Flying Poodles

Woohoo!

NADAC top 10 by breed published. Dancer was #4 standard poodle in chances and regular, #3 in jumpers, and #3 in tunnelers. What an amazing girl she is!

Tile target

I set out this morning to start from scratch on building target enthusiasm. (In yesterday’s lesson, Debbie admired Rush’s front crosses but said he was “ho-hum” about the tile target.) I sat in our hall (least possible distractions) with a bunch of treats and the tile (and the girls in puppy jail in my office).

(The tile is a plain white bathroom tile, left over from the last bathroom repair. It’s heavy, so it doesn’t move.)

Rush figured out pretty quickly that I was rewarding paw-on-tile. (We have played with a tile foot target before, but Debbie wants more drive to get his paw on it before we use it for dogwalk training.)

After about fifteen treats, he very carefully lifted his left paw off the tile and put it back down carefully right next to the tile (but not touching it). He looked at me, I looked at him. He picked up his *right* paw and very carefully put it in the middle of the tile. I rewarded.

He experimented with that for a bit, until he was quite sure I was rewarding either paw.

Then he started experimenting with different placements of paw-on-tile. How much paw was I requiring? I was requiring at least one toenail on the tile–because I could hear his toenail click against the tile. After a bit of that, I started throwing cookies a few feet away every few cookies, so that his paw had to come off the tile and he had to come back to the tile. That was to try to get drive to the tile. He trotted in nicely; next session, I take it outside so he can get some real distance and speed.

Training front crosses

I’ve been working on training front crosses with Rush. I’ve trained him beautifully to do one obstacle or two or three in a line and then go to a thrown toy, or come to me to tug. Front crosses mean training him to go past me to an obstacle on cue. Before I went on vacation, Debbie and I worked on getting his focus on the obstacles by putting his toy on the other side of an obstacle and away from me (she hid it if he went to it without taking the obstacle; it really helps to have training assistance!). I’ve kept on working on obstacle focus in classes with Dana and during my barn times.

Yesterday, I could see it click in with him. I set up a c-shaped tunnel and a jump, like this:

\ <--jump
c <--tunnel

Obviously the c was bigger than that--just trying to communicate the idea. I stood off the the side of the tunnel, like this:

\
x <--that's me
c

and sent Rush over the jump with my left hand (away from the tunnel) and front-crossed the jump so that he wrapped the jump standard and was pointed at the tunnel (on my right side now), then sent him to the tunnel; when he came out of the tunnel, I front-crossed again, which put him back on the left side and back in starting position.

I started the exercise with the jump/wrap portion, until he was wrapping the standard pretty tightly. (He's only nine months, so of course there was no jump bar, just the lower bar of the jump itself, at about four inches.) I rewarded for a tight and fast turn. Then, I did the jump->tunnel two-obstacle sequence and threw his toy to the end of the tunnel. He did that beautifully. I added in the front cross back and rewarded at me side when he got there. Then I did the whole sequence, with the two front crosses, and we had a party. Big party, lots of play! Then I did the whole sequence again, just because I could, and because it was so much fun.

(Rush and I are having some issues with his tugging. If there’s agility equipment around, he just doesn’t want to let go. It reminds me of the Susan Garrett video about building drive by being a bad dog trainer. Obviously, I’m the bad dog trainer here. I’ve got to work on his “give!” cue.)

Class with Dancer

I am also taking a class with Dancer. When we got thrown out of the trial so ignominiously last fall, the official letter from NADAC said that I should work on off-leash control. Well, I did some testing, and basically, she reacts really strongly to dogs that run by within about eight feet. More than eight feet, it’s sort of okay. More than eight feet gives me a chance to get her attention back, that is. She still reacts, but I have a chance to get her attention back. So I’m fine in single-ring trials, where the dogs are at a good distance. She might get excited while the preceding dog runs, but she’s not going to lose self-control. But two ring trials? I need help.

What happened at the trial last fall was that the dog in the next ring swung wide and was right next to the fence; I had Dancer in her start-line stay right next to the fence. A “perfect storm” of stimuli. When the dog ran near her, just the other side of a barely-there fence, she decided chasing the dog was in order, and I completely lost her to the other ring. No damage, just some serious racing and chasing. The other dog got a chance to rerun and Q’d, thankfully. I would have felt awful if she hadn’t.

So I’m taking a Control Unleashed class with Greta Kaplan, skilled trainer and observer of dogs. I missed the first class (I was in Hawaii, what can you do?) but Sunday was our first class. We worked on being calm and settling on a mat. Dancer thought that was pretty easy. “You mean, I lie here and you rain treats down on me? Cool.” When I unclipped her leash and said nothing, with her contained within a ring of gates, she stood in the corner and waited for me to say “okay”, then wandered and sniffed until she saw herself in the mirror; she stared at herself for a long time, huffing slightly and wagging her tag very slowly and stiffly. The tail wagging and the huffing were her signs of stress; she didn’t know who the dog was, and it wasn’t behaving properly; it stared, it looked stress. Finally she looked away, a calming signal. So, of course, did the mirror dog. Back on leash, I took her to the mirror, where she sniffed once and relaxed. It wasn’t another poodle after all.

Later, back on her mat and fairly relaxed, a big black poodle mix who’s also in the class in the class–80 pound poodle mix–walked (on leash) past us at about six feet of distance, she barked once, sharply. So even though she’d was pretty relaxed, the close proximity of the dog concerned her.

I am hoping the class will help me to recognize when Dancer is stressed and learn how to help her relieve her stress. Just the observational skills alone will help; the exercises are both fascinating and useful.

(This class is based on the book Control Unleashed: Creating a Focused and Confident Dog, a DVD set of the exercises is also available from Clean Run or Dogwise.)

Visit to the vet’s (very boring)

Took Rush to the vet’s today. Gave him his anti-anxiety meds; he was unfazed by Paige’s expressing his anal glands. This is good. His weight was 50.5 pounds.

Dancer has gained two pounds in the last month! She weighed 55 pounds. She’s going to be getting a lot of vegetables and not much kibble for a while.

Proofing….

I’ve mentioned that I’m taking a class with Rush. I’d describe it as chaotic, but that’s not right. More like…. as busy as a really crowded trial.

Yesterday we finished with an exercise to work on good stays. All ten of us lined up across the arena (so 10 of us across 80 feet), dogs on left in a sit. Dana (Stillinger) told us to reward our dogs for sitting quietly at our side while she talked to us, including occasionally saying our names and the dogs’ names. She summarized the class and the homework (about 5 minutes). Then, she pointed at us, one by one, and we had to leave our dog in a sit, step out five to ten feet, and release/call the dog to come to us. The other dogs were to stay in their sits. After being released, the dog and handler went back into line. Once all the dogs had been “tested”, we moved to half the distance apart (four feet) and repeated the exercise.

I was surprised by how very successful the dogs were at staying while one dog at a time was released. It’s a foundation class, full of younger dogs. None of the dogs barked; only one dog failed to come promptly when called (and he’d been struggling with that all class).

One of the reasons I’m taking this class is that I’ve seen how well Dana’s students do at their first trials. The dog always has a rock-solid stay, and even if they get the zoomies, the handlers don’t panic and they easily get the dog under control quickly. What I saw yesterday is why. It’s not just the stay exercise; during class she had three work stations (with an assistant at each station, volunteers from WAG (Willamette Agility Group) who train at the barn too); if a dog started to run off, the handler shouts “incoming!” and it’s everyone’s job to get their dog immediately under physical control. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it works, and the dogs quickly learn that the rewards come fast and furious … but only from their own handlers. Dana reminded all of us to keep the reward rate as high as possible.

Training recalls

I took Rush and Dancer to the Delta this morning for a nice off-leash walk. They both took off at a dead run as soon as I took off their leashes; Rush ran as fast as he could in a straight line away from me, about 100 yards, and then turned around and ran back to me just as fast. Dancer just loped along. It’s a cool, windy, sunny day today and I could tell the dogs were ecstatic to be out and running. (I left Elly home; she’s been a little stiff and I wanted her to rest.)

Whenever I go to the Delta, I always take a bag of their favorite treats (the chicken liver and oatmeal ones), and I recall them, give them a treat, and send them off again, over and over and over and over. Sometimes I put the leash on and walk for a little bit, ten paces or sometimes more. I call by signaling for a hand touch; I call their names; I whistle their “come here now” whistle (it has four notes); I whistle their “I’ve got a treat if you come” whistle (two notes); I turn around and run away from them. Sometimes I ask them to stop halfway to me and go to them with the treat. It all helps them learn to come when called.

It makes me crazy to be at a dog park and see owners trying to get their dogs to come to them, without luck. It’s because the only time they call their dogs is when they’re going to put the dog in the car, and the dogs know that. So everyone ends up annoyed (or angry)… and the dog thinks being called means bad news. I want my dog thinking “oh, if I go back, I’ll get a cookie, and then I can run some more!”

Recovering from vacation

I left the dogs with the world’s best poodle sitter for two weeks and went to Hawaii. I know, tough life. It was wonderful, but of course I came back to dogs who could best be described as the equivalent of children who spent two weeks at Grandma’s. The dogs expect cookies for everything! They’ve had a lot of “candy” the last few weeks.

I went right back into my version of “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” (TANSTAAFL). I expect the dogs to get into the car nicely; I expect them to walk into the agility barn on a loose leash; I expect them to wait calmly on their mats for their lunch; I expect Rush to be polite to Elly and Dancer; I expect all three dogs to be polite to me! (There are more rules, but that’s a start.)

Dancer and Elly have been through this before and swung right back into the routine. Rush is struggling a bit with the rules. “What?!” he says, “I have to earn my lunch? I have to earn my cookies?”

This afternoon, I interrupted the dogs’ nap time (after agility practice at the barn, which went astonishingly well) and worked on group WAITs. I asked them to sit, told them to WAIT, and walked to the end of the hall. I didn’t release them; I asked them to DOWN. Dancer and Elly downed* nicely; Rush got up and started walking toward me. Then he stopped, looked back at Elly and Dancer (who were both in nice sphinx-style downs), and sank slowly into a down, about halfway to me. You could actually see the thought process.

I did one more repeat, Rush downed* a little faster this time; I’ll work on it some more tomorrow.

*Dear Grammar Police: in dog training, “to down” is a verb meaning “to lay down”. Deal with it; it’s not a new coinage. Diana

Proofing Waits

If one is proofing bread dough, one is letting it rise (which, I suppose, proves that the yeast is growing well); if one is proofing dog behavior, one is making sure that the dog understands what is expected of him (her) no matter what distractions there are.

Let us take a particularly egregious example: Dancer is incapable of attention to me (or anyone) in the presence of a cat. Cats fascinate her. She desperately hopes they’ll run, so that she can chase. How would I proof Dancer’s behavior against cats? I’d have to start with a cooperative cat (perhaps a stuffed one?) at a distance where Dancer could pay attention, reward heavily for attention, then move slightly closer… and repeat over and over and over.

At this point, with Dancer almost six and that distance at over 100 feet, I’m not sure I’ll do anything other than manage the behavior. Thankfully, I have never seen a cat at an agility trial.

However, I am proofing Rush’s waits, the same way I proofed Dancer’s (having learned from Elly). Wait to me means: pay attention, stay in exactly that position, and wait for me to release you. It’s an attention behavior. (Actually, having learned from Dancer as well as Elly, I am going back and proofing Dancer’s waits too.) I started with a sit-wait for Rush. Sit there, wait while I take a step back, step forward, reward for the wait, say “okay” as a release word… The classic three D’s of any dog training: duration, distance, distraction. Once I thought Rush understood sit-wait, I started training stand-wait and down-wait. (Down-wait is the weakest at this point.)

I kept training waits (in any position). I added distance, I added weird behaviors (like dancing and singing before I said “okay”). I pounded on the tunnel with his toy (and put it away and took him back to his original position when he broke his wait). I walked in a circle behind him; I dropped his toy… He’s getting really good at waiting to be released.

I’m almost ready to try again asking him to wait while I do something with Dancer…. The last time I tried that, it was a spectacular failure; I ended with two poodles happily playing with each other and ignoring me.

The best pink poodle ever!

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a slight thing for pink poodles. This sculpture is in front of the Palm Springs humane society:

Details about the sculpture and its creators available here: Barone Art.