Social stuff

After a small question session with a professional, it seems I may have to adjust my course expectations somewhat. Yes, confidence building is absolutely possible – but there is also a possibility of ‘I am being cued to do something so I will totally focus there instead of at the scary thing!’ She recommended making sure what we do is something Fenris really enjoys (such as tricks and jumping – at least as much as we can get away with), and also give him the opportunity to make un-cued good choices.

I absolutely did that too – sniffing, distance work, etc. – but tightly focused heeling at close quarters might be equally much a distraction/management technique, as it might be a confidence building exercise. Oh well, I learn something new every day. I wasn’t completely wrong with my ideas, but there were some additional factors I hadn’t considered.

And I guess there’s nothing wrong with teaching him we CAN manage a difficult situation that way. You don’t need to bark at it, you can focus on mommy instead, and she’ll take you safely past the scary thing.

Review October:

Come 2 – Drip, drip, drip. Improvements, certainly, but it’s a long way to Tipperary. (And I don’t think he’d be able to hear me call him all the way from Ireland to Norway…) Added a big arm-signal for outdoors.

Lazy Leash 2 – This mostly works out quite well. He is much better at checking up on me, after getting a treat. Length of focused walk… maybe five to ten steps at most? It’s not that he’s supposed to walk pretty for 30 minutes – that’s neither realistic, nor fun, but I’d like that he doesn’t rush ahead – even if I’m out of treats for the walk.

Focus 2 – 16 sec pluss at heel, outside 4-6 seconds, depending.

Target 2 – We had one more session, and it’s not really good. Doors popping closed are still worrisome.

Zen 2 – Minor work on cloths on the floor. Using alternate behaviour of sit/down/play with a kid for the dishwasher.

Tricks – We got our diploma for the second challenge. Working on jumping over leg, over back. PANG, Crawl, Figure Eight, Mellom, Middle… He’s a bit confused, but we are having fun. He loves jumping in particular.

Distance 2 and Jump 2 in ‘Steps to Success’ is down pat, though I may have to rework Distance 2.5 (go round a door). Been using it without really proofing it, so I’m thinking the cue is deteriorating. Tried go’round as part of a send out, and his directions are still a mess.

Relax 2 has a cute “BANG”+gun finger cue occasionally even from standing, and we’ve worked up to 15+15+15 seconds with play between.

Handling 2 we have passed step 1, and we are working on step 2. Handling feet is the next thing to make sure is good.

L2 Handling Step 1 – The dog allows you to touch her head, tail, and feet.
L2 Handling Step 2 – The dog allows you to handle her ears, muzzle and feet. L2 Handling Step 3 – The dog allows you to brush her ears, muzzle, body, feet, and tail. L2 Handling Step 4 – Dog allows clippers, pills, thermometer and tooth brush. L2 Handling Step 5 – The dog allows herself to be pushed and prodded.

Training Levels Steps to Success, by Sue Ailsby – index page

• Steps to Success, at level 2, also includes a chapter on Tricks , and Communication 2 – Well, tricks are mentioned above, and we have just about started on ‘Excuse Me’ – aka ‘back up out of my space’.

In Awesome Obedience:

• Continue heeling Cone-to-Cone, varying directions and movements and setups. – Ayup.
• Heads-up heeling with focus – Less than I should have done, but we got some work in to energise while at the outdoors course.
• Get back to Tucked Sit – Some work. He gets it better, he seems to have a decent understanding of the fist-cue, but it’s far from proofed.
• Start the Forward Stand – Nope. Some decent work on the Kick-back stand instead.
• Revisit Lateral (aka Sideways) movement – Ugh. Nightmare.
• Get fluency in halts/forward motion. – Nope
• Revisit Right Pivots – And nope.

Plan for November:

Courses

Obedience group training weeks 46 and 48. The first homework set here is getting duration and stillness to a hold, so that’s on the agenda for the first whole week of November.

Funny thing (in an ironic ‘funny’ way); I read up on the requirements for the first Obedience title – bronze – and the very first item on the list, which was make or break: The dog sits and gets a brief examination (like teeth, etc) by the judge. Fenris’ probable reaction to that would have disqualified him immediately… So I think we stick to Rally.

Awesome Obedience

Continue Sit-Down for the first whole week. Get those last ten centimeters in to heel position. There’s probably a focus thing going on here – to look back up at me his body will naturally curve around, instead of being straight. Need to teach him to look up, rather than sideways.

Kick-back Stand rest of the month. Using a platform or mat, it’s not so bad, but a front-leg target should help vs ‘creeping forwards’, as well as avoiding the angling.

Steps to Success

Come 2 – distraction training drips on rotation

Lazy Leash 2 – first week indoor work with collar pressure, second week work up to 5 steps back and forth indoors. Third week 10 steps, still inside. (And we do basic work on our normal walks in addition, of course.) Fourth week mix very basic floor Zen with LL, and do the week 1 stuff on the porch.

Focus 2 – drips on rotation; work up heel focus from 16 seconds and up, and outside focus from 4 up.

Target 2 – second week we see if we can try again. Maybe go back to Post-It on hand, then work up to Post-It on wall. Walls don’t move, so should be less scary.

Zen 2 – drips on rotation.

Distance 2.5 – go’round doors revisited first week.

Handling 2 – drip, drip, drip.

Relax 2 – working up the durations, drip, drip, drip

Communication 2 – backing up, and moving back to the left out of personal space. The easy bit here is teaching the trick ‘excuse me’/he backs up. The hard part is building up a history of reinforcement for backing to the left, enough that I can TRUST this when my hands are full of hot dinner pots and I’m coming straight towards him. Knowing which way your pet will move can be the difference between dinner and the ER – and I know what I’d prefer.

Tricks

Work the crawl and the back jump, as well as his figure eights. Challenge III should be coming out mid november. No idea what we’ll be aiming for.

This means for week 45:

The drip, drip, drip stuff (i.e. stuff where I do a tiny bit as often as possible to build up a history of reinforcement). Pluss:

• Hold a dummy stick
• Sit-Down
• Collar Pressure
• Go’round doors