Review of May:

The main focus of the month was foundations and rally.

We have a large set of daily skills and support skills on rotation, and I use my wiki to keep track of when something was last in focus. A lot of the support skills get near daily use, particularly the Bring Me components. I try to work in various break words in each session – particularly Free at the end, and polishing up our reward markers. (Yes! – run to the reward that is over here in my hand, Goood – reward will be stuffed in your mouth where you are, Get It – go and find treat/toy on the ground somewhere away from us both.)

Concept: reward markers. Why would one use several? Predictability! A click is just a click, highlighting the exact moment of excellence – but a word gives information about what sort of reward can be expected, and where to find it. It is a cue for the reward receiving behaviour – and setting up for the offer/cue of the behaviour you are working on. Loops: cue a behaviour, cue a reward, cue a behaviour, cue a reward. Send to a mat, reward with a ‘Yes!’ that brings the dog back to your hand, and be set up to send to the mat again, immediately.

We have done several training sessions outside, working on multiple Rally moments in a row. He does need a little bit of a mental warmup period, so the first run is never good, but unless something triggers, the second and third start hitting the mark. To run a full course without reinforcements seems to be beyond him, as yet.

The Actual Trial

We tried first time Thursday this week, and even with a juicy stick hidden in my pocket, he only lasted about a third of the run before the distractions were more rewarding than the anticipation of stick. (People in the distance, geese overhead.) The second run could have been something to send in (although we’d absolutely have had a disqualifying run with multiple cues, taught leash as he disconnected, etc, etc), and then the videoing function misbehaved. Friday was worse, with no full runs at all.

Saturday was _almost_. We did it in a new place, about 50 m from a road. There were people on boats that did not affect him at all. But when someone walked/jogged/biked on the road… Well, you can see in the next clip. His attention was excellent until then. And afterwards he locked up every time we came to that spot. Totally blind and deaf to me. Only gazing at the road to see if more happened.

So I ended up sending in our single full run – the first filming we did at all on Thursday. It’s a definite Non-qualifying, with multiple cues, an anticipation moment (where he thinks he’s supposed to flip in on my left side) that I should simply have repeated (I totally forgot I can repeat up to five moments in class 1!), and other shit. (Some of which was mine.)

But I sent it in. Out of 18 registered, 15 sent in, and we were 4 who NQ’ed. I should sit down and analyse everyone else’s of course, but let’s start with my own.

The critique: “Beautiful Dog, Patient Handler”. I’ll be making that our callsign…

1 – Smiley face; we managed to pass Start as a unit. Wohoo!

2 – “Double slalom” 2DK; Two double commands. Video time: 0:08

3 – “Sit, 90deg right, Sit”. IT, RO; Not good enough, with movement as the reason. (IT – ikke tilfredstillende, RO – calmness). 0:30

4 – “Sit front, round the right side and forwards.” S means Sniff. SL means taught line, then there’s the Double Commands galore and the movement. This is where he anticipates the wrong cue, and I end up just laughing it off. Didn’t actually NQ here… 0:45

5 – 360 left. Sniffing and double. 1:22

6 – but here on the simple Sit, I was so fed up I figured it was time to get his attention and reward him for being With Me, that I gave him a treat. Which is auto-NQ. Never mind. He needed it. He was too busy looking at my husband with the camera to notice me. 1:38

7 – 360 right. Big heart. 1:59

8 – “Sit, Step Right, Sit”. Double command, and TR (“Treghet”) is latency in response. 2:08

9 – “Slow movement” – Sniffing and taught line. 2:29

10 – Back to normal movement – smiley face. 2:41

11 – 270 left – smiley face. Yay! 2:48

12 – “Sit front, come to heel, sit” – Double command and movement. But this one I was actually pretty pleased with. We’d practiced and he did well. Turns out I just have to watch my own feet! 2:55

13 – “Sit, Down, Sit”. Shit. I forgot the Down, so this one is ALL on me. NQ, and should have repeated it. (I blame the wind messing up the sign, but it was just as much me thinking this was a trial run, and ‘we’ll fix it on the next one’, and then there never was a next one.) 3:12

14 – 180 right, and 15 – 180 left are both w/o comment, and seriously there wasn’t much about those we could mess up (except possibly more sniffing, of course).

16 – Basic right turn. Not entirely sure what we were drawn for there. It says repeat, but we only do it once. Either that, or the judge is saying we went back and did it over again – instead of doing 14/15? Confused. But, ok – not where our problem was.

17 – End with a sniff. He decided he liked the rock.

Programs and Courses

HomeSchool the Dog; finished. I have downloaded the pdfs involved, and it closes as the month ends. 90% great, 5% good, the last 5% involve resource guarding, chewing sticks, killing squeaky toys instead of retrieving. The remaining issues are mostly on me playing a game rather than actively having training sessions to work on them.

Fenzi TEAM; exercise 1.3 – the Front. Well. I’ll say it’s good enough for now. He will sit on the long platform, he will _sometimes_ sit on the paw target, he understands a ‘front’ cue from straight ahead – even though he’s not as close as I’d like. Angled approaches only work for the long platform.

CANIS foundations; back on rotation. By all means, some parts are more fun and interesting than others, and some parts are icky-hard to set up (such as scent).

Plan of June

CANIS – one of the 19 skills per day (except weekends), that comes out pretty precise for a month. Continuing on here.

Main focus of this month is the new agility course.

We have already received the first week’s homework / lecture from the agility handling course, and it describes two things we’ll be working ‘drip drip’ fashion for the rest of his career. The first is shaping over a jump (starting at height zero, and progressing as his strength improves), and rewarding low at the outside of the wing. The ideal is a dog with a rounded back and turning with the jump – instead of first jump, then turn. The strength building is the main reason why this one will take time. (30 reps daily at height zero, max 10 per session later x2 sessions/day.)

The second skill is Come to Heel and Come to Side – coming close and collecting stride on respectively the left and right side of the handler. The teacher emphasises two treats for this one, permanently, to avoid ‘skating’ over a lifelong skill. One treat for reaching the handlers leg (without hitting or overshooting), and the other treat as you take a turn together. It will take plenty time for me to make the movements natural, too.

Side focus is TEAM. I think we need to ease off on the fronts for a little while. Using the long platform will be good enough for the exercise in question, and I’ll use it again for the position changes. They are down pat, and so we start on the next exercise, which is backing up .6 meters (2 feet). I can use a target, and a continuous cue – the main issue will be a smooth movement without stopping and starting. Kind of looking forward to a new focus here. Been slightly frustrated with the lack of closeness in his fronts – and sometimes we just have to say enough is enough. At least for now.