Chicken

I tried something new with the the dogwalk today thanks to a suggestion from a reader who actually trains with Silvia.  Rather than use the treat gizmo I took 2 toys, one that's Strum's absolute favorite and another that he likes but not nearly as much.  I've been reluctant, nay chicken, to use toys in the past because for one he slams to a stop when he chases toys and finally gets them and also because I was concerned that he'd extend his stride even more if he had a toy to chase vs the stationary treat dispenser.  But I love to experiment and thinking about it Strum probably slams to a halt even worse at the treat gizmo so I decided to give it a try.  The method is to throw the first, lower value toy while he's on the walk then if he gets a hit throw the second higher value toy.  The results were pretty good overall, much better than I was expecting and my throwing/timing was also better than expected though could use improvement.

The biggest improvement was that he added the extra stride for every rep. and didn't have any of the big obvious misses that he's been having recently.  But now we're back to the less obvious misses and sure enough I rewarded 2 misses.  One of them I suspected was a miss right after I rewarded it.  The other was so close I had to spot it on the slow motion video.  Both were fairly close hits, hard to see, but I could sense that one was a leap right after the fact.

The first 2 reps were backchained so I could get my timing down with throwing the toys.  The rest were all full dogwalks.  A few times he didn't get on the dogwalk and went straight for his chicken and while I wasn't thrilled about that it's interesting to have footage of him running on the flat.  I put a short bit of it at the end.



Stats:

Cool sunny morning, about 29-30 degrees

4/6 (67%) hits

2/4 (50%) hits were full dogwalks

2/6 (33%) misses were rewarded

Both misses were close

I'm happy enough with today's results.  I did make it easier by leading out and not having so much motion on my part.  I'll continue this set up tomorrow and if we can get 80% then I'll start adding motion back in.  So glad I didn't enter Strum in any Standard runs at his next trial in a week, I want this all worked out before I ask him to do it in the ring.  Next trial after that will be in May so hopefully I'll have everything near perfect by then, or at least back to where we were.

Dog training via ukulele

I totally want to learn how to play the ukulele.  It's kind of far down on my 'to do' list but I'm thinking maybe I should bump it up now that I see it has some dog training potential.  Well, except that Strummer would try to eat the ukulele but we can work on that.  Anyway, this woman has some awesome ukulele dog training videos.

She's got one for sound sensitivity



And one for aggression.



I love 'Raising Hope', best show on t.v. these days next to 30 Rock.

Experiments in reinforcement

Strum's dogwalk isn't getting consistently better so I decided to play around with his reinforcements.  He doesn't seem to care if he misses and in fact I'm convinced that after all this time he's still not clear on what's expected of him.  So in order to try to make things clearer for him and give him some motivation to try to figure things out I'm making his reward vs no reward more obvious.  If he gets a hit he gets treats from the treat gizmo and I come over and give him even better treats from my pocket then I break out his special squeaky chicken that makes him mad with joy and I play with him for a bit.  If he misses I mark it with a verbal 'no' as I've been doing all along and I go sit down on the sidelines for 20-30 seconds.  This does cause him a small amount of stress, probably because he doesn't know what's going on and uncertainty is a stressor for him.  He had a lot of lip licking going on and trotting around as a displacement behavior.  I mostly ignored him while I sat, I did have some eye contact mostly because I wanted to see how he was responding.  I'm not a fan of this type of thing and the original suggestion from the running contact seminar I went to was to take him by the collar and lead him back to the start of the dogwalk when he misses.  I did this at the seminar and it took a lot of reps. for him to finally get a hit.  I don't have it in me right now to try that in practice at home.  It'll suck the fun right out of practice for the both of us and that's not what agility is supposed to be about.  It may be bad dog training but a running dogwalk is not a necessary life skill and as such I'm not willing to start going down that road.  So for now I'll stick to just ending the action for a bit.  If nothing else the little break is good for breaking up a string of misses.  Sometimes he gets into a groove of missing and I can't get him out of it short of ending the session.  He didn't have any 2 misses in a row for yesterday's session, we'll see if it holds up for more sessions.



Stats for yesterday's session:

8/11 (73%)

5/8 hits (62%) were for full dogwalks, the other 3 were back chaining

Set-up was dogwalk-treat gizmo

He's focusing too much on the treat gizmo so I'm going to introduce a jump back in next time. 

Went out to the training field this a.m. and unfortunately the dogwalk had blown over in yesterday's hurricane force winds (it was calm in the morning when we practiced).  No way I could right that thing on my own so it may be a few days until I can get back to training.  Guess it was a good idea to cancel yesterday afternoon's bike ride.  It felt good to have a rest day anyway.

Week in Training

MONDAY

Left Chicago.  Home in the late afternoon but too tired/dizzy to do much.


TUESDAY

Still too tired and playing catch up.

Walk:  2 mile walk around Wonderland Lake w/ Strummer


WEDNESDAY

Swim:  2300 yards/1 hour (mid-day masters, Tiffany coach, lotsa drills/kick, little bit o' sprinting)

Run:  1.2 miles/20 mins. of 4 mins. run/1 min. walk (1/4 mile warm-up, .65 mile cool down/20 mins.)

Walk:  1 mile stroll w/Cody & Lola

125.6 lbs

THURSDAY

Agility:  Dogwalk practice at B.E. [4/8 (50%) full dogwalk, 7/10 (70%) backchaining, 11/18 (61%)
            total, set-up was tunnel/dogwalk/treat gizmo (sometimes no tunnel, just started with
            dogwalk), did not reward 3 hits, did not reward any misses)]

Mountain Bike:  15.4 miles/1 hour 50 minutes (Broadway/Eagle Trail/Boulder Valley/Left Hand)

Chiropractor in afternoon.

FRIDAY

Swim: 2550 yards/1 hour (mid-day masters, Amy coach,  great workout, sets of 100's, the
                 couple that I timed were 1:37-1:38, fast for me, very fun)

Agility:  1 hour handling practice, shorter exercises

Walk:  1 1/4 mile with Strummer and Cody

123.6 lbs  (2 lbs lost in 2 days?  Seems weird and unlikely.)


SATURDAY

Agility:  45 minutes handling practice, rear crosses

Power Hike:  1.4 mile (approx.)/30 mins. of 4 mins. power hike/1 min. (Hogback loop)

Hike:  1 mile/30 mins. (Foothills trail and part of Hogback loop)

Mountain Bike:  4 miles/30 mins. (Wonderland/Foothills trails, to and from Dakota Ridge trailhead)

Walk:  1 1/4 miles w/Strummer and Cody


SUNDAY

Mountain Bike:  18.6 miles/2 hours (Marshall Mesa/Community Ditch/Doudy Draw/Flatirons
                        Vista/Dirty Bismark, 60's, partly cloudy, windy)

Walk:  2 miles with Lola and Cody (and Heidi and Zigi)


WEEKLY TOTALS:

Swim:  4850 yards/2 hours

Mountain Bike:  38 miles/4 hours, 20 minutes

Run:  1.2 miles/20 mins. of 4 mins. run/1 min. walk

Power Hike:  1.4 miles (approx.)/30 mins. of 4 mins. power hike/1 min.

Total Training Hours:  7 hours, 10 minutes

Walk:  5.5 miles

Hike:  1 mile

Weight: 123.7 lbs (-1.2 lbs. from 2 weeks ago)

Dirty Bismark

 

The final pieces of trail were finally completed forming a loop that roughly follows the Morgul Bismark which was a stage of an old famous road race held here in Colorado back in the day.  But this is the dirty, R-rated, more fun version.  I've done the loop once before by cobbling together some bits of dirt road and bike path between the trails but now you can do the whole thing on trails.

Jonny rode with me and we did a slightly different version, opting to cross over Hwy. 93 at the start to add on the Community Ditch, Doudy Draw and Flatirons Vista trails, about 3.6 miles extra plus a good steep climb up Doudy Draw.  We rode the loop counter-clockwise which I think is better because that way you go down a very steep long hilly part where the trail is wide gravel and not as nice as the other trails.  If you do it the other way you have to climb that hill and it only prolongs the misery.  It's the only part of the trail that isn't that nice and I say get it over with on a downhill.

View of the Continental Divide from the new trail

Funky wind farm with the Flatirons behind.  The road is the old Morgul Bismark route.

Spring is springing people!  I'm excited.  Cannot believe I was riding my bike in shorts in March on trails.

The downside of this dry warm weather is that there was smoke from a fire visible over in the Golden area.  It's not threatening homes at the moment but it's a windy day and it's growing like wildfire (a news announcer actually said that during a report of the Boulder wildfires so now it's a running joke around here). The winds have died a bit so hopefully they'll get it under control.

That first 3.6 miles was busy on the trails, we got a late start because we kept waiting for the wind to die down as promised.  But despite the crowds people were good about sharing the trails.  There were a lot of very cute dogs on the trails and I'm happy to report that none of them tried to take a chunk out of my calf or run under my wheel.  However once we hit the High Plains Trail on the Dirty Bismark it was peace and quiet but for the occasional cyclist.

It looks like a gloomy day from the photos but the sun was shining with enough cloud cover to keep us cool, great conditions except for the occasional strong gusts of wind.  I drafted off Jonny for most of the windy bits though so it wasn't so bad.  I wanted to stop to take more pictures but I had to pedal hard to keep on his wheel and enjoy the draft so I resisted the urge to stop.

A close-up with my new point and shoot camera.  Can't believe how much this thing zooms in for such a cheapy thing.

Looks like I'll have to get back there during the week for more photo ops., twist my arm.

Hot

We had to cut agility practice short yesterday because it got too hot.  52 degrees doesn't sound very hot but it's all about what you're acclimated to and the dogs were hot and hiding in the shade of the A-frame after half an hour or so.  Sun was bright as well.  I was overdressed and sweating in a long sleeve running top, could have easily had shorts and a t-shirt.

Still was a good practice, some fun, short exercises since I knew I'd be tired after swimming practice in the morning.  Struggled with an easy threadle, don't know what my problem was.  My body wasn't listening to my brain or something.  Strum pulled off a lead-out push like he did at the last trial so was good to get some practice with that.  He did so well at the seminar on much more complicated scenarios, not sure why he's pulling off now.  Worked in some rear crosses to get some practice with them.  Fun!


Practice 3-18-2011 from colliebrains on Vimeo.

I love training, especially with Strummer.  He's such a happy, bouncy soul and excited to do whatever.  You should hear the whine-moaning when he realizes he's going to do agility somewhere.  Sometimes he'll go on for 10 minutes or more if he realizes soon enough where he's going.  Such a goof.

Went back this morning to avoid the heat and the 34 degrees felt a lot better.  Worked a challenging rear cross exercise but the hard part turned out to be the pulls after the rear crosses rather than the rear crosses themselves.  Haven't processed the video, will be interesting to see what was going on.

My chiropractor/P.T. guy assigned me some power hiking on super steep hills to build up to more running.  Looks like a beautiful sunny day in the 60's so should be great for hiking.  Feels good to be back to a workout schedule.  Sitting around on my butt in Chicago was not good for anybody.

Home

SO happy to be home from my trip to Chicago.  It was great to see friends and family but it seems wherever I go these days I'm wishing I was home.  It was gloomy and that damp bone chilling cold the entire time we were there and we had left behind sunny 60 degree weather.  We only saw glimpses of the sun for 3 days, kind of depressing.

I took some photos around my grandmother's neighborhood because there wasn't a whole lot to do and I didn't want to leave her for too long to go into the city.  That's the other problem with Chicago, the traffic is so bad that if you want to go anywhere it turns into an all day affair.

I've long been fascinated/horrified with the changes over the years to my childhood neighborhood.  The house on the left is one of the many garish castle-like McMansions that have popped up in stark contrast to the modest post war mid-century ranches and split levels that make up the neighborhood.

Another behemoth eyesore

This is a more typical house with a garage that was added on years after the original construction

Even in the current crappy real estate climate this relatively modest 1700 square foot house recently sold for $500,000.   The ugly 5000 square foot McMansions go for around a million.  The reason for this is the school district.  New Trier typically gets ranked in the top ten public school districts in the country.  My high school had its own radio station and cable t.v. station.  How ridiculous is that?  Almost as ridiculous as the $8,000/year property taxes that the house above pays.

Growing up I always thought the architecture in my neighborhood was hideous but now it seems somewhat historic.  The neighborhood was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and those flat roofs are a huge pain in the ass but still, something nostalgic about the houses especially in view of the atrocities replacing them.

The house above is very similar to the one I grew up in (we were fancy and had a garage) and I thought I grew up in a mansion.

I survived the wedding, just.  David Lynch could have gotten some good inspirations for characters is all I'm saying.  I think by design maybe all formal weddings resemble a David Lynch film to some extent.  It was a Jewish ceremony and it's traditional for the groom to stomp on a glass at the end and the rabbi explained the various reasons for the ritual.  My favorite explanation was the old school, superstitious interpretation that back in the day people broke dishes outside their homes to keep the evil spirits away.  I was sure the mother of the groom was going to transform into a demon and scamper away, cackling with evil laughter after her son stomped on the glass.  The woman looked like she was from one of those 'Housewives of I Can't Take Care of Myself-ville' reality t.v. shows.  She had a tattoo of a parrot/tropical scene that covered her entire back and the important thing to note here is not the tattoo but the fact that she was dressed so inappropriately for her age and the occasion that I could report to you that the parrot covered her entire back.  The 'What Not to Wear' people could have had a field day with the age inappropriate outfits at this shindig.  Copious amounts of cleavage and/or short, skin tight dresses is simply not a good look for the 50-60+ crowd.  And this is coming from someone who wore fleece lined lycra black running tights and a pair of smart wool socks with clogs with her dress.  I'm sorry but if I'm going to a wedding in Chicago in March I'm going to have to do something so I don't freeze. 

Then there was the father of the groom who looked like the leader of a creepy polygamous cult and was groping women throughout the reception.  He also looked like he was sky as kite on something and I have to admit I was a bit jealous.  Maybe that's how people get through weddings.  Probably shouldn't have disposed of the Vicodyn from my foot surgery 2 years ago.  Then there was the copious amounts of eyeliner that the 20-something guys were wearing along with black suits and pork pie hats.  At first I thought we were having a live ska band for the reception but no such luck.  I know, I'm tossing huge boulders from glass houses by commenting on other people's fashion disasters but I had to do something to keep myself amused.  My aunt seated us at a table with complete strangers and I had to listen to a guy boasting endlessly about his grown son's Harry Potter website.  Seriously.  According to the father J.K Rowling did 2 interviews after her last book, one with Katie Couric and the other with his son.  Because while most kids grow up and give up their fan websites this guy stuck with it and absorbed them all and has the biggest one.  The father was quite proud of this.  I was envying my secret agent cousin who got out of this wedding because supposedly he's on the Afghan border dealing with the Iran/Afghan crisis.  That's his story anyway.  I wonder if I could start making up stories like that?

Ah well, I'm home now and Cody was fine at the vets as well as the other 2 trouble monkeys.  I nearly called the vet at one point to check on him but I restrained myself.  Have to draw the 'crazy dog lady' line somewhere before I slip too deeply into the abyss.  Looks like sunny warm weather for the next few days so I can finally put the finishing touches on my dogwalk and reposition it so it's hopefully workable.  Decided not to enter Strum in any Standard classes or Grand Prix for his upcoming trial in a couple of weeks.  His dogwalk is still only 60% or so in practice and I can't imagine it being fixed in 2 weeks, especially since it seems to be getting worse rather than better.  I may do the unthinkable and resort to a stride regulator but we'll see.

Lipstick on a crazy dog lady

One highlight of my trip home to Chicago was getting to spend some time with one of my aunts that I rarely see.  She lives in a different state but she came in for the wedding and was also staying with my grandmother.  She took me on an unlikely trip to Bloomingdales to pick up some make-up for herself, I was merely tagging along to get out of the house as I'm normally not a fan of Bloomingdales, shopping, or make-up, and we ended up getting make-overs from the Guerlain representative who happened to be at the counter that day.  Now I don't know the first thing about make-up or brand names or Guerlain or how much this stuff costs.  Here's a hint, this stuff costs a LOT.  I had no idea.  Here's another thing, if you knew the first thing about me you'd realize how hilarious and unlikely this scenario is.  My friend called me on my cell phone while I was in the hot seat getting $400 moisturizer applied to my face and I told him I can't talk now and you'll never guess where I am and what I'm doing.  When I saw him later that night at dinner and finally told him he burst out laughing to the point of snorting water out his nose.  When I showed him the 'after' pictures (oh yes, I took 'before' and 'after' pictures) I thought he was going to have an aneurysm.  'Can you send me a copy of this?', he asks, 'I have to send this to Michelle (a mutual friend of ours from childhood), she'll never believe this in a million years'.

I've only ever worn make-up once in my entire life and it was for a horse show.  My riding teacher slapped some lipstick on me and brushed some powdery glop on my cheeks right before I went in the ring.  The Guerlain lady does not look surprised when I tell her this.  My skin is pretty bad.  Colorado is so dry and the sun so intense.  I use a lot of sunscreen and hats but I'm out in the sun a lot and there's only so much you can do to prevent the inevitable damage.  My skin looks way worse than my aunt's and she's maybe 17 years or so older than me.  'What do you put on your face for moisturizer?' the Guerlain lady asks me.  'Oh I don't know, same stuff I put on my hands and body', I answer.  She looks horrified as does my aunt.  'And what do you wash your face with?'  She looks almost scared to ask this.  'Soap?'  I answer, knowing this is the wrong answer.  It is the wrong answer.  More looks of horror.  This lady is a pro though and she looks almost energized by the challenge I'm presenting her.

She starts with a cleanser and when she's done she shows me the dirt on the cotton pad.  I'm supposed to be alarmed by this.  She has no idea what my shower water looks like running off me after a day on the trails or at an indoors on dirt agility trial.  Then she applies a toner.  After she finds out I'm an engineer she starts using all sorts of technical terms to describe what all this stuff is doing and the research behind it.  'We're the first ones to use nanotechnology'.  Um, o.k.  'People come from all over the world to visit our orchid research facility on the border of Switzerland and Italy'.  They're big on orchids.  I get a technical explanation of how the miracle orchids in the $400 moisturizer are turning back the aging process in the cells of my skin.  'The orchids in this cream come from all over the world'.  It's supposed to impress me but all I can think is 'holy crap, what is the carbon footprint of this stuff?'  But she's a very nice lady and sales are how she pays her mortgage and puts food on her table and she's putting a lot of thought and effort into trying to take the huge dents out of my arid skin and help me look fabulous so I tell her, yes, this stuff feels amazing.  And the truth is it kind of does.

Then she starts in with the make-up.  She's asking me about 'foundation' and to me that means concrete grade beams and footings or piers or something to support a building.  She gives up on the idea of foundation.  She messes about with my eyes with an eyeliner pencil and this freaks me out a bit but I manage to muster up some inner strength and tough it out.  I'm so hardcore.  She decides not to push her luck and doesn't bother with eye shadow.  There's much discussion about which shade of blush to put on my cheeks.  I stay out of it.  When she was working on my aunt earlier I offered my opinion on which blush for her and I was all kinds of wrong.  Then the lipstick.  The woman is getting into it now, finally she can practice her art.  She has me hold out my hand and she starts smearing different shades of lipstick on my palm.  Earlier she had me hold out my palm and she told me she could tell I ate a lot of vegetables and fruit.  And sugar.  She was right about the veggies and sugar but I don't eat a boatload of fruit.  I'm thinking she should leave the palm reading to the fortune tellers and stick to the orchid nanotechnology.  Anyway, she has about 8 shades for me to choose from and the only one that doesn't scare me is the very one that she says would be the worst for me.  I don't understand why but she's the expert.  I rule out the pinky colors and tell her I don't know, you pick one from the rest.  She tries a few on my lips and finally both she and my aunt agree on a shade.  I don't know about the color but it has glitter in it so I like it.  Sparkly lips!  Because I have the sophistication of an 8 year old when it comes to this stuff.  You could probably buy me some 'My Little Pony' glitter lip gloss and I'd be happy.

Jonny was pretty shocked when I got back to the house but I didn't think there was too huge of a difference.  Unfortunately my hair was both dirty and in dire need of a cut (hasn't seen a stylist's scissors since before Labor Day) plus the harsh lighting in the Bloomingdales so the photos are not so flattering but still kind of funny.

Before

After

The saleswoman looks quite defeated when I inform her I won't be buying anything.  I tell her she can write down the name of all the stuff and maybe I'll think about it later.  'What is causing you to wait until later?' she asks me.  'The lack of reliable employment'  I answer.  Though to be honest even if I have a zillion dollars I'm not spending $400 on face cream, it's just not right somehow.  But my aunt insists on buying me lipstick and unbeknownst to me she buys me a container of moisturizer that's made from roses rather than the $400 fountain of youth orchids but is still very fancy expensive stuff that I would never buy for myself and should hopefully work better than the random hand cream from Target.  Now I just need somewhere to go that requires me to wear sparkly lipstick.