Dumbbell sizing

After doing quite a bit of work to help Dragon learn to pick up his dumbbell straight (behind both canines, and not sticking out in front of one of them), I was concerned that he still wasn't consistently able to do it. I noticed that he was more reliable when the dumbbell was held in the air or laying on the carpet than on a hard surface, and I wondered if perhaps the bells were too short. I took a video:




And I captured some stills from the video:











Yes, it does look like he is hitting his nose against the floor as he picks it up. Poor guy! This dumbbell has bells that are 4 cm high, and the bit is 4 cm long. I have ordered a new one that is the same length but 5 cm high. Hopefully that will solve the "crooked pick-up" issue. (1 cm is a big difference when you're a tiny dog.)

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 4 recap

I sprained my right ankle on Tuesday morning, but that's no reason to miss agility class today! I sat out the circle work and modified the other exercises so that I could stand in one place. Bobby, the assistant, ran Dragon through the circle work sequences, which included a front cross, 180 pull, acceleration, deceleration, and going through the tunnel a total of three times. I thought that he wouldn't run for her, but once he saw that she had the chicken, he was very happy to do it! A couple of times he looked back at me and ran back to me, but she was able to get his attention back.

I practiced jumping by doing a short lead out and standing by the standard so that Dragon did a collected "jump" (the bars were all on the ground) and turned into me. He can do extended jumping just fine, and I've been wanting to develop his collected jumping/turning skills, so this was great. I also had him run across the dog walk board to his toy thrown ahead, and sent him to the table from a short distance. We had a good time despite the sprained ankle and I was glad that I went.

Update on signals

Laura commented that my proposed signals for down and sit look similar and might be confusing. My reply was, nah, my previous dog didn't get confused on those two and I think Dragon is getting the idea, too. But just in case, I decided to test that theory...

I pulled out Dragon's mat to keep him in one place and make the exercise nice and easy. I asked him to do a couple of "push ups" on a verbal cue and then on the signals (arm bending at elbow and moving up for sit, and bending at elbow and moving outward and then down for down). He started to anticipate switching between the two positions as soon as I started to move my hand. I tricked him and started waving my hand and just slightly moving my arm but resetting him if he switched positions in response to that. He quickly stopped anticipating and waited to see my arm making a full signal.

At this point I gave him the test: I signaled him to sit, rewarded him, and then gave him another signal to sit. He immediately lay down. I reset him in a sit, and signaled him to sit again. Again he lay down. I reset him. I signaled him to down. He did. I signaled him to sit. He did. I signaled again to sit. He immediately and confidently lay down.

This tells me that he can't, at this pont, differentiate between the two signals. He sees one vague signal and understands it to mean "switch to either sit or down, whichever you're not doing right now". But he does have a concept of "sit means sit", not "do the other one". I've tested that before, and did it again to make sure. I gave him the verbal cue to sit and he sat. I repeated the cue "sit" and he stayed sitting. He tensed for movement and blinked at me, but he made no motion to lie down. I reset him and repeated the test, and got the same response with two more "trick" sit cues.

This shows that he understands that if he's given a cue to sit while already sitting, he should hold the position. If he had really understood the sit and down hand signals, he would have stayed sitting when I gave a sit hand signal.

I have two options: continue training with these signals until he does clearly understand the difference, or change one of the signals. I've decided to change it to avoid the frustration and possibility of trial mishaps due to similar signals. I'm going to teach a new sit signal with my left hand, which seems to mostly bring my signals in line with the norm. In this case, I think there's a good reason that there's a tried-and-true method!

I took a video of myself (again, from Tiny Dog's perspective) doing my probable new signals. I included a come front signal this time. I still have to polish it and figure out how best to move so that Dragon can clearly see it, but I'm thinking that the common "bring arm across chest or over shoulder" will fit in well for my left arm.



In a slight segue, I'm planning on wearing a favorite black fleece vest for trials. I wear it a lot in the house (and therefore during training), and I can put it on over a sweater on cold days or just a tshirt on hot days, and show Dragon a consistent picture. My bare arms or light-colored sleeves will provide a good contrast for my arm movements. It has zippered pockets large enough for a number of treats or two small toys. If I wear it around the house and for matches and APDT rally trials it will come to mean that rewards might be pulled out of the pockets at any moment.

2011 in review

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the first day I brought Dragon home, as an eight month old puppy.





His ear fur was starting to grow in but still short:



January was spent learning all about my playful puppy:





Who still had his baby canine teeth!



He learned how to eat raw meaty bones:



To come when called at the park:



To wear silly clothes:



We explored new places:





Grew some more fur:









Made new friends:



And said goodbyes:



Got a total of two baths:



Learned to swim:



And had many adventures:









Here's to 2012. May it bring many more adventures for our pups.

Signals from the dog's point of view

For obedience competition my dog needs to learn to respond to a hand signal to sit, down, and come to front from a distance. I've been brainstorming what use for Dragon's signals. I like to use my right arm to cue my dog, and use it 90% of the time when shaping something new. It would probably be easier to think of distinct, easy-to-interpret signals if I used both arms... oh well. I think I've decided what to use. In order to see whether the signals can be easily understood by Tiny Dog, I took some pictures from a tiny perspective.


I AM A GIANT.
This is the classic hand signal for "sit". My right arm will bend at the elbow and be raised straight up, with the palm facing up. This is similar to the motion I made to lure him into a tuck sit, and he already responds to it (if he is sitting directly in front of me, where the camera is).


This is my improvised stand signal. Technically he doesn't need to be able to respond to a stand signal at a distance for obedience, however I will teach it so that he doesn't just switch between sitting and lying down when we're practicing signals. To prevent unwanted anticipation in competition, the dog must be really watching your cues and responding to each cue, rather than doing what he remembers comes next.

Dragon already has a hand signal to stand but it is messy. I will stop using it and switch to this one.


Down. My previous dog responded to my arm bending up and away from my side as a down signal because I would raise it up to the side and then bring it down in front to lure the down. He started to anticipate the second part and respond to just the arm going out sideways. (This is wanted anticipation!) I like this because it means that I can easily signal all three positions with just one arm. Dragon responds well to this signal. Roughly half the time he lies down when my arm is out to the side and about half the time I have to finish the signal. When I bring my arm down I also push it forward and down toward him, as this reminds him to do a fold-back down instead of crawling forward into a down.

So this all looks great, right? But then I thought about my "spin" signal:

Looks a bit like the "stand", doesn't it? I think this is actually a red herring, though. Dragon is very reliable with the verbal for "spin" so I don't use the hand signal that much. When I do, I keep my hand lower and make a little twirl with my finger. For the "stand", my hand will move toward my stomach in a different way and the hand will be held in a different manner. I expect any initial confusion to fade very quickly. Still, I will be ready to change the "stand" signal if it proves to be a problem.

I haven't decided on a distance signal for coming to front yet, but it will have to be with my left arm so that it doesn't mimic any of these other motions. My left arm will also be used to signal a left finish into heel position, which naturally tends to be a sort of "bring the left arm out and back" movement. My "front" will have to be clearly different, so it will probably involve raising my left hand toward my chest or my head.

Oh yes, there's also the right finish to think about. I could move my right arm backwards or, to avoid adding too many signals to that side, I could simply turn my head all the way to the right. If he's already sitting in front and looking up at my face, this will be a clear signal for him.

...Or will it? I will have to take more pictures to test that theory.

A few extras:

"Turn", the opposite of "spin".


Weave between my legs.


Hop over my foot. He gets these two confused sometimes, because we had practiced leg weaves a lot before I introduced the "hop over my foot" trick, and the reinforcement history wins out. He's improving steadily, though.

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!!