Dog-est August – Training Log – August 21, 2018

Perrin

More pivots and platforms! These are looking really nice. Next up, trying to put the first three or four exercises together with the proper mechanics.

Perrin’s title approval came back telling us that we passed level 1 of his 4-on Specialist! That makes his alphabet soup: Perrin ETD GPS-B PKD-N PKD1-FF. Now to find 15 more objects that fit the categories to jump onto for level 2!

Sei

More pivots and platforms for Sei too! He is doing really really well with these. Some cleaning up to do with those back feet on the pivot, but I am blown away with his understanding of the exercise after only 2 days. Those pivots into heel position are especially nice. Just got to decide about the sit vs stand debate for heel, I like the sits for the fronts.

 

We gave the first 5 exercises a try! I used way more reinforcement than is allowed (and kept it in my hand due to a lack of pockets), but I was just wanting to get a feel for how the flow felt with Sei, and how he felt about switching from exercise to exercise. It went really really well! I pushed ahead to try the position change exercise, even though he was already in a sit (down to sit is a hard transition for him, and we have not practiced it much). He did alright! Needed a hand signal to support the verbal, so some work to do there, but the understanding exists, which is lovely! He nailed the backing up too.

Chance and Dex

No video for these boys today. I did my guys’ video in the morning, and by the afternoon a nasty storm had blown in and made the internet very unstable; not suitable for uploading video on a slow connection!

Dex did some practice on using nose touches to reposition him, and Chance did more muzzle work.

 

 

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Dog-est August – Training Log – August 11, 2018

Sei

Some more parkour videos:

And Sei’s first time jumping off of the dock! Look at him go! He was so scared of it before.

It was also puppy torture day (aka grooming day). Sei doesn’t like being brushed at all, so we are still working at CC the brush. Today he even let me work on his tail a little bit for the first time! Some PB smeared on the tile got his nails done without any hassle on either side.

Perrin

More parkour!

Perrin loved getting brushed out, and tolerated having his nails done.

Chance

Chance also participated in grooming day. He got a good brush out and we worked on his nails a bit. He will allow them to be done, but I am trying to make it a better experience, so we didn’t do too many.

Dex

Dex got brushed out only. We did do a tiny bit of CC at the sight of the clippers, but that was as far as we got with nails.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 10, 2018

So much parkour!

Sei

We got a nice backup today! Another one in the files for submission.

Sei rocked this creativity exercise! (Is his wagging tail throwing off his balance? ❤ )

And the through!

A good, usable 4-on for something.

Perrin

I could use this one for the metal, narrow, or slippery categories for Perrin’s 4-on specialty.

We did use this obstacle yesterday, but I didn’t like my hand motions, so we re-took it. This one is perfect. It could be used for metal,

Another useable 4 on for either the specialty or his intermediate.

Chance

More muzzle and nosework stuff! Nosework went fine. I need to get my act together before we work on it though, the process is not right at all! Chance got a sniff of wintergreen and ate some hot dogs though, so that is a step in the right direction!

The muzzle work has stalled out lately, so I tried something new. Because we have done so much work with having the cookies down, either on my legs or on the floor, Chance keeps smushing his face down looking for cookies with the muzzle on. I can’t lure his face up, and then he soon finds the muzzle uncomfortable because he is forcing his face into the floor. Today we tried a chin rest and just stuffed cookies into his face. Then did some ‘airplane cookies’ to try to keep his attention up. We will see if this gets us out of the rut we are in.

Dex

Dex is kind of the highlight of my day! We have kind of settled into a routine of playing everyday. Today we did personal play, with hand touches and lured spins. It is nice to just play with no worries about goals, training plans, or video.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 9, 2018

Sei

Turns out that Sei is a tunnel fanatic first thing in the morning before it has gotten hot out! So we did that first thing.

Sei went to his first farmers market! Well not really, we went to the parking lot and soccer field next to the farmers market. So there was an empty parking lot, and a soccer field between my car and the market. The field and the second parking lot was empty and we had as much space as we needed. The location in the photo is the closest we ventured. Highlights included eating PB and hot dog bits reliably, doing a few nose touches and slow cookies after some acclimation, 300ft of llw back to the car, a little bit of play with a stick that we found, and some name game. Only two short lived grumbles over a toddler running around and screaming in the distance, and a guy staring at him from 100ft away.

We also started taking some video for Sei’s parkour. We have to wait until November/December to submit the videos, so we have lots of time. Here is a solid ‘around’.

Perrin

We did lots of parkour! I would like to get his intermediate title, but I am not so sure about the 45 degree tic-tac. We could definitely get his 4 on specialty though! So, we did some of that and we also did his back up onto an object for an intermediate title. I don’t know if I will use any of these particular 4-ons, because there was a new rule brought in where you can’t reuse a particular obstacle with different dogs, so I have to choose very carefully between Perrin and Sei. Especially with the fact that Perrin can easily do public obstacles, where as Sei cannot. I need to prioritize the farm obstacles for Sei.

Chance

More muzzle work!

Dex

Dex and I just played again. Threw some spins in and generally made sure he had a good time.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 7, 2018

No video for today. I needed a break! Taking, editing, and uploading the video for 4 dogs on rural internet takes hours, and I would rather be training or playing with the dogs. We didn’t do much training time-wise. It was super hot out, so all the dogs spent way more time playing with me in the pond.

Sei

Nosework and more tunnels! I started curving the tunnel for the first time, and the very early testings of whether Sei is catching the verbal ‘tunnel’ yet. I did that by setting him up in positions other than ‘middle’, facing away from the tunnel, or off at different distances. The nosework went well, he is making slow, steady improvement despite my ad-hock approach to training it. I will be honest, I really don’t like doing nosework. So I can’t get too hung up in the clean training of it or it gets so not-fun that I will never do it. If we just bumble around, it is more fun for me and the dogs don’t seem to mind as long as they are paid appropriately and I don’t let them get frustrated.

Perrin

I tested Perrin’s new platform for fronts and heel position, and did some more nosework in preparation for the scent discrimination exercise. Perrin will need some remedial work on getting his back feet onto the platform. He has no problem with his front feet, but the platform is just a touch narrower than his natural rear foot stance, so he has to think about it. He also wants to be quite far away from me on the fronts, so we will have to work on that too. His scent work is also coming along slowly but surely.

Chance

A tiny bit of nosework and some disc. He is a dog who uses his sniffer a lot, and so I figured he wouldn’t have too much trouble picking up on nosework, and that is definitely the case!

Dex

Dex and I just played today. A little tug, a little ball. His happiness is contagious.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 6, 2018

Today there was nosework for everyone! I picked up some wintergreen and some new containers. I also built Perrin a platform for our TEAM stuff, but haven’t tried it yet.

Sei

Sei is pretty much were we we left off with this. Often choosing the right one, but not consistently. Both him and Perrin do super well sniffing a single container out in a room, but less well picking the right container from many.

Perrin

I have had several surprises on behaviours I thought were broken, but they weren’t. I was sure Perrin was solid on this but he wasn’t!I tried this once before the session I took video of, and Perrin looked at me like I was bat shit crazy. It seems that he has lost everything on this exercise, so we are starting from the beginning.

Chance

Chance did some nosework and some muzzle work. He did pretty well at both!

Dex

Working with the beginning steps of nosework with Dex and Chance is interesting. The initial step using this approach is for the dog to choose the scent in one hand rather than the cookies in the other. Neither of them have done any sort of IYC/Zen work, where they have learned to understand that moving away from the cookies is the gateway to the cookies. Chance did pretty well with this exercise regardless, but Dex struggled a lot. He was really obsessed with the cookies. The other approach to nosework is to start the dog searching immediately with food, then pairing scent with the food, then moving to just the scent. This is the approach I think I would take with Dex if I were really interested in doing nosework with him.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 5, 2018

Sei

I had my Team stuff out, so I worked on the stay with distraction with Sei. Not well thought out, but Sei really isn’t any worse for wear. We also did some tunnel work, but it isn’t on video.

Perrin

Perrin and I did a Pre-Team run though, and it went really well! I did one, and only one, and Perrin nailed every single exercise. This is an incredibly nice morale boost! Team came out about 2 years ago, and Perrin and I had already started on pretty much every exercise in it, but I have never had the motivation to actually go through, take stock, work on the things that needed work, and then try stringing it together. It is a lot of exercises to get right, not only for the dog, but there are a lot of things that I can do as a handler to ruin a run too. Perrin also struggles with fronts, and that is where we got stalled out last time we tried.

Not having Perrin’s platforms while we are at the farm forced me to work on the other exercises, and we are way closer than I thought we were! That is 6 of 10 exercises that we are pretty solid on! There are definitely some handler errors here that would NQ us (not holding the sit long enough, for example), but those are relatively easy to fix.

Chance

More muzzle work. I played around with other positions for doing up the straps. Chance didn’t like that much, so that is information that we need more work on both having the muzzle in different positions, and on CC touching the straps.

Dex

More fun with balls!

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 4, 2018

Sei

No video for Sei today, but after one rather spectacular freestyle disc mishap (for me, luckily, he is fine!), we just worked on distance throws for disc. Here is hoping this big nasty forehead lump goes down before I have to leave the house tomorrow.

Perrin

Continuing on with TEAM, we planned to work on position changes, and backing up. I don’t have Perrin’s normal platform here, so I am using Sei’s mat. Perrin has had a back up behaviour, but I have broken it (seeing a trend here?), so we have been reworking it with a foot target. It turns out that both went really well! So we played around with all the other skills we have practiced this time around (wait with distraction, jump, around, vertical target), and they all seem pretty solid too! Perrin’s verbals aren’t the best still, and discriminating between ‘around’ and ‘go touch’ when both objects were in the same direction was hard. However for a real run through I could pretty easily set up my space so that I have them going in opposite directions. That actually makes 6 behaviours, which is what we need for PreTeam! They may be the least difficult behaviours for us, but hey, that is still 6 more than before!

Maybe one of these days I will try to film a pre-team qualifying run through! Looks like I also may have to get me some wintergreen oil and some scent tins, and rustle up a platform/foot target. We may get further than I thought.

Chance

Today was a disc sort of day! Chance very much wants the disc, and does not want to share. I also found out that he is not terribly interested in rollers. He is so great at tracking and catching though!

Dex

Dex liked his tug so much yesterday that I decided I would see how he likes balls today. Turns out that the answer is quite a lot! No interest in discs though!

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 3, 2018

Sei

We tried two sessions of tunnels, but it was too hot the first time. This evening’s session was fantastic! It looks really unremarkable on video (especially because I am out of the frame for half of it, oops!) but so many little things came together here:

Good Planning: I am working my way through the Silvia Trkman foundations DVD, with some of the ShapeUp course work thrown in where it makes sense. Right now in both courses, collar restraints are used for the beginnings of tunnel sends. Sei is rather uncomfortable with collar grabs, so I decided to use ‘middle’ to set him up for the tunnel instead. I tested this once or twice yesterday and Sei had trouble with the middle, so today I decided to use food to reward the middle in addition to the ball to reward the tunnel.

Marker Systems/Reinforcer Choice: Sei was able to flawlessly work for both food and toys here. No conflict!

Toy Skills: Sei was able to work for a toy, and bring it back! We are only able to do this with discs or a tennis ball right now, tugs are still a work in progress, but if we didn’t have that skill it would make this exercise really hard!

Good Judgement: I was able to make some progress on adding distance, but added it at the right rate so that Sei continued to be successful. I stopped the session while Sei was still ready to continue (not too tired or mentally done) and didn’t fall prey to the ‘just one more’ syndrome.

Perrin

Today Perrin and I tested where we are at with the send over jump exercise from TEAM1. I was working on a straight send, and it turns out that I don’t have to. In TEAM1 you are allowed to run with the dog (and Perrin does a jump just fine if I run with him), and in TEAM2, you can choose to stand with the dog, at the side of the jump, or on the other side of the jump. Perrin will work his fluffy tail off over a jump I am standing on the opposite side of. So, I was making this much harder than it needed to be! But look at Perrin work for a toy instead of food!

(Also, look at Sei staying with the treat n train while I TUG with Perrin! Holy crap! Good dog!)

Chance

The muzzle training continues. Chance is doing really well. I messed up a bit today when Chance had the muzzle on. I wanted to move from sitting to standing in order to change the picture slightly, but Dex got in my way and Chance did paw at the muzzle once. I will have to start putting Dex away during Chance’s turn.

Dex

Turns out that Dex likes tugs, who knew! We played and lured some spins today. Happy boy.

Dog-est August – Training Log – August 1, 2018

Whoohoo! My tunnel came today!

Sei

Today Sei and I did a few different things. We did a bit of shaping practice, wraps, play, and explored the new tunnel! I am going to skip the video of the shaping practice, just because it is long and not terribly useful for me to review later. We didn’t work on shaping anything in particular, just practiced offering a variety of behaviours without frustration. It went pretty well!

The wraps are coming along. Nothing terribly notable here, other than the fact that there is a dead squirrel on the lawn behind where we are working. Sei is eagerly working for (and bringing back!) a boring old tennis ball, running past it several times on his way back. Sei thinks dead things are the best treat ever. This made a big impression on me regarding Sei’s inability to work with me in new places. It really cements my suspicion that it is based in concern/uncertainty in the environment rather than distraction. There is never a bigger distraction than a dead squirrel, and when we leave the house, I have WAY better things to offer than a single tennis ball. It was also really windy out, my tripod even blew over at one point!

I took some baseline videos of play, both in the house and outside, for our FDSA Bogeyman course. Sei does play with me when I am on the ground, which is a big step forwards! He used to only play with me if I were running/chasing. There are a few things I would like to refine for use in making Sei more comfortable in new places: 1. This sort of play doesn’t work well on leash, and 2. the biting!. I don’t mind some mouthing, but this is a little too much for me.

Finally, I introduced Sei to the tunnel. I didn’t really go out with a plan, I just wanted to see how Sei felt about it. The last time he saw a tunnel, he was terrified of it. Turns out he is fine with it now! I didn’t make the smartest training choices here because of my lack of a plan, but Sei isn’t scared of it, so we are on track to start with an organized approach tomorrow!

Perrin

We didn’t work on TEAM today, rather doing some shaping and tunnels. I love shaping with Perrin. He is so enthusiastic. This is us working on two sessions of roll over:

Perrin also loves tunnels. Not so much straight ones (they are boring), but even they are better than no tunnels. He is happy to run tunnels just for the joy of it. I tried throwing a ball for him, but he thought that was stupid. Apparently my ‘tunnel bags’ double as water bowls.

Chance

Chance did great with the muzzle today! He was extremely enthusiastic about the whole thing! He was shoving his face into the muzzle so hard that I could barely keep his head where I needed it to manipulate the straps. I got the strap done up loosely today and Chance tolerated it extremely well. He was a bit obsessed with a tiny scrap of hot dog that I dropped on the ground, but that mostly kept him unconcerned about the muzzle on his face.

Dex

Today I tested out to see if Dex knew a down verbal. He doesn’t really, but someone has worked on some sort of hand signal with him before, because he knew that to some extent. So I started the beginnings of adding a verbal to it.