to a target (stopping to nose touch) or to a thrown toy (thrown when he's about 2/3rds of the way across). Got compliments from Suzanne on his drive forward, not even looking at where I am, knowing that the toy will appear ahead. Awesome. His drive has definitely increased greatly since I started using food toys and throwing them ahead for him.

Sit-stays and stand-stays. We've practiced this a lot, and in many different environments, so that I can take posed pictures of him and also in preparation for competition obedience. His stay is far and away the best in the class. I can run around him in a circle or run past the equipment and he doesn't break. He actually has a much harder time holding a stay when I lean over him than he does when I walk out of sight.

Introduced the other class dogs to the table and shaped going between the jump standards. I practiced sending to the table and doing a default down, and doing tight, collected turns around the jump standard.

Before the other students had arrived I also used the floppy lowered teeter and did some conditioning to the sound of the board resetting. He's more comfortable with the noise of the teeter as it hits the ground than when it resets after he's gotten off. The delay in the loud noise (as well as the teeter moving on its own) is what gets to him -- just when he's relaxing or wondering what we're going to do next, BAM! There it goes. After doing a handful of repetitions of CC I went back to having him jump on the board and ride it down, release, and then get a treat for the bang of the reset. However he was unnerved and less confident when jumping on. Usually he doesn't notice it as much because he's moving away or eating his treats at the moment that it bangs. I have to continue being very careful with all the noisy stuff. I think next time I will hold onto the teeter and slam it upwards myself, so that the motion of my hand will predict the noise for him, and the board won't be moving all on its own. Inanimate objects are not supposed to move all on their own!!

Agility Foundation, week 2 recap

Another week, another fun agility lesson! Only three students showed up today, so our dogs did a lot of work.

We started of course with circle work. We incorporated a tunnel into our circle work again, and added 180 and 360 pulls/outside turns, a front cross, and I also added a lead out once. I had to remember to accelerate toward the tunnel so that Dragon would drive into it. My tendency is to decelerate in preparation for turning a bit to run around the tunnel, but that gives conflicing information to the dog.

We did a number of sit-stay exercises (and I also did a lot of stand-stays). We had the dog run to us and get rewarded in the reinforcement zone. (Dragon is great at this.) We ran with our dogs and encouraged them to race past us for a thrown toy. (Dragon is reluctant to pull ahead of me without a target or obstacle ahead of us; need to condition him more to expect a toy thrown ahead.) We raced our dogs to a thrown toy. (The instructor told us to pick up the toy if we beat our dogs to it, but that would be demotivating for my guy, so I let him get it every time. He was still pretty fast.)

We proofed our targets. The other students are doing 2o2o, but we're doing a running contact. I'm having him run off the board completely toward a target set about 3-5 feet away from the end (to keep his speed up while on the board). I can now run forward past the target and he will stop to touch the target. I'm having trouble adding lateral distance, so that's my homework this week. Also I tried sending him ahead but he was conflicted between going ahead and turning toward me; another weak point to work on.

We reviewed the rear cross foundation on the flat, which is simple.

Dragon had excellent attention and did not try to sniff around except for one spot where he must have smelled a piece of dropped food among the woodchips. During his downtime he chewed on his bully stick on his mat. The weimaraner kept running away from his owner and trying to get the bully stick. Amazingly, Tiny Dog was completely unconcerned when I or the assistant would jump in front of him and catch the weim racing right for him. I gave him a treat every time anyway to reinforce being calm.

After the end of class Dragon and I practiced on the lowered teeter. The end of the teeter is about ten inches off the ground. The instructor commented that she was surprised that he liked that teeter, since the board is exceptionally floppy and bounces a lot after it hits the ground and when it resets. It's a testament to the careful work I've been doing with Dragon all these months. Although he doesn't like it when it noisily resets after he runs off, so next week I will spend some extra time just having him stand by it and giving him treats after I lower it and let it reset. I also had him run from end to end and after he understood how it would pivot and move, he was happy to run back and forth. I'm quite proud of him!

Teeter play

We've been playing around with our mini teeter. Moe had told me to teach the teeter by putting a foot target at the end and teaching him to hop from the ground onto the end of the board. I should feed multiple treats on the target, keeping his body low, and then release him straight forward and completely off the teeter. I should slowly raise the height of the end of the teeter. This means that eventually he will have to be jumping from a raised object onto the teeter, such as a couch or chair.

Yesterday was the first day that I used the mini teeter I created. Since we'd already done lots of work with other practice teeters, I was able to quickly raise the end until it was about 10-12 inches off the ground. At that point it was hard for Dragon to hop from the floor onto the end. I tried to get him to jump from a chair onto the teeter, stupidly without any prep work! He got spooked and I ended the session.

This morning I was ready to actually prepare him for that step. I pulled out his mat and a little round bed. I had him move back and forth between the mat/bed. I put the mat onto a box and had him hop onto that and back onto the bed on the floor. I put the bed onto a chair and had him hop onto there and then back to the mat on the box. This was about 1.5-2 feet above the floor. Now we were ready to transfer this behavior to the teeter.

I put one end of the teeter up on my agility table and the other up on a crate, so that it wouldn't move. I put his mat onto one end of the teeter and practiced hopping from the mat onto a chair and back. At this stage I had to put my arm between the two so that he actually hopped instead of placing his front feet and then his back feet on the mat. When he was happily doing this I moved the crate so that the teeter end under the mat would fall about two inches and hit the agility table. At this point I ended the exercise.

I decided to throw in one more exercise to increase his comfort level on the teeter. I placed the bed on the opposite side from the mat and had him run back and forth, with the teeter falling about two inches every time. This time I cued him to lie down on his mat when he reached it. He liked this exercise. Thank you Control Unleashed!

Next session I will have him hopping from the box or chair onto the end of the teeter and resume slowly raising the height. I think that I will keep using the mat for a bit, then redo it with his foot target when he's comfortable with a good height. The mat creates a softer landing spot for him and will lower the difficulty of the exercise. And I'm going to continue with the running back and forth between his mat/bed, at a much lower height.

Having worked through all these baby steps at home should set us up to coast through the steps much more easily when we're eventually working through it with a full-size teeter in class.

I wish I'd gotten all this on video!

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!

Focus and Motivation agility class, week 4

Recap of yesterday's lesson!

We warmed up with circle work and running to a nose target. The instructor then brought out a couple of circular wobble boards, a tiny tippy board, and a dog walk plank. The students rotated between the stations. Tiny Dog was excellent on the boards. On the wobble board I was able to slam my foot down on it and he was airborne for a micro-second and he just continued walking over the board and sniffing for treats. Excellent!! All the time I've taken with that has really paid off. On the tippy board he also was not concerned about the movement at all and I had him hop onto the end and ride it down (all of the two inches) just like we'd last been practicing with a mini-teeter.

With the dog walk plank he didn't drive across it as quickly as I'd expected, but I think that that's because he couldn't see his nose target very well. I switched from the gold metal lid I'd been using (which was similar in color with the woodchips at the agility field) to a bright white yogurt container, but he still has a little trouble in the dark. At one point when all the stations were taken I snuck off to a corner of the field and had him run along a folded-up teeter to his nose target for more practice. (I had him run down the end that was resting along the ground; no teetering movement.)

We did sit-stays and recalls, making sure to separate body movement from the release word, and rewarding by throwing a toy ahead. I used the new food-stuffable toy I made. It works great except that I had to replace the original magnetic close with metal snaps, because Dragon had learned to pick it up and shake it to send the treats flying. Also I need to add some weights to the bottom so that I can throw it farther.

We moved on to tunnels. The other dogs in my group also had experience with tunnels, so we used one that was fully extended. I rewarded by throwing the food toy ahead.

We ended by having our dogs sit-stay on one side of a jump (no jump bars, just a support along the ground), tossing a toy on the other side, and releasing our dogs to drive through the stanchions toward the toy. Easy-peasy for Dragon.

He did well staying on the mat, chewing a bully stick, except when I had to stand about ten feet away to be able to hear the instructor better. Even better was that he didn't try to sniff the ground until the end of class when he had to potty again. His focus was wonderful when I remembered to take breaks and cue him to look around. Next week is the last class of this "focus and motivation" session. After that we will move on to the official "foundations" sessions, although obviously these past few weeks have focused on foundation agility stuff as well.

I'm going to poke around the internet and read up more on Derrett's handling system, since that's what Moe had started us on and Jump'n Java is using it, too. I know that I'll be able to train more confidently once I have the bigger picture in my head. We're quite ahead of the class and I don't want to lose momentum!

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.

Training session with Janette and Brooky

One dog doing silly tricks is fun. Two dogs doing them at the same time is funner!



We worked on stays and recalls, the dogs learned to target each other, and Dragon took Brooky for a walk.