Steps to Success

Door zen – practiced stay while mum picked up the leash, as well as opening the door. Same for the car.

Focus – 3-4 steps left side, 2-3 steps right side. Full pivot circle at the course.

Handling – picking up feet and holding them for a couple of seconds. Using a towel to remove ice between his toes. Brushing, adding a small touch with the brush to the body part as a kind of question “may I do this bit?” with his chin rest as a positive response. Otherwise he gets a bit startled when I suddenly change from for example a leg to the tail.

Social

Triggered at the sound of the neighbour pulling up their garbage can. I was out of treats at the time and couldn’t do much with it – although he seemed to be within ‘treat-range’ mentally.

The obedience course showed him from his absolute best. Superb focus, extremely fast flipping his inner switch from foe to friend (although a few treats thrown on the ground away from the object of course helps; 3x calming – food, search, turn away.).

During the first interval he did the meet & greet, then on to paw targets with trailing leash. During his second interval he was perfectly fine with letting the object hold the leash to a restrained recall. And he’d never greeted her before today! The third interval was spent on paw targets again, increasing distance, and the fourth was a beautiful pivot session. I left the course 15 minutes early, while we were still happy and awesome together.

Also I got compliments for my distance-increase technique – which is really reinforcing for me! I learnt it from the book Awesome Obedience; a half step back as Fenris turns to come back from the mat to get his reward. This increases his speed and very subtly increases distance for the next repetition.

I really wish I could get some videos or photos, but so far it’s been dark all the time. Maybe as we near the end of February or get into March.

Obedience

CANIS 19 Foundations

• Targeting Monday. Paw whack on a potholder or mousemat. I mostly just need to remember what my cue is supposed to be. Did again at course Tuesday – 7 meter distance, using his ordinary settling mat.
• Recalls Tuesday. Restrained from helper at course. Some 20 m pluss, decent speed and good focus.
• Down on verbal cue Wednesday. Working the formal down (Dekk), criteria straight hips, rather than the settled down (Ligg, hips falling to the side). Not entirely pleased with the rest of the behaviour though; he sort of flops/skids forward with his front paws, leading to a forward creep over several repetitions. This is why I want a proper platform to train on.

TEAM – pivots and coming to heel. A little variable early in the week, but at the course he was a champion of nose up focus and synchronised pivoting. I was extremely impressed. Coming to heel is also getting very solid. Pivoted outside in the garden on Wednesday, and as long as I had his focus (little birds are rather distracting), his behaviour was solid – even without a platform. (90 degree turns) Actually think I’ll work on some right hand pivots the rest of the week, to keep balance.

Awesome Obedience – only done one session on stationing, but he did pretty well. No duration yet, though. At the course – instead of doing mat stations (icy cold), I worked his car door zen on the way out to sessions, which builds some of the same mental muscles; patience, attention, waiting.

Agility

Front Cross introduction. A little unsure, but inside willing to work for the new kibble. Outside, VERY distracted by neighbour pulling up her garbage can. Got one rep – which was nice. Afterwards couldn’t even look at me. Next time we tried it with me throwing the toy instead of placing it first. Since I had it in my hands I was a lot more interesting… Wednesday I did a couple of repetitions for thrown cheese, and later a thrown toy where he really seemed to be ‘getting’ the exercise.

Other stuff

Fitness training. Backup up stairs is coming along nicely. There might have been a light bulb moment, even. I’m not sure how much fitness is involved yet – for the time being we just need to actually learn the exercises. Working position changes on a cushion failed last week due to a desire to eat the cushion, and this week confusion about cues. At least he didn’t grab it and run tonight, but we got some rather random offerings of down, rock back sits, pop ups from down to sit, etc, etc.

We had a tractor come to plow snow for us on Tuesday morning. Just when I was out in the garden with Fenris. Instead of trying to drag him inside and away (30 kg muscle vs slippery snow), I let him stay on his tether, and did treat searching as much as we were able. It worked ok as long as the tractor was just in hearing distance. Once it came into view, Fenris was dancing at the end of his rope. Those really trigger his chase instincts.

His nose is getting so good – he searches for toys and chews in the living room/dining room daily. I broached the subject of nosework course for a family member to my husband – just as an idea of something others could do with him that he’d love and get a confidence boost from, and thus increase bonding, and thus maybe decrease any guarding issues, and maybe decrease his reluctance to going for walks with the eldest… (which I seriously don’t know why he does. He lies down and if someone brings his leash, he growls at them.) A nice activity together might just be the thing.

Project buttons – sometimes he reverts to whining to go out. I’ll take it as multiple ways to express the same desire. Tonight he picked out the Sleep button of his own volition. Awwww!