Gallop Poll

Due to the Memorial Day holiday, we did not have agility class tonight. Between rainouts and holidays, we are getting the short end on agility, but oh well. There will come a time when I'm doing rain dances in hopes that class will be cancelled, I'm sure.

But for now, I'm just happy with everything we're doing. I trained Dreamer in the yard tonight, which is better than not training her at all. We worked on dumbbell holds, which are not her favorite thing, and utility signal training. We also did some heeling, finishes, agility "touch" training, and even a little breed work! Dreamer was very engaged and ready for the next trick, as she always is. I'm so lucky to have an eager dog.

I'm having a little trouble getting Dreamer to move into a gallop on the Fast command. I've tried moving her into the Fast directly from a Slow, and that doesn't even seem to get me a consistent gallop. Any ideas on how to work through this?

Dreamer, 30. Tennis, LOVE.

It is hot and windy in the city, so we've spent the holiday weekend getting our hineys out of bed and out the door to beat the heat.

I found a shaded area at a nearby park that turned out to be perfect yesterday morning, as a pee-wee baseball team was practicing at the diamond right next to us. Dreamer had a few moments of distraction but was very quick to focus on me. I found it to be great because I did not have her favorite bait with me, and she STILL wanted to focus and work around a bunch of screaming kids!

There was also a family playing a casual game of tennis with their two young kids at a nearby tennis court, so I walked Dreamer over there and let her watch. It was a lot to ask but was perfect for practicing "here." She was very responsive to me, and I felt strangely disappointed because I need her to screw up so I can correct her and KNOW that she's learning. I don't always feel like I get enough opportunities to correct her, and I don't see it as a good thing. I think I just luck out with her mood sometimes, so I'm not confident that she's being truly tested. Maybe the distractions are not tempting enough for her, so I need to think about that some more. It's just hard to find the right distractions under the right conditions because we cannot practice in the blazing sun. Dreamer's heeling was great, but we didn't work very long because it was very hot, even in the shade. She did everything I asked of her, though -- and with sub-par treats! Good girl.

Today, I packed better treats and tried a different park but couldn't find an ounce of shade, so I returned to yesterday's park. No pee-wee baseball, but there was a set of serious tennis players out there. I did a little heeling with Dreamer in the shade, as well as some finishes, and then we headed over to the tennis court for some sit-waits. At first, it seemed like Dreamer wasn't even noticing the people or the ball, and that just seemed weird, so I moved her and changed her line of vision. That worked. Her drive kicked in when she saw that tennis ball flying back and forth, and she couldn't take it. She had to get up on the first sit-wait and hop over to the fence. I was thrilled!

Of course, I wasn't thrilled that she got up, but I was thrilled that I got to correct her. After that first correction, she was solid. She didn't always look at me on the wait, which I didn't like and will need to figure out how to fix, but she stayed under very tempting conditions. It was a successful training session. The tennis ball is her favorite toy in the world these days, so for her to see a ball going back and forth that she couldn't chase was a big deal. Tennis didn't win this match!

Tracking Time!

I met Linda and Gamer and another lady and her Cattle Dog/BC mix at a school field in Saginaw to track yesterday morning. First we watched and learned how Linda laid the track for the CD/BC. It was about 100 yards long and had 2 turns. This team had a long break from tracking due to the owner's double knee replacement. (You would think that heavier set people would figure out that weight loss would also help, but I digress....)

The team did a nice job.

Then it was Seeker's turn. Linda lent me a glove that was filled with treats but sewn shut at the fingers so the treats couldn't fall into the fingertips. Ahh, I knew it was serendipity that I brought home my sewing machine instead of selling it!

Linda laid a 10 foot track and I took Seeker to the start flag and put her on a down as I switched her leash to the harness. I treated her out of the glove, put the glove in my pocket and then gave the command, "Go Track". It was slow and she wandered, but she finally found the other glove, lay down, and got the reward.

Then we did it again. This time, her nose was to the ground and she understood. My guess is that she will have no problems with this game since I am constantly trying to keep her from having her nose on the ground when we go to shows!

Then we watched Linda and Gamer do their 2 hour aged track. It was so fun to watch! And it was also fun for me to see Gamer at a distance instead of up close and next to me as I work him in conformation. He is looking very nice. If I can get Linda to keep grooming him daily and encouraging a lot of new coat, he might fly to his championship. After all, he's almost 3 years old now and has a CH sister (Vogue) and a GCH brother (Sayer).

When he finished tracking, he flew over to me as if to say, "Did I do good, huh, huh?" He just went crazy over me. We have really developed a bond that should help for showing him. He loves his mom Linda, but she's all serious and down to business. He likes playing with me:-) I'm glad. That means he will trust me when the big scary judge tries to get into his space. It also means that if I correct him, he will forgive me.

Growing Up

The Dreamer is growing up. It's nice and simultaneously sad. As my friend Pat says, Dreamer "would be too much for some people," but she's everything I want and more. I'm so lucky to have her. I love her drive. I love her work ethic. I love her willingness to please. I love her humor. I love her expression. I even love her wild moments (sometimes)!

Dreamer's maturity is really showing in her heeling. She gets distracted by various things, but I quickly get her attention back, and she often chooses to watch me over watching the distractions. She wants to work. She'd rather work than be corrected for not working, and it shows.

Our heeling on Sunday was solid, and Karen was beyond pleased. So we moved on to grown-up tricks like dumbbell holds and signal training. Dreamer anticipates on her signals, which I would expect from a dog with high drive, so I'm just going to have to be very creative in switching things up and keeping her guessing. Our dumbbell holds aren't coming along as well as I would like, so Karen is having me up the ante with the bait. She wants Dreamer to reach for the dumbbell, but so far she's opening her mouth and just letting me put it in. We want her grabbing for it. I know it will come in time. The training is so slow but so positive. I wouldn't want it any other way. She's going to start getting steak for the dumbbell, and that's the only time it will make an appearance. I think it's a good strategy.

We got rained out of agility tonight, which is a bummer. That's the third rainout in 9 weeks. But Dreamer has come a long way in the weeks that we've had class. I'm looking forward to getting this fast girl in the ring someday, and I know we have Laura's support and interest in teaching us. I can see in her eyes that she sees something special in Dreamer. I'm lucky to have smart, adoring teachers, but then it's not hard to love Linda's dogs.

What a Weekend!

Friday was Hobby Day at the junior high I used to teach at. I was asked to teach tennis or do dog training. I chose the latter. The sessions were 75 minutes each: 2 before lunch and 2 after lunch. I talked the organizer into combining all the dog stuff together. Thank goodness! As it was, she spoke for about 5 minutes about Brittany rescue and showed off her 6 month old mixed breed who could do nothing except sit on command and have accidents on the carpet.

Then her friend spoke and showed a jump/tunnel sequence.

After that, my friends spoke about Leader Dogs for the Blind. They had their 4 year old breeder bitch and their puppy in training who is 10 months old.

And then it was Seeker and me for the rest of the time which was usually about 40 minutes. Other than being exhausting, Seeker and I rose to the occasion and livened things up. First I showed a typical conformation pattern and had kids be the "judge" for the down and back and the exam. Then I showed some Novice obedience as well as the beginning of scent work (hiding her medicine bottle). I took my clip and go jump and showed how I was teaching her to arc and wrap as she jumped. Finally, I showed them all of her various tricks: her "mean touch", riding the skateboard, catching a frisbee, closing the drawer, standing on the bowl (the kids called it her elephant trick), and tugging.

I was impressed that she was off leash and her attention never wavered from me. What a girl!

As far as the weekend shows, it was like a dream come true. Cleveland will always be special to me because she won everyday and we had such a good trip. The same will be true of the little town of Corunna with its rolling hills, horse barns, and fairground show site. Taking Best of Breed both days was such a thrill. The weird part is that as much fun as it was, I hated seeing the disappointment on my competitors' faces. It's all such a weird game. At least in obedience and agility, I can feel as if the training was the secret to our success. This beauty pageant stuff is all such fluff...one more point and then we can show sporadically and not get hooked into that whole "have to win" mentality. I'm not saying it's a bad mentality. I'm just saying that it's all based on one judge's opinion on that day. Kinda dumb, huh?

Lessons With Laura

After an exhausting weekend of showing Seeker two days in conformation while stewarding in obedience for our club's dog shows, I was exhausted and dreading our private lesson with Laura.

Before the lesson began, I sat down and had a heart-to-heart with Laura. I told her that I was afraid that we weren't making much progress because of Seeker's inability to concentrate in high distraction places. I asked if it was time to make corrections or just what do I need to do to get her attention? I loved her answer! She said it is very natural for a dog Seeker's age to be distractible. She said she would correct if the dog just blew her off and left her side. But that is not the problem. All Seeker is doing is trying to look away at other things instead of maintaining precise focus on me. Laura said she "primes the pump" by having the dog "push" at the treat for 2 seconds. Then she rewards. Next she walks 2 steps with the dog pushing and rewards. Then she tries to walk 8-10 steps with the treat raised. That usually does it. I love this idea!

She watched us do our straight line heeling and was so excited that Seeker is animated and commented that her heeling was "straight as an arrow". She told me to increase my pace so that Seeker is truly trotting from now on and she gave us left and right turns (in increments) to work on. The steps were complicated, so I videotaped them as a reminder to myself because our next lesson will not be for 2 months.

She was so impressed with the fact that Seeker was so smooth in her left pivots. She said that Seeker is better than her Sheltie Laser at that exercise. She said I am a great trainer who does her homework and she loves that. Geez! To think I was dreading the lesson! I went away feeling on top of the world and happy that we have some fun stuff to finally work on.

Dreamer Gets a Woody. Wait, WHAT?!

It sounds dirty, but Dreamer is learning a piece of equipment called a "woody." It's just a piece of wood with two holes in it (still sounds dirty) and two big plastic rails stuck in each side and crossed. Where the two rails cross is jump height.

We teach the woody just as we would the high jump, but it's the first step in learning the broad jump. Don't ask me why. We have only just begun. I put the woody together this week (the rails didn't fit in the holes, so I had to Dremel them in!) and started Dreamer jumping over it. Take a look.

Happy Heeling

Seeker's private with Laura is 2 weeks from today, so I decided I had better get cracking! Our yard is a distracting place to work right now because of all the noise from the trucks and the workers putting in the water line. I have tweaked Laura's heeling program so that now when Seeker looks away, I say "whoops, watch me" and I stop and we start over again. This is making a lot of sense to Seeker as she tries harder and harder to stay focused as she heels. Laura prefers to have you keep the leash behind your back and in your right hand so that you can control the head and then your left hand with the treat controls the rear end. This works great because Seeker is not a lagger - she definitely is a forger. But with this method, I can keep her from forging. We are now able to take 10-20 steps and I even threw in a left circle and a right circle. I don't know if Laura will move us on from there, but I am going to experiment to see how far I can go with this. There are no automatic sits but that doesn't bother me since I will patiently wait to see how Laura adds that in. In the meantime, Seeker knows a straight sit because we work on it with our "ins" and our finish. And I love that we end each little heeling sequence with Seeker jumping up for the treat when I say, "OK, get it!"

We are also making great progress on the fronts. I love Laura's method of an offset leg while I leave her and go 2 feet and crooked and then call her. Seeker has to figure out how to go around that leg and come in straight. I love that your hands are at your sides unless you need to lure her into a straight sit.

Laura and I didn't work on the longer recall, but I have been doing that with her from an early age and saw her work with a few dogs on solving the "barreling in like a bat out of hell" problem. That describes Seeker well. She comes fast and furious and wants to jump on me. So I call her and then when she is about 5 feet away, I step toward her and say "sit". It's working great!

I also worked her on her drop on recall and she is folding back nicely with no forward movement of her paws.

We had fun! She seemed very interested in working on obedience again after our weekend of conformation. We are both tired of dressing up and looking pretty!