Agility Foundations Class: Week 2

Seeker and I missed week one of the new set of classes due to an away tournament for my boys team. I was pleased to see that most of the members of the class are the teams we worked with in Foundations One, with the addition of one team: a Sheltie and her elderly owner. I like it: makes me feel younger:)

The contact equipment is all out at another member's farm for a match this weekend, so Debbie set up jump sequences for us to go through. I watched as they set the bar at 16 inches and the bigger dogs and handlers went through. I was grateful for that because watching and then doing just doesn't come easily for me unless I can see it a bunch of times or actually walk the course and mimic the motions. Unlike my sons, I do not have a map in my head and I'm quite directionally challenged. I must move kinesthetically through something many times until muscle memory takes over. I know that because of tennis. Luckily, Seeker and I were last as the bars were moved down to 4".

Debbie warned the other teams that Seeker is only 4 months old and might wander off so to be sure to watch their dogs and help if needed. I must say, I was wondering what might happen with her being off lead in the ring. But I gave it a shot and sat her in front of the first jump and told her to "wait". I like to use the "wait" command so it is different from the stay in obedience. Lo and behold, she waited and never took her eyes off of me! I really haven't taught her this except with the electronic fence. I would tell her to wait, hold my hand up, and go to the mailbox so I could retrieve the mail or the newspaper. Obviously, she learned it and it carried over. Don't you love training a Terv? They make you look like such a great trainer! So, she waited there in front of the jump while I placed myself between that jump and the next one and then I sent her from that lead out position. She focused right on my hand as I gave her "jump" and "here" commands and went through the first series like a dream! She came very close to my hand, but after all, she is a puppy! I was blown away. We did this 4 more times each time with a more difficult sequence, but on the 2nd series, we had to go first since the bars were at her height. We are a team! No problem. We even did a series with a front cross. Seeker cues in on my body so well that she had no problem at all. Not only that: she is fast, but not out-of-control fast.
Another improvement I noticed: as we wait our turn, Seeker is much more patient. She is either looking at me (hoping for treats) or watching the dog who is running through. But she is no longer pulling on her lead to get to other dogs or lunging toward them as they work. It helps that I keep her busy as we wait doing some tugging, free stacking for conformation or touches, but she is really starting to get the big picture. She knows that if she is patient, she will have her turn to shine and shine she did!
At the end of the night, the elderly lady asked me, "How old is she?" I could tell that she was blown away by the answer.
We went out to dinner afterward and Debbie told Mark that Seeker was better than most of the dogs there: all of whom are much older. I know that Debbie had a few doubts about Seeker moving on to this next class, but the later time works better for me with coaching and I just figured we would not push: I would do what Seeker is capable of. Obviously, she is capable of a lot! I love my Tacara girl!

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

Dreamer and I had two consecutive weeks of obedience lessons with Karen. It was good because I felt compelled to work with my dog every night, a tough thing to do in the Texas heat right now. At 8 PM, it's still 103 degrees and miserable.

Last night, we got a cold front and rain that brought temperatures down considerably, and I have enjoyed working with Dreamer in the cooler weather. She lasts longer! She has a pretty good heat tolerance, though, because she just loves to work.

Anyway, in the miserable heat on Sunday, Dreamer really kicked ass in her heeling. Her attention was spot-on, and Karen was very encouraged and psyched by our progress. I was too. I decided to confide to Karen that Nancy and Panda were at an obedience trial. Nancy told Karen that she was doing her own thing and hasn't been to a lesson for several months, but I'm not sure Karen understood that Nancy was training on her own. I think Karen believed Nancy had just lost interest and quit all together.

Well, Nancy became very impatient with Karen's method, which is saying a lot because Nancy is one of the most patient people I know. Panda is a wonderful dog with tons of potential, but Nancy didn't want to wait to trial her anymore and entered her in a three-day weekend of shows. On the first day, Panda scored 191. On the second day, 190. On the third day, her score would have been 193, but she had an itch on the long down that she had to scratch. That's an Aussie for you.

I don't want to belittle Nancy's achievements because, hey, she's got two Novice B legs on Panda now. But I have to say that her low scores are a pity if you know Panda and what Panda can do. From the sounds of it, Nancy did not have Panda's undivided attention, and it hurt her. I talked to Karen about it, and while she respects Nancy's decision to train on her own, she emphasized the importance of attention and working on it more than anything else.

Re-enter conversation about the belt. As you know, I'm a fan of the belt (even though it looks stupid and is highly embarrassing to wear in public). It has been a very good tool for grabbing Dreamer's attention and reducing handler errors. We will eventually ditch the belt and put the treat on an armband instead of a stick.

Karen told me that it's really rewarding once we get to the armband. She said she will put a treat in her armband at shows (outside of the ring, obviously) and that people take note. They get the idea that they can do that to get great attention. But Karen told me that a treat in the armband doesn't work if you haven't started with the belt. She's all about working through the steps.

I have no idea what's in store for Dreamer and me in the ring. Maybe I won't get good attention with her, even after all of this work with the belt. Maybe Dreamer's scores won't even be as high as Panda's. Eeek! (They all act a little different at the actual shows, for some reason.) But I choose to believe in Karen because I already feel like we've been rewarded a lot by working through the steps of the method. I truly believe that if I can get Dreamer's attention now by working through these painstaking steps, I will have a much easier time with her in advanced obedience. Time will tell, and I'll be paying attention the whole way.

August Update

First of all: Mr. Pilot, the pseudo Terv. Pilot accompanied the team to an away match. He did great on the hour and one half bus ride each way. He even fell asleep on the way home!

The bad:

• he tried to chase the Chesaning boys as they ran by to warm up
• he pulled toward a lady who sat nearby and started eating
• he stole an apple from a blanket on the ground!
  
• he barked at an autistic kid who was roaming around the parking lot area (I think he felt the kid's high energy). After the boy's sister came by to introduce him to Pilot, Pilot calmed down. Hard to tell what is going on in a dog's mind, but I think Pilot realized that the kid was special.
• I gave him to a player to hold and he stuck his face into a bowl of cheese!

The good:

• Pilot sat next to me and watched as all the boys were introduced and shook my hand
• He got a little excited as the Chesaning kids ran down their line slapping hands, but after the first few, he settled
  
• He loose leashed walked next to me for the entire match; sitting or lying down on command as I moved around from court to court.
  
• He walked with Marty's little sisters very well until he got excited and tried to hump them (whoops, that goes in the bad column!)
• He ate his dinner by the bleachers as we waited for the exhibition matches to finish
• He calmed me by loving my petting as I watched the matches
• He gave the boys who were sitting nearby lots of love on the bus
• He showed much more patience than ever on such a long trip (the entire trip was 6 hours long)

I am definitely going to have him hanging out a lot as I coach. It was a great experience for him.

Seeker and I are spending much more time on agility than obedience. This is a huge change from the way I worked things with Remy. I am reversing things because I want her to learn to work away from me first and on either side of my body. It will be easy to bring her back to me later. She already has great focus. We still work on "watch me", sits, downs, stays, etc. but I'm just not doing much heeling with her yet. The agility work is already teaching her to cue into my body movements so I think it will lead right into heeling later on.
We definitely work on loose leash heeling. The command is "by me". She is picking up on this much faster than Mr. Pilot did! We don't have to walk backward much unless there are high distractions.

She has a good prey drive but not an insane prey drive like Remy. It sounds as if she is very much like Dreamer except that she can relax more in public. Remy was like Pilot. It took a lot for him to relax in public.

The absolute best part is how excited she gets when she sees me now. We have truly bonded even with the big yellow dog around. She plasters her ears back and jumps all over me. I love it! Shhh, don't tell Linda:)

Her conformation training is coming along. She easily falls into a natural stack and holds it. Gaiting is more of a problem because she wants to sidewind. We are still working on that and have 2 more months. Hopefully it will come around.

She knows most of the tricks in the book in the book, Puppy Tricks by Kyra Sundance. The funniest story is the shell game. I bought 3 flower pots from the dollar store and taught her to sniff out the one with the treat. It's great fun because there is a hole in the top of each pot and they are heavy enough that she doesn't knock the correct one over when she paws it. Kyra likes the dog to "paw it" to indicate the correct pot. One day I forgot which pot I had put the treat under. To my embarrassment, Seeker knew I was wrong. Imagine my surprise when I lifted the "wrong" pot, almost ready to say, "No, try again" and there was the treat!

We have a lot of stairs in this house and Seeker is now climbing them with ease. She prefers to go down, but she does a good job of bunny hopping up them once I get her started. It won't take long before this is a distant memory.

It took her forever to learn to stand by the door to indicate that she has to go out to go potty, but we finally have that mastered.

Tonight is agility class. I'll blog again tomorrow. You're it!

Jesus and the Dumbbell

It's been so hot, and I've lacked motivation to do much training lately. I'm burned out on dog shows and have needed a little downtime.

I decided to do one thing for obedience that could be accomplished in the air conditioning. Karen asked me to call Joe Feist, a guy in Ohio who is very well known for his custom-fit dumbbells and scent articles. I've seen so many of his dumbbells in Texas over the years. They really stand out. You can get your initials on one end of the dumbbell and an emblem that means something to your breed on the other end (like a sheep).

Karen had measured Dreamer for her dumbbell using the closest fit she could find, which was her boyfriend's Golden Retriever's dumbbell. We went a little shorter from there on the ends and also a little smaller on the diameter, but Karen advised me to take any advice Joe had to offer on the measurements. He's been doing this forever.

Karen warned me that Joe is a talker, so it took me some time to find an open window to call him about ordering a dumbbell. I had to block off an hour at work in the afternoon because Joe apparently talks your ear off for 45 minutes and only accepts calls in the afternoons (I'm not sure the latter part is true, but I followed Karen's advice).

Anyway, I finally called Joe, and he was a character! He said "Jesus Christ" every other word because he was trying to remember certain names, places, dates, and other information. We really only talked for about 20 minutes, but he was the nicest guy and seemed very experienced in his line of work. He almost seemed like Jesus because he does things old school. I'll send him a check first, and then he'll "fix me up," he says. I look forward to my first Joe Feist dumbbell and will post a photo when it comes in. My hope is that the custom-fit dumbbell eliminates a lot of problems I had with Legan -- especially the spinning she did with her dumbbell because it was really too big for her. Stay tuned for a religious dumbbell experience.

Seeker the Star

When Seeker and I got to agility class last night, I saw that Debbie had set the ring up for jumping. Since we can't really jump, I decided that I would join the puppy class on the other end of the building and work Seeker in obedience. That was a great plan! Seeker was a little star and the instructor explained to the people in the class that I was also an instructor and that they should watch me work with Seeker. So I demonstrated how I get down to her level with the treat or any leash guidance. I was glad to be of help because I basically just crashed the class and did my own thing. I would whip out her frisbee and play with her while she tugged and growled. She "gives" so well on command. I was able to keep her pumped and working because I kept giving her play breaks.
When they worked on their "stand" command, I had Seeker "stand pretty" and I was blown away by the fact that she did! She watched the bait and didn't move. I am so glad that I started early with her. It should make all the difference in the world. Next week I think I'll go before class starts and work on her movement in the ring. Maybe someone will help me out by pretending to be the judge.

The instructors then brought over a bar from a jump for the puppies to step over and the tippy board. Seeker demonstrated both of those things and then we left and went back to agility. By this time, Debbie and Kali had put a board on the ground as well as the small teeter so we worked on both of those things. She has been working on a board at home and doing well on a slight incline, so I thought I'd give the full teeter a try. She did great! The movement didn't bother her at all. (It's a very tiny teeter). It was so funny. She did great in obedience, but when we got back to the agility ring, she got her second wind! She loves it! And that was how she was able to concentrate for an hour. My little star:)

Starting Over

It seems so weird to be starting all over again training a puppy. Seeker is the hardest pup we've ever had to potty train. She just doesn't pee that often. So sometimes when we take her out, she doesn't go! It's very discouraging. And she has yet to stand by the door to indicate that she needs to go out. Pilot was trained by 10 weeks and yet he wasn't nearly as good as she was at other training. She is much easier to walk on lead. She's actually doing a very good job of loose leash walking.
I'm doing much more training for agility right off the bat than I did with Remy. Seeker is in a foundation agility class and she is doing quite well. I have found that she is very toy driven. She loves her small frisbee. It's easy to get her riled up and ready to work. She knows the commands "give" and "leave it" so getting it out of her mouth is easy. She loves to retrieve and we also use the frisbee as a target for agility work. Today she walked a board on the ground and then I put it on an incline leading up to our deck. She did great and is working hard on the "two feet on / two feet off" at the end of the board. She also goes to her tennis ball target and either touches it with her nose or her foot. So cute and so playful! She is learning to catch the frisbee and doesn't mind if it hits her if she misses. She is amazingly cool about loud sounds. At class when other dogs are barking or there is some disturbance, she looks, but doesn't really react. Today we walked right by the garbage truck and she did fine! I have yet to see her really startle. She is more brave around the vacuum cleaner than Pilot is and I find that very amusing!
We're also working on conformation using the mirror that Maggie gave me. She sometimes gets confused and sits, but we're working on "stand pretty" and "wait" for the bait. It's coming. Because she doesn't get rattled, she should show well in noisy venues. We'll see.
3 months old yesterday and she's doing a good job of worming her way into our hearts.

Moving On

It's hard to believe that I haven't made an entry in so long. Pilot has made tremendous progress and now that little Seeker has joined us, I hope with all my might that he fulfills his destiny to become a Leader Dog.

Seeker: her name fits her. She seeks out mischief and fun. She seeks to learn. She is always striving to do her best. It will be a challenge to keep her mind busy and content. She was 9 weeks old this week and she knows:

sit, down, here, touch, paws up, spin, leave it, take it (retrieving), get it (treat off a target), watch me, and is starting to learn come and wait. She's working on loose leash walking. She's starting to get the idea of housebreaking as we use the commands, "Let's go outside" and "go potty". She's only had one accident.

She's a she-devil to Pilot as she taunts him and bites him. He is quite tolerant.

She plays happily with her toys in her crate or ex-pen most of the time until she falls asleep.

I'm a LUCKY PERSON!