Driving Lessons

Do the Hustle


Strum had his second agility lesson on Weds. night. This time the whole hour went to him partly because storms were possible and Lola hates thunder but also because it's something of a challenge to have 2 dogs at work when one of those dogs is Strummer.

The Trouble Twins


They're not that bad but one is so much easier and of course on the very rare occasion that they do decide to misbehave at the same time it's in front of a client or my boss or, if I'm really lucky, both. I was really lucky last week so decided to keep it to one dog this week. An hour turned out to be too long of a lesson for him so I'll be back to twofers next week or maybe I'll find someone to split my lesson with. I think Strum's ready to start working with one other dog in the field.

We started out with what should have been a simple jumping lesson-a gentle arc of 5 or 6 jumps heading into a tunnel. The jumps started out with one slightly staggered then the amount of stagger would increase. The idea was to teach Strum to look for jumps. First off, Strum has never worked with more than 3 jumps at a time or more than 2 in a row so this was way more difficult than I thought it would be. We started off with just 2 or 3 jumps then increased by a jump each rep. First Strum didn't want to send to the tunnel, something I know about and have been working on. I have to run right up to the tunnel entrance. Joy gave me some good tips on how to work on this and we've been practising but not a whole lot. Then when we got up to 4 jumps or so he would jump then look at me and miss the next jump, running right by it. Or he'd take 2 jumps then run by the 3rd. Part of the problem was that I was running right next to the jump standards, crowding and confusing him and of course drawing even more attention to myself. I finally managed to convince mysslf to run a fair distance out from the jumps but he was still missing them. It took a lot of reps and a lot of running (oh poor knee) before we finally got it. Let us not even discuss how fast Strum is. I thought Lola was a little red rocket dog (she's slowed a lot now that she's older) but this guy needs a 20 year old with good reflexes to run him, not an old lady with bad feet and gimpy knees. I think maybe my next dog will be a Bassett Hound.

We worked a bit on the teeter. Strum can do a full height teeter now but I'm having trouble fading the liver paste at the end of the teeter. If there's nothing there then he does any number of things but none of which is correct, ie stop at the end with all 4 feet on and wait for release. After trying many things with a low teeter Joy had the idea of teaching him a verbal for his stop at the end and keep with the liver paste until he starts to learn the word because that's the best way to get him to stop in the perfect position. Once he's got a word it will be easier to fade the paste because I can tell him what he needs to do. Shaping this with a board on the ground would be too confusing for him because of the running contact work we're doing already with a board on the ground.

As far as the weaves go, Strum can easily weave 6 poles with the channels closed and we've been working on entries. I've been using 2-3 poles so I can click just the entries and also because he was having a problem with diving into the space between poles 2 & 3 and missing the entry. I showed it to Joy and her diagnosis was that he was not collecting at all, even with just a few feet to run before the entry. She suggested a wire guide on the 1st and 2nd poles which is easy enough since I have some at home. I was avoiding them because I'm trying not to have to fade props but we'll give it a try and see if it helps.

The last thing we worked on was the 'Turn' cue, which means turn away from me. I started out teaching this on the flat with a hand signal but decided I didn't want a hand signal with it so we've been working on getting just a verbal with no body language cues. I'm pretty close I think, I don't need an arm at all but it's possible he's still cueing off of some subtle motion like a slight deceleration when we're walking in anticipation of the turn. I tried running with him then saying 'turn' and he had no clue so we need more practice. I want to start working with a jump standard though and I was having some problems so I asked Joy for some help. She told me to approach the jump standard at an angle rather than straight on and it worked a charm. She also had me practice with a tunnel, walking parallel to it then verbally turning him into the entrance, like coming off a dogwalk and turning away into the tunnel. He got that straight away but I think I was cheating a bit and using slight arms/body cues to help. More homework for us.

I stopped for food & gas on the way home and by the time I got home it was after 8:00 pm. By the time we had dinner both Strum and I were flat out on the couch/floor. It's the first time I've ever seen him too tired to do anything else. And I overslept the next morning and missed my early morning swim practice out at the Reservoir. Plus we won't talk about the swelling in my knee. I wonder how many bags of ice I can fit in my freezer.

Strummer's first agility lesson

I was finally able to arrange a time & place with Joy for an agility lesson, my first in a whopping 7 months. We were at a different place from my normal training field and unlike my normal training field this place allowed her to reserve the whole field for lessons so I decided to try Strummer out at his first proper lesson. I've been working my way through Linda Mecklenburg's jumping foundation book and since Joy had been training with her over the winter and was familiar with the exercises I thought it would be good if I could go through them and she could tell me if I was doing them right. And of course I wasn't. I wasn't too far off, but apparently it matters which way you point your feet and you're supposed to take a step as part of your cue. I looked back in the book very briefly this morning and couldn't find any text explanations about feet and what to do with them. There are some photos showing her with her feet in the proper position but no text explaining it, at least not right there with the individual exercise explanations. This is why I hate learning from books & articles, I always seem to manage to miss some detail out. Anyway, in general you have one foot behind facing the dog and the other in front facing the direction you want to go. You cue the jump then step the foot that's behind forward to meet the forward foot. I know, I would probably be confused too if I just read that. I think I need to stick to lessons from actual real live people. Once I got the footwork down it all started to make more sense. All my previous work wasn't for naught though, Strummy did a pretty good job of things once I got my end down. He had some jumps where he didn't collect enough and overshot me but all I had to do was not reward him and he'd get it on the next try or two. He knocked only 2 bars in over a half hour of working and both of those were on extension exercises which I hadn't been doing all that much of since I felt the collection stuff was harder for him in the beginning.

One exercise that caused him some problems was this:


Strum



I------I I------I


...........Me

In this exercise we're facing each other and with my left arm I'm cueing him to take the jump in front of him but he kept running straight to me to take the jump in front of me. I had to move a ways to the left until I was nearly right in front of him then inch my way back to the right over a series of reps. but he eventually got it. It'll be interesting to see if he gets it right away when I try it again in practice or if I have to start over in front of him again.

I also showed Joy what I was doing to train running contacts and she suggested a piece of PVC or tape in the yellow zone to mark the area where he needs to put his feet. In general I'm not big on props but this sounded like a good idea to start with both to help me mark correct performances and also as a little guide to Strum to help him get the idea more quickly. I'll probably fade it very quickly, I don't want either of us to get too dependent on it but I like the idea for the beginning stages.

Overall I thought Strum did great especially considering he was in a totally new place and he worked for over half an hour, way way way longer than I ever train him in a session. He never got distracted, stressed or overstimulated. He did break his stays in front of the jumps and that's a new one. I need to work on proofing that in new locations. Joy remarked that he seems calmer and that when he makes a mistake he tries something different the next time. I'm not sure if that's because that's the way he is or it's a result of all the clicker training I've done with him or maybe a combo. In any case it sure is nice to have a dog that doesn't shut down at every little mistake. I haven't been making a big deal out of errors. Sometimes I won't say anything, just won't give him a reward and other times I'll say 'oops' then 'let's try again' in a happy voice depending on how frustrated he is. I signed up for the 'Advances in dog training' seminar with Susan Garrett instead of the handling seminar and the more I've been thinking about it over the past few days the more I think it will help me more than I first thought because there are lots of little training things like that that I don't think much about, esp. with the obstacle and foundation training.

Lola had a lesson too, more on that later.