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.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Book review: Teach Your Dog to Read
I read a lot of dog books, but I don't normally post reviews. This was such a cute and creative book, though, that I wanted to spread the word about it. Yes, the title really is Teach Your Dog to Read. It's written by Bonnie Bergin, whose background is working at a center breeding and raising/training service dogs.
I had already seen, in person, a couple of dogs trained to read words. The words are printed in plain black font on white printer paper, large enough to almost fill the page. Click here to see sample cards provided on the book's website. It's easy to get the dog to respond to the first word, because they will assume that any time you show them the giant flash card, it means "down" or "sit" or whichever first word you taught them. Getting the second word, and getting the dog to realize that what's written on the card in important, is the most difficult part. It's an amazing circus trick, it really gets your dog thinking, and there are some interesting real-world applications suggested in the book.
Dr. Bergin has a systematic plan for teaching the dog to really read the words. The dog must first reliably respond to each cue you will be putting on the flash cards on a verbal cue. (Hand signals would also work, but verbals are better because then you can hold totally still and not distract the dog visually from the card.) She suggests starting with "down", a cue which most dogs know well, but is not a default behavior like "sit" is, so the dog is less likely to be just guessing. She gives helpful tips for teaching the dog to lie down when you show him the "down" card: start with your dog standing in front of you, hold very still after you present the card so that the dog can get a good look at it without being distracted, look at the top of the card rather than staring into your dog's eyes, and give the "down" verbal a moment after you present the card. Once your dog reliably lies down when you show him the "down" card, move on to "sit". He will initially lie down, of course, but you will verbally cue him to sit. When the dog is able to discriminate between those two cards, you introduce a third, and at that point your dog will have learned to really look at the cards rather than guessing or anticipating. Stick with "discrete" behaviors at first -- ones which have a clear beginning and end, like stand, playbow, spin, or roll over, rather than heel or stay or back up.
Where the book became really interesting, for me, was in the next section in which she moves on to teaching the dogs to respond to doggie "stick figures". Click here to see the amusing stick figure cards. Dr. Bergin shares some amazing stories of dogs recognizing the meanings of the stick figures without even being taught an association between a verbal cue and that particular card. Talk about revealing the power of the dog's mind! Even though the stick figure stories were more impressive, she does recommend teaching the word cards first, so that the dog is already used to looking carefully at the cards and understanding that they hold some meaning.
There were a few training points I disgreed with. Dr. Bergin writes to advance to the next level of difficulty when your dog is responding correctly three out of five times (60%). That's only slightly better than chance (50%). I would only raise the difficulty when the dog is responding correctly four out of five times (80%), or even better, nine out of ten (90%). She suggests using a calm, quick "no" as a no reward marker. I would prefer to reset the dog without using an NRM, which can be quite stressful for a dog learning a difficult task like this. She suggests asking the dog, "What's it say?" any time their attention wavers without really teaching them that those words mean anything, so it's unlikely to get the dog to actually concentrate on the card. Finally, when working on responding to a sign showing a circle with a line going through it to mean "leave it", she suggests bopping the dog on the nose if he tries to approach the forbidden item. However, these are all minor points, and overall the book presents a comprehensive training plan that is easy to follow for any person who wants to teach their dog this neat skill.
She had some impressive ideas for truly utilizing a dog's ability to read. It allows the dog to communicate to his owner what he wants in that moment by approaching the appropriate card on the wall, such as water, food, or potty. For a person with diabetes or other health problems, the dog could clearly indicate a card meaning low blod sugar or some other warning. For cancer detection dogs that have learned how to identify bladder, prostate, ovarian, and breast cancer cells in urine samples, they could indicate the appropriate cards to tell us what kind of cancer they smell, or "nothing" if no cancer is present. Amazing stuff.
If you love teaching your dog new tricks, and you're up for a challenge, I would highly recommend that you give this a try. I guarantee that everyone who sees it will be beyond impressed that your dog can read! Dragon and I have plenty of other stuff to work on right now (agility, obedience, nosework, freestyle...), but eventually I plan to pursue reading with him.
I had already seen, in person, a couple of dogs trained to read words. The words are printed in plain black font on white printer paper, large enough to almost fill the page. Click here to see sample cards provided on the book's website. It's easy to get the dog to respond to the first word, because they will assume that any time you show them the giant flash card, it means "down" or "sit" or whichever first word you taught them. Getting the second word, and getting the dog to realize that what's written on the card in important, is the most difficult part. It's an amazing circus trick, it really gets your dog thinking, and there are some interesting real-world applications suggested in the book.
Dr. Bergin has a systematic plan for teaching the dog to really read the words. The dog must first reliably respond to each cue you will be putting on the flash cards on a verbal cue. (Hand signals would also work, but verbals are better because then you can hold totally still and not distract the dog visually from the card.) She suggests starting with "down", a cue which most dogs know well, but is not a default behavior like "sit" is, so the dog is less likely to be just guessing. She gives helpful tips for teaching the dog to lie down when you show him the "down" card: start with your dog standing in front of you, hold very still after you present the card so that the dog can get a good look at it without being distracted, look at the top of the card rather than staring into your dog's eyes, and give the "down" verbal a moment after you present the card. Once your dog reliably lies down when you show him the "down" card, move on to "sit". He will initially lie down, of course, but you will verbally cue him to sit. When the dog is able to discriminate between those two cards, you introduce a third, and at that point your dog will have learned to really look at the cards rather than guessing or anticipating. Stick with "discrete" behaviors at first -- ones which have a clear beginning and end, like stand, playbow, spin, or roll over, rather than heel or stay or back up.
Where the book became really interesting, for me, was in the next section in which she moves on to teaching the dogs to respond to doggie "stick figures". Click here to see the amusing stick figure cards. Dr. Bergin shares some amazing stories of dogs recognizing the meanings of the stick figures without even being taught an association between a verbal cue and that particular card. Talk about revealing the power of the dog's mind! Even though the stick figure stories were more impressive, she does recommend teaching the word cards first, so that the dog is already used to looking carefully at the cards and understanding that they hold some meaning.
There were a few training points I disgreed with. Dr. Bergin writes to advance to the next level of difficulty when your dog is responding correctly three out of five times (60%). That's only slightly better than chance (50%). I would only raise the difficulty when the dog is responding correctly four out of five times (80%), or even better, nine out of ten (90%). She suggests using a calm, quick "no" as a no reward marker. I would prefer to reset the dog without using an NRM, which can be quite stressful for a dog learning a difficult task like this. She suggests asking the dog, "What's it say?" any time their attention wavers without really teaching them that those words mean anything, so it's unlikely to get the dog to actually concentrate on the card. Finally, when working on responding to a sign showing a circle with a line going through it to mean "leave it", she suggests bopping the dog on the nose if he tries to approach the forbidden item. However, these are all minor points, and overall the book presents a comprehensive training plan that is easy to follow for any person who wants to teach their dog this neat skill.
She had some impressive ideas for truly utilizing a dog's ability to read. It allows the dog to communicate to his owner what he wants in that moment by approaching the appropriate card on the wall, such as water, food, or potty. For a person with diabetes or other health problems, the dog could clearly indicate a card meaning low blod sugar or some other warning. For cancer detection dogs that have learned how to identify bladder, prostate, ovarian, and breast cancer cells in urine samples, they could indicate the appropriate cards to tell us what kind of cancer they smell, or "nothing" if no cancer is present. Amazing stuff.
If you love teaching your dog new tricks, and you're up for a challenge, I would highly recommend that you give this a try. I guarantee that everyone who sees it will be beyond impressed that your dog can read! Dragon and I have plenty of other stuff to work on right now (agility, obedience, nosework, freestyle...), but eventually I plan to pursue reading with him.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
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.
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.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
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.
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.
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.
Dumbbell game
Dragon used to have a problem with picking up the dumbbell crooked in his mouth. We've been playing with burying his dumbbell in a blanket to teach him to drive down and really think about how he's picking it up. We've finally made progress!
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