Mini adventure with Sonic

Sonic and I are spending the night at the Comfort Inn in Plainwell, MI. I judged rally today For the Kalamazoo KC and will judge it again tomorrow morning, so here we are.

I'm happy to report that today's teams were far better prepared than the last time I judged in this area. I only saw one perfect score - and it was a lovely performance - but several other very nice displays of teamwork.

Sonic spent her morning and until I finished judging at 3:00 in her crate in the , with a few brief potty breaks. She hasn't been on too many trips without at least one of the older dogs along too often, so it seemed like a good opportunity. After I finished judging, I got her out to potty, then took her into the nearly empty building for some training. I had her on my rolled leather choke collar, which doesn't provide as much control as the pinch collar, but more than her buckle collar. We worked some attention - it was not particularly stellar, some maneuvers, and some brief stays. Phew, we have lots of work ahead of us.

After settling into our hotel room, we did articles. It is the first time I randomized the placement of the articles vs. having them in the regimented rows that is Around the Clock. She has been searching from a pile of 10 unscented plus my scented one. I took out one pair, since the pile looked different. It went smoothly, and included sends from about 15 feet away - the length of the hotel room. Except for not staying a couple of times while I placed my scented article, she did a spot-on job.

While waiting for my dinner order at Applebee's to be ready, we did another 10 minutes of work near the parking lot. I decided to see how she would do with my '20 treat exercise'**. It took her between 4 and 5 minutes to voluntarily look at me 20 times. Hmmm, there is something we need some more work on. The weather is back to being normal spring weather, i.e., COLD. 10 minutes was all my bare hands could manage.

After I finished eating dinner, we headed out behind the hotel to give her a run. We discovered a lovely flat grassy field, fenced on two sides, with small hills/mounds on the other two sides, with no one around. She had a lovely romp chasing bumpers and working on various field related skills, including delivering to hand to each side, which is much improved, I'm happy to say, staying while I throw a bumper, and doing simple double retrieves (I throw two bumpers about 90* apart, she retrieves one, then retrieves the other). This was all mixed in with fun retrieves without a stay.

That saying "A tired puppy is a good puppy"? Very true. She is sacked out on the bed nearby.

I hope to take her in the building again tomorrow for some more attention work after I finish judging.

** The 20-treat exercise is explained in The Art of Proofing.

ATC Articles Week 7

When I wrote last Friday, I was debating whether to eliminate cheese and/or wires before moving on to Week 7. I did indeed move on to Week 7 Saturday. Sonic did days 1-3 without error, so last night, after we finished doing them, I decided to just take off all the wires in preparation for today's work. Since I've been able to hear her sniffing, I was reasonably confident that she was using her nose vs. her eyes. I figured if it fell apart, I could put the wires back on and eliminate them more gradually.

The gamble paid off. She was 4 for 4 this evening. I almost stopped her on the last one, because I spaced out which was the right one (bad trainer!). But she knew. I think I'll do one more day like what we did today, then start to follow my advice I always give to my students:

• Lengthen the distance to pile out to the 20 or so feet required in the ring.
• Randomize the appearance of the article pile, vs. the regimented set up I use when teaching the articles with Around the Clock.
• Add a turn before the send. I have never taught a 'send direct', where the dog turns with you and goes directly to the pile, because I like the control the 'after a sit' method gives me.
• Add other people scenting the extra articles.
• Take the show on the road. Given that she did them in multiple different places early on, I am not as concerned about this as if I had done all seven weeks in the same place.
• Stop using the pair of articles I taught her with.

That ought to keep us busy for a while. I may or may not pursue all of that at this point. My main point in starting this whole project at 6 months was so she had the concept of how to use her nose when she arrives at an article pile. I do believe we have achieved that goal. If I've counted right, today is the 30th day in a row we have done scent articles. 

Week 6 Day 6

From my training log notes from Friday's article session:

"Start with cheesed leather. (I wrote this on Thursday. Normally, the 1st article in ATC is a scented metal.)
Put out articles in correct pattern, but without regard to which type was where. Started with whiff of cheese on leather. Also whiff of cheese on 5th article @ position C, also a leather (this was an extra-curricular one. Normally, there are just 4 retrieves each session of week 6.)She was 5 for 5. Some nice confident pickups and trotting back.

The question is, do I move on to week 7 with wires, or first eliminate the cheese and the wires? I'm thinking the former..."

As I've thought about this more today, I continue to concur that I'll move on to Week 7 tomorrow. I can always backtrack.

Article update

Today was the 5th day I've done Week 6 of Around the Clock scent articles with Sonic. It it the week when you are supposed to stop putting cheese on the scented article, and it is the week that can be problematic. I did week 5 five times, and on the final day had only the tiniest smear of cheese on the scented one.

As I've come to expect, going from that teeny tiny little bit of cheese to none has caused her to make mistakes. Since she'd made zero mistakes before, I hadn't had any reason to correct anything. Sonic has erred in slightly different ways each time, but it seems to be more of a problem with the scented leather than the scented metal. Yesterday, she did both metals fine, but the 1st leather wrong. I decided after that to go back to the teensy little bit of cheese on the correct leather one.

At the end of yesterday's session, I pulled out my bag of article wires which I made a few months ago from some leftover garden fencing. One of my students got the idea from another local trainer as an alternative to tying the incorrect ones to a mat.

I put the wires on each of the unscented leather articles at the end of yesterday's session. Sonic did pick up one leather by the top wire that was sticking up, but after that, she seemed appropriately deterred by the wire, and kept searching for the one without. I did put a tiny bit of cheese on the 1st leather, but not after that.

I plan to continue to do the Week 6 sequences until she gets them right several sessions in a row, then move on to Week 7.

Sonic at 7 months

In the past month, my primary obedience-related focus with Sonic has been her hold for retrieving, getting her picking up a dumbbell and articles, and getting her started on Around the Clock Scent Discrimination. As I've written about several times recently, we started the Around the Clock process the day we left on our 15-day trip in late February, and have worked on them every day since. I don't think I've ever managed to be this consistent. My goal is to have her understanding that she should use her nose when presented with a collection of scent articles, not just grab the first one she gets to. I am teaching her this now because when I start her working on a bumper pile for field, I do want her to grab the first one she gets to, at least ideally. Because of the importance of scent articles for Utility, I will be more forgiving of potential 'shopping' in a bumper pile than field trainers who aren't doing scent work, but I am hopeful that she can understand the difference. Here she is doing Week 5 Day 2 today here at home:

We have continued to work Rhythm Heeling fairly regularly, though hardly at all during our trip.

The other big milestone was her first swims in real ponds. I am so glad I spent the time (and $'s) to teach her to swim in the local therapy pool. She is a very good swimmer, and was in fact difficult to keep out of the water. Here is her Florida swimming video:

She is really getting the idea of the field game. She had several marks thrown by other people during our trip, both land and water, and this morning, she did the land marks that everyone else did, though hers were shorter than Gryff's. Still, I think she is approaching the 100 yard mark, which thrills me. She only visited a gunner once today - that definitely needs more work! She is holding pretty steady in her sit stay until I release her, races out, is learning to hunt well, and usually racing back to me. I am not demanding a delivery to heel position. That is something we are working on 'in the yard.' 

I have been working on field obedience with her every day since the Friday of the Mike Lardy seminar, after I was reminded by watching him what I should be working on. I do plan to have her able to work off both sides. I am very awkward with her on my right, but she is coping pretty well. We are doing walking on both sides, sits when I stop, sit stays, recalls, and finishes to both sides. I have introduced her to a heeling stick (kind of like a riding crop), the beginnings of collar conditioning, and just today, the beginnings of force fetch.

We will be showing in a supported entry in conformation next month, so I'm also doing a bit of work on stacking and gaiting. My son and I took several pictures of her today in honor of her reaching 7 months of age.

She's made some excellent progress in the past month. It will be fun to see where we are when she is 8 months old.

2012 Southern Odyssey Days 11-12

My biggest takeaway from Day 1 of the 3.5 day Basic and Transition field training workshop with Mike Lardy was foundation, foundation, foundation. Just like in obedience (or piano lessons, for that matter), if your foundation if poor, it is hard to build advanced skills. The seminar started with a short amount of lecture, then we moved over to watch several advanced dogs running land marks in preparation for the weekend's field trials. Once those dogs were done, some simplified marks were set up, and all 10 participants dogs ran the 3 marks. This gave Mike a chance to "make book" on the dogs' issues. We then went to "the yard" for some obedience work and some other yard drills. We finished the day with the Swim-by drill with a couple of dogs.

Purina sponsored a BBQ dinner right at Mike's property, and there was a drawing for a bunch of donated gear. Remarkably, my name was drawn first, and I made a beeline to one of the 4 heeling sticks. I had a heeling stick, but lost it last fall on my final training day at Omega Farms. A heeling stick is similar to a riding crop used with horses. I found it incredibly helpful in getting both Gryff and Ty under much better off-leash control during advanced field work, and have been meaning to order a new one so I could get Sonic used to it. I have seen heeling sticks used in ways that at least appear downright abusive. I don't plan to use it that way, don't worry. 

It turns out all but 2 people won something. I felt badly for those 2.

Before the dinner, Dee Dee Rose threw some simple marks for Sonic. She didn't return to me on the 1st one, but instead went to Dee Dee because I forgot to get her attention with the extra bumper that I had remembered to keep with me. After that, she returned nicely. I took each dog out individually after that and did 'Stand Alone' marks, where you leave the dog in a sit stay, walk out however far you want to go, throw a mark, and release the dog to retrieve it from out in the field. I've done these with both Gryff and Ty for several years after reading about it in the Retrievers On Line magazine. Dennis Voight, editor of RoL, is in Florida to train for the winter, and gave a presentation at the end of the day's seminar presentation about using Stand Alones for training by yourself. It was great to meet Denise at the party. Sonic did a very simple version of this on my long flexi.

Today, the morning was devoted to more obedience and yard drills, finishing the morning with more swim-by for the two dogs from Day 1. It was good to see all the dogs making progress. The afternoon was devoted to water marks and some of the transition water drills, with a land tune-up drill Mike demoed with one of his Advanced dogs. We were very fortunate to not get rained on today other than a tiny bit of sprinkles at the end of the afternoon, when the win picked up and the temperature dropped a bunch.

Dee Dee threw several marks for each dog before we came back to the motel room. Except for dashing off to see the nice man in the white coat faaaaar across the field (I wasn't aware he was there, shame on me) when I got Sonic out for her turn, it was quite successful. The final mark she ran was 80-85 yds in length, and she did have to do some hunting, since we were not on mowed grass. She really seems to be getting the idea of the simple mechanics of the job. Very satisfying!

When we got back to the motel, I put Sonic on a long line and we worked field-related obedience in the motel parking lot for 10-15 minutes, including walking (vs. heeling) on each side, doing sit stays, recalls, whistle sits on her return to me, finishes to heel position and to a sit at my right side. I'm going to make the attempt to have Sonic be a two-sided dog. I feel pretty awkward with her on my right, but I'm gonna try. I was very pleased with her work. 

Here's Sonic's articles from last night - Day 4 of Week 3.

Tonight we started Week 4, and it went just fine. In week 4, 4 of the 7 retrieves have the cheesed article with the cheese down instead of up, so she had to use her nose instead of her eyes to find the right one. Correct on all counts!

2012 Southern Odyssey Days 3-7

When I wrote about our first day of our trip, I mentioned that I'd started Sonic on Around the Clock scent discrimination. I am pleased to say we have done it every day of the trip so far. We did 'Week 1' 4 times, then moved on to 'Week 2'. We did that 3 times. Since she had not made any errors, and was almost instantly going to the cheesed article, I decided to move on to 'Week 3'. We have done that twice so far, tonight makes 3. If sessions 3 & 4 go as smoothly, I'll move on to 'Week 4'. Here's a video of Week 1/Day 2. I edited out all the 'rescent, reheat, recheese' and getting Sonic to set up for the next one.

Once we started doing leathers ('Week 2'), she started picking it up after she'd finish licking the cheese. She isn't quite as keen to pick up the metal one now that we are alternating between metal and leather, but she mostly doesn't need much help.

I had a completely delightful time at Betsy Reiney's magnificent property on Days 3-5 of our trip. The weather was quite warm on the 1st two days, but since I mainly wanted to swim the dogs, it worked out fine. Betsy and Bill have 20 acres with one big main pond, plus several smaller ones, which means the options for technical water work are many. Here is a video of Sonic swimming the first afternoon we were there:

Ty told me by her enthusiasm that she wanted to get a turn retrieving, and much to my surprise, did very nicely on some water blinds that afternoon. She hadn't done ANY field work since last October, so it was a pleasant surprise.

On Thursday, two of Betsy's field training friends came over. We did a 3-station marking set up on land in the morning. Gryff did it as a triple, Ty as a double of the outside two marks and the long single up the middle. Turns out that long single was 130 yds. I moved up fairly close to Betsy and she threw several marks for Sonic, with me moving back some after each success to make for longer retrieves.

In the afternoon, I taught both dogs a very technical land/water blind. I was especially pleased with Ty's efforts. I've been planning to just concentrate on obedience with her this year, and train Gryff and Sonic in the field, but she may have other plans.

On Friday morning, we set out two piles of bumpers with stakes on the big pond, and walked around running each one from several different places. Ty was having a really hard time, but Betsy pointed out I was attempting really long water entries. It helped a lot when I moved up close to the shore. Gryff also got to run several of the blinds. I got Sonic out and threw a bunch of water marks for her myself, letting her get comfortable swimming near decoys. She'd had a fearful encounter with them on Thursday, but she turned it around and decided they needed to be investigated. Her swimming was much improved from the somewhat splashy video taken on Wednesday. I decided there wasn't a lot of reason to take more video, since it would just be boring - black dog swimming. So what??? Betsy then threw several land marks for Sonic again. I think we lengthened out to about 80 yds. Good girl! We did 2-3 more water marks and called it a day.

Friday afternoon (Day 5), I packed up and moved to Lakeland. I got unloaded at the new DogSense Obedience training building, and did some obedience with Ty and Sonic. I think Ty was really happy to do easy obedience after the difficult work in the morning. She was so enthusiastic and energetic, and a lot of fun. I stayed on a cot in Debbi's soon-to-be office Friday and Saturday nights, because there was not a motel to be had nearby due to several local events, including Detroit Tiger spring training games. I dubbed myself the building troll :-). While not ideal, it worked out okay. It was nice not to have to load up the dogs to drive to the building

As I usually find when I teach my seminars at DogSense, I really enjoyed working with all the trainers and their dogs. At least a couple of people got their dogs taking a dumbbell, which had been eluding them. We did more heeling than sometimes, which I always enjoy. 

2012 Southern Odyssey Day 1

The dogs and I made it to the Lexington, Kentucky Red Roof without a hitch. Yes, we hit rush hour traffic in Cincinnati, but I didn't really care. What was supposed to be a loooong trip with my travel trailer has turned into a trip in just the Burb due to some problem that made the right rear wheel of T3 end up at about a 30 degree angle yesterday morning. Not something that brought warm fuzzies to my heart, let me tell you. Broken axle? I really have no idea. What leaving the trailer behind means is I can travel faster and go farther in a day. Given the strong winds during the 1st two hours of today's drive that was buffeting my heavily laden Suburban around, I was really happy to have left T3 at home!

When packing training equipment to bring along, I decided at the last minute to bring an old set of articles along, with the hope that I'd find time to get Sonic started on Around the Clock Scent Discrimination. We got to Lexington plenty early enough, so after unloading my gear (boy do I love parking right outside my motel room door), I pottied Sonic, and we got the process started. She only just started picking up a dumbbell about a week ago, with article retrieves starting a day or two later, so she needs a lot of help to take the article, but I'm okay with that. All of my dogs take a while to figure out that they should pick up the article after the cheese is gone. Joker was my most recent dog to start ATC with, and I think it was day 3 or 4 of the first week when he started picking it up. I doubt Sonic will be that quick, given the state of her retrieve, but I'll let you know...

She hasn't had much 'cheese in a can', so she thought it was nifty. It was good I'm well practiced in holding the dog's collar, because she really thought she ought to check the other articles after licking off the cheese from the scented one. I typically pick up the right one once most of the cheese is gone to help with the taking process. I found it helped to guide her to me with the collar and the other hand supporting her chin.

All in all, a fine first session. 

I gave all 3 dogs (Gryff, Ty, and Sonic are with me) a rawhide chew. Gryff has finished his, but the girls are still chomping away.

My goal is to get to the Macon, GA Red Roof Inn tomorrow, though I'm stopping to have lunch with a long time friend in Knoxville, with the additional goal of giving the dogs a run and/or some training in a park. Yes, I'll hit Atlanta at rush hour, something I was warned NOT to do by a bunch of people. The alternative is to stop before and get going early in the morning Wednesday, but then I'd probably hit the morning rush hour. I'll just see how the driving goes. 

I will spend Wednesday afternoon through lunch on Friday in Palatka, FL, field training at someone's private property that has PONDS!!! I'm so excited to get there and to see how Sonic does in a real pond. I'm hoping I go home in a couple of weeks with a puppy who can swim.

Time to feed them and get myself to bed.

Joker & Ty Utility Training Update

As field training has been winding down, I've been managing more obedience work, particularly articles with both Ty and Joker.

I start my dogs off with Janice DeMello's 'Around the Clock Scent Discrimination', because I like the enthusiastic attitude it helps to produce. However, I've had a few of my own dogs and several students who were flummoxed the week the cheese goes from a microscopic dot to none. Joker was one of these confused critters. He would go out, pick up an article at random, and then turn and sit facing me. I finally got around to setting up a tie-down mat and I'm happy to report he seems to be grasping the idea. After 2-3 sessions with the articles tied tightly, he seemed to get over his anxiety about the whole thing, and is dashing out to the pile and back to me with a wagging tail. He's made enough progress that I loosened the ties on about half of them. I do 4 retrieves each time we do it, 2 of each type. I'm using a platform for the front to try to subtly work the front without having to work it. He's only occasionally tugging a tied one. I'm lengthening our distance from the pile, and need to have more and different people scenting them, but I'm hoping we're over the worst of his confusion.

He's got a pretty decent idea of directed jumping, the moving stand, and the directed retrieve. He is showing me what a nuisance it is to train a dog for Utility without a solid foundation of heel position - his pivots have been pretty ghastly, which make getting to the correct glove harder. I do see improvement on the pivots, though. I'm not looking for perfection, but I do want him close enough to heel position that he has a decent chance of following my mark signal. He dashes out and back to the glove, and mostly doesn't drop the glove on my foot anymore .

I now think signals are his least understood exercise. He's had the down and sit concept up close for most of his 8 years, but I only taught him the signal stand about a year ago. Somewhat to my surprise, he seems able to stand at a distance. I started counting steps when I leave him, and he doesn't really get signals, at least not the sit, much beyond 8 steps. Given that it was only 5 steps in mid-November, I'm happy with his progress.

I finally had Ty spayed last month, so her progress has been slowed because of that. I have her articles tied together in 2 sets of 4 articles. After using a tennis ball to reward a good delivery, she started working with a great deal of speed, but still mostly accurately. At home gloves have been mostly a no-brainer. Her biggest training lack is her signal stand stay. I put a small barrier out (same kind we used for drop on recall training) and stood her behind it and was dismayed to see how far across it she stepped as I walked away. We've spent a lot of time this past week working on 'stand still'. I put her on a 6-foot leash to reduce her sometimes wild leaping about that she offers. I do know where this lack of clarity comes from - I've used her for a year or so to demo clicker training the first night of my Fundamentals class, and one of the strongly reinforced behaviors is 'lie down and cross your front paws'. In the process, she also offers 'lie down and roll onto a hip'; 'lie down and put chin on the floor'; 'leap backwards out of the down', and probably others I'm forgetting about. So in trying to get her to simply stand still, she would start going through her repetoire. The use of the leash and clicking her for quite short stand stays has helped her make progress. While she does a decent signal down (a bit too much butt shift to my left, but not overwhelming), she also almost always immediately does her pop-up sit on her own. So I have also been clicking and treating her for holding her down longer, especially with her chin on the floor.

Both dogs do very nice full-length go-outs to a visible target here at home. I've done some work with Joker moving to targetting on a stanchion. Given the generous size of my training building, they've both done go-outs to several different backgrounds. All of Ty's field training blinds have given her a very strong response to my 'look' command (I want her to focus straight out when I say the command, and maintain that look). She just doesn't always wait for me to say 'go' :-). Joker's response isn't as strong, but he's getting there, too. He was showing a LOT of right arcing on go outs earlier in the week at a park, so I think I need to use center guides for him for a while.

Both need reminding via a side step on the first jumps we do each session, but are jumping full height confidently. I haven't started jumping them from off center (for corner go-out disaster recovery, something I'm a strong proponent of).

Both dogs have a reasonably good stop on the moving stand, though I've not done much having other people exam either one. Both can do a decent call to heel.

It's fun to be teaching/solidifying some new stuff that isn't Open :-).

Seminar Musings

I got home Sunday night from a quick trip to Florida for 3 days of obedience lessons/seminar presenting in Lakeland. I had very little voice left, in spite of a great sound system. I had chorus rehearsal Monday morning. Having a 6 note range that kept changing didn't make for particularly great sounds. (I'm in a local women's chorus, and our concert is only a few weeks away.)

I have honestly enjoyed every seminar I've presented over the past 6 months. How lucky can I be that I'm getting to meet all these new dog friends and their nifty dogs all over the country, and getting to help them with their dogs?

On Saturday afternoon, I showed everyone how I start to shape a retrieve, and got a young (about a year old, recently neutered male) Brittany with no prior experience with the dumbbell taking it in 10 or so minutes. His owner reported Sunday morning that he was taking it every time she presented it. I think that most of the people at the seminar have never seen the db introduced this way, and have started their dogs right out with the ear pinch. The cool thing with this dog was his gnat-like attention span when we started. He was actually standing very still and thinking hard about what he needed to do as we got further along with the process. I asked his owner if he'd ever been that still in his life :-).

After working with several other dogs with hold issues, someone came out with her metal article and her Border terrier. He had learned Scent Discrimination just fine, but then started refusing the metal article a while back, and even with a fair bit of correction, still wouldn't take it. So I had her start with some nose touches, get several of those, then wait for a few, then to use a treat by the bar to start taking it. In probably 5-10 minutes time, he was taking it on his own. She was so thrilled (as was I)! On Friday, during her lesson, I'd suggested that she have her dog work for his meals, with the goal being to build some "want to" into him, since he was lacking a lot in the enthusiasm-for-obedience department. No work? No meal, or at least a significant delay in its arrival. Saturday morning, she greeted me with excitement. On Friday, we had worked on just doing an efficient set up, including head-up attention. The first time she asked for the set-up, I think she said he just sat wherever. So she said, "Oh, too bad, no meal," and walked away. She said the look on his face was hilarious. I think he did a decent set up 10 minutes later and got his meal. The next morning, he set up promptly, did a pivot as asked, and got his meal. For his dinner Saturday night, he had to take the metal article, and for Sunday's breakfast, she had him take it a couple of times, and then retrieve it, which he did. So late Sunday afternoon, as I talked about how I teach Scent Discrimination (Janice DeMello's Around the Clock), I walked her through the process with her dog. I knew it was a gamble - after all, he'd just started retrieving it again that morning, but he did great and was retrieving the right one each time with very little extra help. It was so incredibly satisfying!

Also, she said when she arrived at the building today, he was eager to get out of her vehicle, and he came in and ran and greeted several people enthusiastically, which is unusual for him. He was also awake and watching in his crate much more than usual.

There were several Border terrier owners there this weekend and they loved the fact that I've trained a bunch of terriers. I also got expressions of appreciation because I talk candidly about my failures as well as my successes (heck, I show terriers - it's part of the territory!). Last weekend, with my 3 Open B NQs, was a prime example ;-). I asked my host if any of her other seminar givers ever talk about failures, and she said no, absolutely not!

It was another exhilarating trip, and I am so lucky to get to do this with so many fun people.