Flying Poodles

It’s not all about the testosterone….

Yesterday was Rush’s first puppy agility class, with Dana Stillinger at Best Friends Agility School. There were eight dogs there (I think it was eight, it was busy, anyway). There was a tunnel and some hoops. There is a homework assignment. It was a wild and hectic hour, with dogs barking (Rush was one of them), running, and learning.

Rush did really well. He was mostly focused on me; he played with his tug without hesitating; he took treats at all times (although he got kind of sharky as he got excited).

Fear period?

I’ve never much believed in the idea of fear periods with dogs, because the research just isn’t there. But… about six weeks ago, Rush decided he was worried about the vet. So worried, in fact, that he told her not to touch him. Paige tried to listen to his heart; he growled, and very, very gently put his mouth around her arm. The message was clear: I could bite you if I wanted to, so don’t do that. He really didn’t want to be held by anyone but me.

With the help of Greta Kaplan (a professional behaviorist and a friend who knows Rush well), I started a plan to make sure he was okay at the vet. I took him to the vet’s office, fed him lots of treats and played with his ball, and left. The vet’s cooperated by letting me take him into an examining room and give him treats there and play with him there. I did that two or three times a week for a month; every time I was anywhere near the vet I stopped in. I had everyone who was handy give him treats.

I held him by wrapping my arm around his body (the position a vet will use for restraint during some procedures) and threw his ball. After I threw it, I released him and told him to get his ball. He got more tolerant of being held.

I asked people who knew him well, that he trusts, to touch him gently and then give him treats.

Yesterday he finally went to the vet for the appointment that was scheduled in November; his anal glands were checked (they were clogged in October and needed to be re-checked); he got his rabies shot.

I took in about two cups of treats: mixed hot dog bits, chicken hearts, and kibble. I took his ball. I played with him and gave him some treats while the vet tech and I talked; Paige came in and did the same thing. While he had his anal glands checked, I fed him treats, and he did okay, just turning a few times to glare at Paige.

He was quite clear he didn’t want the rabies shot; he tried to bite the syringe and refused to be held, by me or by Paige. I made a big show of rattling the treat container, opened it, and let him eat right from the container. While he wolfed down the treats, Paige gave him his shot, and I don’t think he even noticed. He got a few more treats and we left.

What caused his “fear period”? I have no idea. My theory is that it’s related to the surging levels of testosterone in his body.

I obviously need to continue taking him by the clinic for regular treat-and-play visits, and I need to continue to work on handling him, but the progress was palpable.

Rush and the onset of adolescence

Rush will be eight months old next week (January 11th). He is showing all the signs of impending adolescence. Testosterone peaks at 8-10 months; I can tell he’s changing. He has a deep manly bark; his muscles are maturing; his testicles are larger and he’s feeling a little more touchy about things. (I thought about using the word “testy”, but since the root is the same as the one for testicle and testosterone it didn’t seem to bring anything to the party.) He got into a nasty little squabble with his brother Clooney about a tennis ball a few days ago but once it was over they were friends again. He’s easily distracted by just about everything. He’s 50 pounds now, 23″ or so, and so strong that I worry about falling over when we play tug.

He reminds me of a 15 year old boy. I met a lot of them when I was teaching. They’re not sure of their place in the pecking order, and they’re worried about everything. They’re inclined to say things like “why are you looking at me?” and they lash out at their best friends for no reason at all.

At least Rush doesn’t have acne. So it could be worse.

He does have a bad grooming job, though. I had to clip all three dogs down, after I found fleas on Elly. They all got clipped and had a bath, the house got cleaned within an inch of its life, and they’ve had a topical flea treatment. A whole lot less scratching is going on, although I still have the creeps from the whole thing. Gack! It was like finding head lice on your kid; you have to tell everyone who might have gotten them, and it’s just so embarrassing.

Consistent contacts

My new year’s resolution of note: consistent criteria for contacts consistently kept.

I managed to do that today in two NADAC regular runs. Round 1 I stopped and marked it when Dancer jumped her a-frame contact — and then she stopped nicely for her dogwalk contact. Round 2, after I sent her off course to a tunnel, I brought her around again and she did the best a-frame I’ve ever seen her do in competition, no perching, with a perfect stop. (She stopped on the dogwalk too, shame about the offcourse.)

Dancer got a Q in NADAC Jumpers (and I have proof)

Video here: Dancer runs Jumpers.

2012

I have always liked to use the end of one year and the beginning of the next as a time to reflect on what’s gone well (and what hasn’t) and to plan for the coming year.

So: 2011 has been a good-but-not-quite-as-good-as-I’d-hoped year in agility competition and training. Dancer and I are still struggling with her contacts, although Debbie recently made some very helpful observations about Dancer’s contacts (more below). Dancer qualified for CPE Nationals in June of 2012 (two weeks before my daughter’s wedding!). She turned five in June, and she seems to really be coming into her own, with confidence and verve. I look forward to next year.

The observation Debbie made is that Dancer stops when I stop and starts when I start; she jumps the contact if I pause and then accelerate. I experimented with that today, at a NADAC funraiser (just did Chances and Jumpers and then left–there are three more days to come!): I stopped dead while she was on the dogwalk, and she stopped dead too. Okay, I can work with that. I’ve known for years that Dancer is very sensitive to my motion; I hadn’t realized she’s that sensitive!

Looking ahead, of course a lot of what I’m thinking about is the CPE Nationals and getting ready for that: I need to make sure Dancer’s teeter and contacts are the best they can be; I need to train the double and triple jumps; I need to train the chute.

Besides Dancer, there’s training Rush. At seven-and-a-half months, Rush is starting to show his boy-ness. (I’m trying hard not to think of it as testosterone poisoning, but it’s pretty obvious the testosterone is kicking in.) I think (looking back) that I’ve done a pretty good job on the basics. He mostly listens to me; he pees on cue; he’s fit and happy; he loves Jay; he cooperates with most things (although right now he’s not fond of his vet at all!); he understands that if the clicker’s out, it’s time to try new things. But 2012? If all goes well, he’ll start competition this year! That’s a scary thought.

Does all that add up to New Year’s resolutions? I suppose these are they:

Be completely consistent about Dancer’s contacts.
Prepare myself and Dancer thoroughly and appropriately for CPE Nationals.
Make sure Rush’s experiences with learning agility are consistently rewarding for him. (Corollary: try not to worry about when he’s ready–just make sure that he is ready before we enter our first competition!)

Operant dogs….

The word “operant” in the context of dog training, means a dog that actively tries to figure out what you want as soon as you bring out your clicker and treats, and then tries to give you what you want, within the limits of its ability and understanding. A operant dog is having a good time playing the game with you, too.

I woke up with a nasty cold this morning, and it was several hours after I woke up before I felt like doing anything with the dogs, and even then, what I felt like doing was tiring them out so we could all go back to bed.

How to tire the dogs out quickly? Well, making them think usually works. I set up the Bosu ball, round side down, and I played with Rush on the Bosu for a while. It’s hard work, balancing on it with all four feet, and if I make him pivot and balance, it’s even harder. But he loves the game so much that I have to keep the Bosu hidden when I don’t want him to play on it. So I did that with Rush.

Dancer watched Rush get a lot of treats on the Bosu, and she came in and put a paw on it and looked at me. She does not like the Bosu. It moves, and motion is not something she likes. I gave her a treat for thinking about it, put the Bosu away, and took all the dogs down to the lawn to play for a bit. Then I put Rush and Elly inside, and I put the Bosu back out and looked at Dancer. She looked at me and very carefully put one foot on the Bosu, very slowly. Click!

She took her foot off, and I could see her brains whirl and steam start coming out her ears. She put one foot on, and I just looked at her, and she very slowly put the other foot on, trying to keep the Bosu from moving when she did it. Click! and I threw the treat away from the Bosu so she had to come back. She was a little more vehement this time, and it moved a little. Click! Now I wanted her to step on the Bosu a little, make it rock a bit. She did. Click! It took about ten treats until she was willing to rock the Bosu when she landed with her front paws, and the last time she ran over and did it without hesitation, so I gave her the rest of the treats and put the Bosu away.

I’ve assumed that she wouldn’t ever be able to stand on the Bosu with all four feet, but now I’m thinking she could get there. Something to try, anyway.

Enthusiasm

I started to write a post about how I trained Rush to go to yet another foot target, but in between the first sentence and the second sentence, I went to the bathroom and when I came back I realized even the first sentence was boring, so I changed my mind.

Enthusiasm.

I think everyone who competes in a dog sport wants a dog that is enthusiastic about the task at hand. And yet, at agility trials, we’ve all seen a dog or two or three that is not interested, thank you very much. Just before I retired Elly, she was one of them. In practice, with a warmup and a chance to go slow and no pressure, she was fine, even danced a bit with excitement from time to time; at trials, not so much. At the end of two days of trialing, Dancer isn’t that excited to be coming to the line for the tenth time, either.

I think training a dog so that, every single time, the dog thinks “oh my bone my bone my bone, this is the best damn thing in the whole world” as they come to the line is possibly the hardest thing ever. It means, as Debbie Berkley says, that when you’re playing tug with your dog in the presence of agility equipment, you can’t scream when your dog bites you instead of the tug toy… because you want the dog to think playing with you is always always really amazing. It means, as I’ve observed Paige do (not say), that your dog needs to be having fun. And as she says… it’s the dog that defines what’s fun. For Dancer, that means a lively game of keepaway is a fabulous reward; for Rush, it’s chasing a ball. (He brings it back, though, because that means he gets to chase again.)

And it means you don’t slow your dog down just because it would be easier; it means you figure out a way to let your dog be fast and focused.

I’m working on the fast and focused part with Rush right now. Today we played with tunnels and jump standards and going away from me to go into a long straight tunnel. Oh yeah, and a few foot targets at the end of the dogwalk. At this point, all he’s doing is the last three feet of the dogwalk, but Debbie insists that he go right to the end, no hesitating. The target is definitely helping with that!

Working on a right turn

I know lots of people who can say “right!” and their dog turns right; they say “left!” and their dog turns left. With Elly–agility dog number 1 and a wicked sense of humor–I relied entirely on body language. With Dancer, I inadvertently taught “this way” and “that way” long before I realized there were other possibilities. With Rush, I’m actually trying to teach him his left from his right. This is a challenge for me, partly because I struggle with left and right myself. I had trouble learning the difference, and didn’t manage it until third grade, when my parents subjected me to a whole lot of vaccinations just before we went to Istanbul and Greece. (My left arm was sore for a week.)

I spent an entire clicker class clicking Rush for turning his head 90 degrees right. Then I started saying “right!” just as he was doing it, and then I said “right!” and looked for him to do it and rewarded him when he did. I knew I was making progress, but how much?

Yesterday at the Delta, Dancer and Rush were trotting about twenty feet ahead of me, shoulder to shoulder; I called “right!” and they both looked right, in a pretty simultaneous head turn, and I then called them back to me and gave them both lots of treats.

I’m sure this sounds kind of pathetic, but it was the high point of my day.

Two-tunnel games

I set up two curved tunnels, like this:

(—-25—-)

where there was about twenty-five feet between the ends of the tunnels.

For Rush, I stood in the center, like this:

(—-+—-)

and I sent Rush to one end of one tunnel, then did a front cross and sent him to the other tunnel. I could also send him straight, or pull him tight to send him back into the same tunnel he just came out of.

It was a great way to teach front crosses, and Rush enjoyed it. Today I tried it with a jump (bar on the ground, of course) and a tunnel, and he still read the front crosses correctly.

For Dancer, I stood outside the circle, like this:

(———)
—–+—–

and I used “out” and “here”, combined with a step toward the tunnels and a step away from the tunnels to send Dancer to the tunnel end I had in mind. She did circles and figure 8s, just like Rush, but I never crossed her path, and I didn’t do any front or rear crosses; I did path management by drawing the path, using verbals (“out” and “here”) and pressure on her line (step in, step out).

As Dancer and I got better at the game, I stepped further away from the tunnels, like this:

(———)

—–+—–

Tunnels seem to work well for this game, I think because they’re a big obvious target, don’t involve a lot of calculation (no take-off-point), and don’t present complicated angles.