I finally shot some video of our foundation class. We've mostly been working on front crosses for the past 2 weeks for the handling portion of class. Last week we had some more A-frame familiarization and this week some running on the low dogwalk. Tess was spayed a week ago Thursday so she sat out this past week's class and missed the dogwalk practice but did get some A-frame exposure last week. It was her second time on the thing and this time she made it maybe 2/3-3/4 of the way up the up ramp. Her first time on it she only got on it on the bottom, maybe took a step up so this was some improvement. Ruby runs the whole thing no problem though if we put a food bowl down she'll run past the A-frame to the bowl when I release her. This is a common issue with her for all equipment. She still doesn't get that she has to do the thing before she gets the treat. Or probably she does get it but she's going to chance it anyway and run straight to the treat.
Last week the heater was on for the first time and poor Tess freaked out the moment she walked through the door and turned right around trying to go back out. I spent some time tossing treat balls around for her until she finally calmed down enough to do a tunnel and a jump. For her second turn she was finally able to work the sequence. Though the instructor turned the heat off right away and never turned it back on. Not sure what she'll do this winter when it needs to stay on. And if she's going to compete indoors in the winter she'll have to get used to the sound of a heater. But maybe she doesn't have to compete. The hurdles she has to go through before she'll be able to sit on a start line are considerable. All I can do is see how she goes and keep working with her and if she never sees a competition ring then oh well.
Tess Video
Miss Ruby was awesome, she came out and ran her sequences no problem. Well, other than my problems. I'm thinking more about foot placement, especially for those front crosses, and how I place my feet when I turn and go. The old way I've been doing things is clunky and inefficient and often sets the dog up on the wrong line. So my self-imposed homework for this week is to work on the various types of front crosses without the dog, just me and some jumps.
Ruby's Videos
Last Week
This Week
I also need to work on more obstacle commitment with Ruby, especially at the tunnels.
Tess will be back at class next week, we'll see how she does with the heater. Silly freaky dog.
This is the same snow from a few weeks ago, it's sunny out now and the snow is long gone but I haven't shot any new photos lately so these will do for now.
Nothing too sexy to see here, just some extension and obstacle commitment training. I'm using a Manners Minder gizmo at the end of the jumps then calling her back to me. My ankle's still a bit jacked up so I'm still taking it easy and no sprinting/running. Glad I don't have any races on the calendar.
Takes her a couple of reps but she figures out her striding. I lowered the jumps to 8" from 10-12" so perhaps that confused her at first. The previous session she was back to running past the jumps so I made it easier. Today I raised them to 10" and she had no issues. No video, couldn't be bothered.
Still working on weave pole training with the channels and she still sometimes runs straight to the Manners Minder and ignores the channel. She's getting better though. I went down to 6 poles so we could get more reps in. Once she's solid with taking the channel and the channel gets narrower I'll add the other poles back so she can learn to get her rhythm. I think she'll be ready to retired by the time I get her trained.
My agility club's seminar was the weekend before last and since Ruby is barely doing obstacles there wasn't much we could enter. But there was a Foundation session and a Contacts session so we got to play in new more formal surroundings and learn a bit.
I figured the Foundation session would have us sending to curved tunnels, doing tight circles around cones and wing standards, short sequences and who knows what else. I was totally wrong. For us and most of the folks there it was all about extension. The more advanced folks got the start of teaching soft turns and a front cross. But Ruby wasn't sequencing at all before the seminar and I hadn't even tried running at a single jump with her. It was all me standing next to the standard and rewarding her for taking the jump. I was thankful to have such high level help with moving on to the next step. Such a simple step and yet so big.
I used her Lotus Ball for reward and Dudley placed it a few strides after the jump while I sent her from a restrain through the standards with no jump bar. Eventually we added another jump and then some bars at 4". Then a third jump by her second turn. Then a straight tunnel to 2 jumps. Pretty sure it was 2 jumps. It took her a couple of reps each time we made it harder but she caught on pretty quickly. So happy with the little smidge. She had a good time too, didn't seem at all worried about making mistakes or the other dogs or the strange surroundings and Dudley did a great job of keeping things fun and light. Our homework is to get up to 4 jumps (or jumps/tunnels) straight in a row before trying to work on turns. My other homework is not to use my handling to keep her from running past jumps. I found myself running into her line to get her to take the jumps and not only did it not work but Dudley rightly pointed out that I don't want to have to do that in the future. Better to manipulate the training environment than your handling. I regretted this with Strummer, using my handling to make up for holes in foundation so I was thankful to have that pointed out. I'm to put down a leash or rope parallel to the line of jumps to use like a Gamble line to keep me from crowding her and I'm to move the leash further and further out to get lateral distance. All obvious stuff but it's been so long. And Strummer needed so much work with collection, we didn't spend too much time on extension. In hindsight we could/should have spent more but yeah, hindsight. It's more obvious that Ruby will need more work with extension. Small dog, small stride, not super fast, at least not yet, extension makes more sense.
Some training from yesterday. Jumps and mini tunnel (my old chute barrel) are close together due to the size of my yard but it's a start.
I think she's refusing that third jump because she's trying to figure out how to adjust her stride too late. Or maybe she's still learning how to physically jump. She doesn't have the best build for jumping with that long back. Jumps are at 10" and competition height will be 12". I did build up to this, had a few sessions between the seminar and this taped session.
One of Dudley's training techniques that I like is that you should always start with something you're sure the dog will do. I did this on previous sessions and she was easily handling the 3 obstacles in previous sessions so I felt confident starting out with them. Another training technique she (and many others) have is that you don't make it easier after the first failure. So I tried 3 obstacles again and when she failed the second time I went back to 2. I don't have a lot of room to get lateral distance so that part will have to wait until I feel good enough to take her to the training field. My training partner offered up her yard and I may take her up on it.
The Contact session was very interesting, again not at all what I was expecting. Dudley teaches a running A-frame with stride regulators and a running dogwalk using a foot target. The interesting thing is that she starts with a foot target the length of the contact zone and the only criteria is that the dog hits it. Doesn't matter if the dog leaps off of it because as long as the dog adjusts stride to hit the contact on the full dogwalk it doesn't matter to her if they leap off of it after they've hit. She also teaches a 'stop' on the dogwalk by teaching the dog to paw the end of the target board and eventually the end of the dogwalk. These cues are on a verbal eventually. Similarly for the teeter she trains the dog to paw the end. And she uses the 2 table method to teach the dog to run the teeter separate from the end behavior. I've been watching a DVD from Jen Pinder ('Sizzling Seesaws') that also uses 2 tables for the same reason but for 4 on she teaches the dogs to stop at the end with front feet not allowed to go off the board.
Ruby had a few turns at running the foot target and again I was crowding her to get her to run on the board. She'll avoid obstacles to get to the treats more quickly. I was using a small tupperware container filled with good treats this time rather than the Lotus Ball to save the time of her ripping the ball open. She did well with it, again seemed happy and not worried by mistakes.
When I came home I tried to find some videos of Dudley's dogs doing the pawing thing in competition because I was having a hard time envisioning this. She didn't have a demo dog so we had to imagine what the final behavior looks like. In the end it looks like her dogs don't really paw the end in an obvious way, not the way I was picturing anyway, but she does have nice contacts. I like the idea of a foot target for dogs that are big strided and don't have a consistent performance on the dogwalk (ie Strummer). I'm not thrilled with the idea that it's o.k. for them to leap, maybe all those years of watching for it and considering it an important criteria. But for Ruby so far she's showing no signs of leaping and is doing really well with striding on the full flat board. I elevated the board for the first time yesterday and she still did great.
We'll see how it goes but for now I don't see a reason to bother with a foot target. I'm using the Manners Minder gizmo rather than a thrown toy though. It's so much easier for me, that Lotus ball was causing all kinds of issues. Not sure it makes her run any faster either. I might bring it back, we'll see. I know thrown toys are a big part of Silvia's method but for now it's a complication and I don't see much value in it for her. But I'm keeping an open mind about it all.
On the 'Search for a Second Dog' front I've decided a good way to connect with good working dog breeders is to go to a herding trial. A quick search of the USBCHA site (the one and only herding venue that's considered a good place for testing herding ability that is worth breeding for) showed a trial up in Nunn (about 1 hour 20 minutes drive) on March 12. Unfortunately I couldn't find the arena on Google Maps so I emailed the woman putting on the trial and got a very quick response. She also sent me a better link for local trials and there's also an outdoor trial in April and another one down in Monte Vista which is sorta kinda on the way to Cortez/Mancos/Dolores area so maybe we'll take a little trip down there for more house hunting. I'm excited to go, the only herding I've seen in person was at the National Western Stock Show down in Denver many years ago. It was fun to watch but the whole Stock Show thing was a nightmare of crowds and traffic way back then, I can only imagine the hassle of it now and I haven't gone back since.
That link also lists 'Resources' for lessons and the only instructor listed is the woman I took both Lola and Strummer to for Instinct Testing. Lola was a definite no go but Strummer showed some promise, he was too young and over the top but the instructor, Cathy, said he maybe just needed to grow up a bit and try again in a few months. I did let him try again a couple of years later at USDAA Nationals and he seemed much better, the guy doing the instinct test spent loads of time with him and he was much calmer. They were using goats rather than sheep and the goats seemed calmer. The guy gave him a certificate but they were giving certificates to pretty much everybody who's dog showed even the slightest amount of interest in the goats. I dug it out and it was from the Arizona Herding Assocation and a quick Google search shows that it's under the auspices of the AKC so yeah, not very rigorous requirements. Which is fine for encouraging pet and agility folks at USDAA Nat's. to try herding for fun and something else to do with their dogs. But I never pursued it beyond, too expensive for lessons on top of agility and too far to drive. Cathy's place in Ft. Lupton was about 1 hour 10 minutes back in the day, who know what it is now with the crazy traffic we have now. But I don't know, maybe if I get a Border Collie that shows interest I might consider trying it again. Because I need another dog sport right now. Sure I do.
Nothing like some good running dogwalk OCD to distract you from the horrors of the world. It feels worse this time around because I know what I'm in for and what to watch for and how many ways it can all go so wrong.
For months I've been ambivalent about dog training, my brain and body focused on Xterra Nat's. and then Worlds and Ruby being such a Good Girl and not needing tons of training or Something To Do. Now suddenly I find myself entrenched in it, madly reviewing all my videos for all the things. Why does agility have to have so many things? And why do so many of those things have to be so big and expensive and they don't fit in my yard?
And the Running Dogwalk. Such a simple thing and yet so complimacated. Right now we've had exactly two sessions of running on a piece of astro-turf, so simple. Two sessions I used a treat gizmo, the other a Lotus Ball. Silvia's method uses a thrown toy but I never liked that idea for Strummer because of terrible worry over torn ACLs in crazy dogs chasing toys and slamming on the brakes and forever trashing knees. So for most of his training I used a remote control treat dispenser gizmo. At some points throughout his training I would use thrown toys but at the start it was all about the treat gizmo. But Silvia advises that you use a thrown toy and one that is still moving when they catch up to it because a stationary toy will encourage pouncing which will encourage leaping. Ruby is not Strummer and I'm not too worried about her slamming on the brakes but she does have bionic rear knees from knee surgery so I'm keeping a close eye on her with the toys and running and slamming on brakes.
I shot video of all 3 sessions and so far I'm much happier with the treat gizmo. This is partly because I suck at throwing and the Lotus Ball isn't like a real ball so it stops before she gets to it anyway. I tried a couple reps of waiting to throw it until she started running but those throws were some of the worst in terms of my aim and I sent her right off the mat. I've been working on her tunnel skills so hopefully I can set up a tunnel after the mat soon so she has something to drive to before her reward. But we need some more work before the tunnel is rewarding enough. For the first time today she went through the tunnel without being cued and she seems to enjoy it so I think we're well on the way.
First Session (3 days ago) (treat gizmo placed too close to the mat so she never got a lot of speed up)
Second Session (yesterday)
Third Session (today)
Perhaps I've been looking at the videos for far too long but it looks to me like she's leaping on the second and third sessions, more so on the third session with the ball and perhaps it's to do with my throwing and timing. In most reps. the ball is stationary by the time she gets to it. It seems impossible that such a little dog built as she is could be leaping. Will have to take another look at the Silvia Running Contact DVD. Or maybe I'm overthinking all of this. You think?
I've also been working on the tunnel and running through the channel weaves to the treat gizmo. She's happily running through the channel now as long as she's facing the entry straight on. As soon as I try to angle her entry she goes straight for the treat gizmo and ignores the weave poles. Going to try some 2x2 training for entries or at least to teach her to look for the poles. Wish my weave poles opened wider than a foot but oh well.
Still working on Cik/Cap and jump training. She's finally offering to jump and mostly has decent control of her rear/doesn't swing too wide. Well maybe on a rep or two but mostly she's pretty good. Time to move onto the next step.
Ruby Jumps
Haven't done anything about the teeter yet. I'm borrowing a teeter training video by Jen Pinder from my agility club library, should get it next week. In the meantime I've been shaping Ruby to walk along a plank, play on it, 2 on 2 off, etc. so she's comfortable on a plank in general. She seems fine with it so far. I had a handmade wobble board for Lola but turned it into a table and now I doubt it'll wobble due to the table edges. Guess I could make another one but I'm feeling lazy and I never felt like it helped Lola all that much in terms of the teeter. We'll see what the video suggests.
I've got Ruby entered in a seminar in February. One is Contact Foundations and I'm sure she'll be fine for that but the other sounds like there will be sequences even though it's a Foundations class so we'll see how that goes. We can always sit out the stuff that's over her head and at least I'll have some ideas of stuff to work on in the future. But sheesh, nothing like the pressure of a seminar to get your training butt in gear. Think I'll even try to get her out to the training field in the next few days to see how she does outside the backyard. Yep, nothing like silly hobbies to distract you from the woes of the world, at least for a few moments.
It's that time of year, snow plus single digits equals sore dog feet. Obviously Ruby doesn't fit in the big dogs' hand me downs so I had to take her shoe shopping. It's been about 10 years or so since I bought dog booties and while Ruff Wear still exists they no longer make the booties that worked so well for Strummer and Cody. All the styles I found online had a hard, vibram type sole that I think is a bad idea for dog feet since they can't move and flex their feet normally. Sort of like minimalist shoes vs big Hoka type mega cushioned/stability shoes for humans. So I headed over to P.C.'s Pantry, one of Boulder's locally owned high quality dog and cat supply stores. P.C.'s is great for getting good stuffs for dogs but it can be quite the 'scene' in there with crazy Boulderites and their dogs. I didn't get there early enough so the place was hopping with crazy dog people and their dogs. Poor Ruby, she's such a good sport but she did not want to try on shoes and especially did not appreciate the zillions of 'friendly' dogs trying to get in her face while she was getting stupid shoes shoved on her feet. I did my best to shield her and give her space and I did end up clocking a 7 month old Bernese Mountain Dog in his thick skull with my my elbow to keep him away. Actually I lifted my elbow to keep him from charging at her and he ran into me and he smacked his thick skull into my elbow. The owner mumbled an apology and moved on. The nice ladies behind the counter gave Ruby plenty of snugs and delicious doggie cookies from the bakery while we waited to be rung up so it wasn't a total horror show experience for her. Pretty sure I came out of the place with a few new grey hairs though.
We've tested her new booties twice so far, once was a dry run on a short old dog walk on a cold morning with no snow and only the front booties on. Then we went out yesterday in the 6" of new snow and 11 degrees cold with all booties on. She was not happy about any of it but I needed to get some poop out of her since she seemed unwilling to go in the backyard and I figured if I took her for a short walk she'd oblige.
The booties? A brand called Ultra Paws and so far they get the thumbs up. We were only out for about 10-15 minutes and only 1 block was in the deep snow, everywhere else was plowed so I don't have a lot of experience with them. But they stayed on and kept the snow out for a short, utilitarian type walk. Actually it was more of a run because Ruby was so cold and she pulled mightily so I ran, clomping behind her in my big old school Sorels. Funny, I bought my Sorels in the 90's at a heavy clearance discount from the army navy store in Boulder when they were falling out of fashion and now they're all the rage again and cost 3x what I paid.
Rockin' it Old School
Ruby's New Shoes
They have a unique feature that I've never seen in dog boots and it's 2 pieces of foam at the top. The foam serves the dual purpose of keeping the booties on and keeping the snow out as you can see from the photos. This design also allows the top part of the bootie to be split so that you don't have to force the paw into the bootie through a lot of material so they're much easier to get on and off than other booties I've had. I particularly dislike booties with elastic cuffs at the top even though the cuff helps keep the snow out because they're so hard to get on.
Ruby's feet were dry though this design does hold the snow/iceball next to her leg. Her feet were cold to the touch but not as cold as other days when I've had her out with no booties in milder weather.
As long as I'm yammering on about dog shoes I'll also give a shout out to Pawz rubber booties. I've been using these for Lola because she has that old dog neurological disease where she flips her feet over and can't feel them to flip them back. Her feet were getting cut and bloody and dirty on walks as she'd scuff her feet against the pavement. For a few months I wrapped her feet in vet wrap but this got spendy and was a pain to do each time we went out. Also it didn't always work and often the tape would come off. These booties work great and would also be great for those days when the ground is covered with salt and de-icer. Not sure if they would keep paws warm enough on bitter cold days but for basic protection they're pretty handy and easy to get on and off. They're also pretty durable for disposable booties, Lola's still on her first pair and we've been using them twice a day for about a month now.
On a completely unrelated note I was inspired to shoot some video yesterday of Ruby's Cik Cap training. For those unfamiliar with Silvia Trkman's techniques, cik means a tight wrap around the jump to the left, cap means a tight wrap to the right. I've been practicing both shaping and luring this with Ruby around a small cone (we started off luring because this was a rehab exercise for her and no way she was going to offer the behavior and I needed her to do it right away). This is her first session with my brand new fancy pants jump wing.
I'm pleased with her enthusiasm and the fact that she never stalled out and sat down. But my reward placement is crappy. It was hard to maneuver around that big jump wing. Something to work on.
Opened up my email this morning to the surprise of an invitation to Xterra Worlds in Maui in October. A couple of weeks ago my coach asked me if I planned on going if I qualified and I told her I wasn't sure I'd qualify and I'd almost certainly not go if I did. I've been struggling with the heat this summer and Maui has humidity on top of heat, something we don't have here. It would be fun to swim in the ocean but nothing else about the race seems fun other than that it's WORLDS and shouldn't I be excited about going to WORLDS? While I would like the experience of it, the logistics and $$$ involved are daunting. It's a whopping $525 just to enter! Then there's Lola. Jonny would have to stay home with Lola and I'd feel bad going to Hawaii without him. It's a long, hard race in race conditions that don't suit me but there is a perverse side of me that likes a challenge. I have until Sept. 14 to decide.
I introduced Ruby to jumping the other day and while she doesn't immediately scream Agility Dog, it doesn't look so bad on video.
It's been 10 years since I've taught a dog to jump so my training skills could be better as well. I pulled out Linda Mecklenberg's 'Developing Jumping Skills' book last night to give myself a refresher. Her writing can be a bit tedious because she's trying to give precise instructions but I followed her methods for Strummer and was pleased with his jumping. I think One Mind offers a free trial period and I might try that out. I love the DVD I have from them but there's no foundation stuff on it. Not sure if their website/online program offers foundation training. Ruby's not a fan of shaping, she sits down and stares at me rather than offering behaviors so we're going to continue to work on that.
I also bought Silvia Trkman's Foundation DVD and I'm borrowing her Cik and Cap DVD from my training partner and she has a lot of good stuff. I'm not a fan of the constant chatter she provides her dog on course but I think I went too far the other way with Strummer and didn't provide enough verbal cues. So this time around I'm going to work a bit more with training verbals. Don't think I'll ever get to the point of yelling, 'Tunnel! Tunnel! Tunnel!' a million times before the tunnel but I think using more verbals will be an interesting experiment. I also borrowed her 'Ready Steady Go' DVD from the agility club library and there was some good stuff in there too. Ruby is getting more excited about playing but she still needs to be in the right mood. She actually pulled the stuffing out of a toy the other day! Never thought I'd be so happy to see that. I even took photos but somehow I can't find them now.
In other good news I'm tentatively declaring victory over the wasps. I still see them in my yard and vegetable garden but it's been a couple of days since I've seen any coming and going from the wall. I found out it would have cost $135 to have someone come out and exterminate them, a fee I gladly would paid, but they would use pesticides, some kind of foam or something sprayed at the gap between the foundation wall and siding. The wasps going in would carry the pesticide inside the wall to kill of the hive which is fine but what about the wasps coming out? I worried about having chemical laden wasps lying dead in my yard and Ruby eating them or having them get in my vegetable garden which is right next to the wasp infested wall. So I was glad not to have to resort to that. At least I have my yard back and the dogs can come and go freely. Horrible bastard wasps. This fall I'm going to seal every crack and gap I can find and in the spring I'm going to be more vigilant for possible hives forming.
If we are even here in the spring. Every day the San Juans beckon more and more. A house/ranch that looked almost perfect to us came on the market some weeks ago and quickly went under contract. Which was weird because the house is small (1340 s.f.) for most Americans and kinda weird looking from the outside. But there are outbuildings for animals, a guest house, fenced fields, even a fenced arena. In a beautiful location right next to Mesa Verde but only 2.8 miles from town on a straight country road (no mountain driving). And senior water rights! I figured that was maybe why it was snatched up so quickly, most houses sit on the market for months out there. But something happened and it's back on the market. And of course we can't get down there to look at it because of Lola plus there's the concern of why did the deal fall through? So we'll see.
Miss Lola. Totally worth all the travel restrictions.
