If patience is a virtue...

...then I am a bit lacking in the virtue department :-) I most certainly am of the I want it now mentality, I blame genetics on this as it turns out my mother and pretty much her entire side of the family are of the same mind.

Unfortunately, this mentality does not work very well if you are a dog trainer! I feel as though I spend as much time reminding myself that I need to be patient as I do actually training dogs! I want that to stop, NOW!

Although somehow all of my dogs seem to get trained, and, quite well if I do say do myself, I am not at all sure sometimes how it actually occurs. 

As I returned to the house tonight after working with Merger my current youngest :-) I found myself once again frustrated at the lack of progress we are making. I mean come on, Merger is already 6.5 months old and he is only capable of a perfect end position with distractions, including but not limited to ready, set, go games, teasing with a toy, me running past at full speed while he comes to a complete stop and waits for a verbal release. 

He will maintain a perfect stay until released in pretty much any situation, he is driving through the channel weave poles, he has started to jump and will pretty much wrap an upright. Merger is going through tunnels, is quite proficient at heel and side and is FINALLY getting his outside turn cue, are you starting ti understand my frustration here, geez, he should be running full course by now shouldn't he???

I would love to say that all of that sarcasm was directed towards a difficult student, but it is all me! I know exactly what i would tell any student of mine who was complaining about such a dog, it would be something like, "are you kidding me! This dog is already doing more than any dog his age should be expected to do!" And I would believe it and I would certainly expect them to believe it. So, what is my problem?? I am human, that would be one of the biggest faults we could ever have when trying to be good dog trainers.

How do we moderate this attitude? One way is to have a very clear and well defined training plan/program. I am going to follow my own advice and write down exactly what behaviors I want Merger to learn and how I am planning on teaching them so that I have something to continuously come back to whenever I start to feel like things are not going in the right direction.

Realize that young dogs have a very short attention span and that it is not possible to run through every behavior on the list every time you train. 

Although you should always be working towards increasing criteria and proofing all of the behaviors that we expect the dogs to offer you need to keep track of where you are on that criteria scale and do not try to increase criteria too much too soon.

Set realistic goals, an unrealistic goal may be something like Merger should be running full courses by 7 mos. :-)

A more realistic goal may be to expect Merger to have the outside turn cue figured out by 7 months, not in association with an obstacle but just the cue itself. It would not be unrealistic for him to know it with a physical and/or verbal cue if I have been training at least a couple of days a week and offering consistent information.

It is truly helpful to have each of the obstacle performance requirements laid out so that it is simple to devise a training plan for each. it is equally advisable to have a flat area training plan laid out for the same reasons.

The moral of this story is take time, time to get to know the dog, time to train the behaviors that you will expect to be perfect in the ring for the duration of the dogs career, time to perfect your timing with each individual dog, and, time to get all of the behaviors and their criteria worked out before having outrageous expectations of your dog. :-)

I am soon off to sunny Costa Rica for vacation, being a true dog person I will spend a lot of time reflecting and hopefully perfecting my training plans, since of course there will be no dogs to work. Perhaps with the new year I will become a more virtuous person!

Stacy

My Seminar Schedule for 2009

January 13-15 seminar in Phoenix Contact, Billie Rosen agileK9s@qwest.net
January 19-22 seminar in Phoenix Contact, Billie Rosen agileK9s@qwest.net
January 31-February 2 seminar for LEAP contact Carolyn West CWEST2@stpaultravelers.com
February 3-4 seminar for Criterion Agility contact Nicole Levesque redtriboys@yahoo.com
February 6-8 seminar for SoBad contact Virginia Capello Vcapello@na.ko.com
February 11 workshop Salt Lake City, Utah
February 18-24 seminar for All American Agility Portland, OR contact Carol Hibbard Hibbca@mac.com
March 12-13 seminar for Criterion Agility contact Nicole Levesque redtriboys@yahoo.com
March 14-15 seminar for CATS in Maine Denimdog@loonlight
March 20-22 seminar in Joplin, MO
March 27-29 seminar Kamloops, BC Canada contact Mary Zacharatos pmzacharatos@shaw.ca
April 22-23 workshops Salt Lake City, Utah
April 27-May 1 seminar for Haute Dogs agility group in Sacramento CA Ann Kitchen aekitchen@ucdavis.edu
May 12-14 C Spot Win Mini camp Fort Collins, CO contact Stacy Peardot-Goudy agiljack@aol.com
May 26-27 Seminar for Jacqui Hoye, Minneapolis, MN contact Jacqui Hoye BJHoye@comcast.net
June 8-9 seminar Colorado Springs
June 18-19 workshop Salt Lake City, Utah
June 23-25 Seminar for Agile Canines, Minneapolis, MN contact Annelise Allan
July 20-23 C Spot Win Summer Camp, Laramie, WY
July 31-August 3 seminar for Diane Sanders, Woodstock, IL
August 15-17 Wag'd Camp, New York contact Virginia Capello Vcapello@na.ko.com
August 28-30 Seminar for Sumac Grant, New Hampshire contact Sumac Grantsumac@leapingdogs.com
November 20-22 seminar for Elaine Coupe' Memphis, TN contact, Elaine Coupe' shadowspook@earthlink.net

Merry almost Christmas!

Well, it is Christmas Eve and we are expecting a sunny day with highs in the 30's. Tomorrow for Christmas we are looking at high 40's, so no white Christmas here in this part of Colorado! That kind of bums me out as I am a Wisconsin girl who, though I would never go back to Wisconsin winters, would like a little bit more snow!

Anyway, it's that time of the year that we reflect on what we have done and more importantly what are we gonna do in the coming year. Of course there is a lot more to life than dog agility, (I think?), of course I am talking about what have we done with our dogs, (in agility) and what are we going to do moving forward, (with our dogs in dog agility)!!!!
>

As I look back on 2008 it was bittersweet. In a lot of ways it was my best agility year ever; Able finally broke the curse and not only got to play in the USDAA finals but won his spot at the Denver (our home) Regional! Maze and I won the 26" GP Regional bye at the Denver Regional as well which garnered him a spot in the finals. And just the week before my baby boy Wally won the 22" GP Regional bye to also earn his way in to the finals at the 2008 Cynosport games!! 3 dogs in the Grand Prix finals. Wow! I have never been so relaxed heading into Nationals, makes you wonder if you should just quit while you are ahead! :-)

To add more awesomeness to an already awesome year, Wally earned a spot in the very competitive 22" Steeplechase finals at the Nationals starting without a bye in the quarter finals! Pinch me I must be dreaming!!!

No, wait before you pinch me even if I am dreaming I want to continue to savor the wonderful cap on 2008 for Wally, just shy of 4 years old finished his ADCH!!! After Nationals he had 3 USDAA trials and he needed 8 legs to finish his ADCH, well he got 'em and in Grand style with lots of first placements.

Wallys daughter SoBe, (most often referred to as SoBe DoBe Doodle Bug, Sobus for short) continues to amaze me with her brilliance and athletic prowess. She will officially hit the agility scene this spring. 

It is also important to recognize what each and every one of my dogs brought to me in 2008 and every other year; unconditional, non-judgemental, always there for me love and an incredible amount of happiness! They may not all be agility dogs but they are my, very extended, very diverse family.

I was incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to visit some amazing places to teach seminars and get to work with even more amazing people. 2008 brought to light what friendship really is and allowed me to truly appreciate the friends I have. 2008 also as does every year remind me what a great family I have as well, I am very lucky indeed!

That was definitely the sweet things that I get to reflect on, unfortuntely there was the bitter part as well. It was in 2008 that I lost 2 irreplaceable members of my doggy family and at the same time a little piece of my heart. 

Buzz my adorable, somehow got an ADCH, push every button everyone has, try to get Able to kill him almost everyday, Jack Russell terrier. As far as Buzz was concerned he was put on this earth for 2 reasons, to annoy almost everyone he ever came into contact with dog or human and most importantly to love me. If those truly were his missions he succeeded with the highest honors in both :-)

Secret was my soulmate, my best friend, a once in a lifetime dog. Not a day goes by that she does not show up in my thoughts, not a day goes by that I do not miss her, not a day goes by that I do not remember something special about her. There is nothing that Secret could not do, there is nothing that Secret did not do. Boy do I miss the little red corvette...

Well, this is as mushy as anyone will ever see me get and it seems to only happen this time of year, be thankful!

Now it is time to get the goals for 2009 in order, top of the list is to live for every moment, hug the dogs every chance I get and spend good times with good people, good friends and family members that I like :-)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Times they are a changin'

I had a great weekend! I taught 4 different workshops here at my home, 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Saturday was all about handling, specifically timing on Sat. morning and side changes on Sat. afternoon. 

It was a very interesting selection of topics considering a successful side change is dependent on properly timed cues :-) Needless to say the sessions definitely overlapped, but in a good way. They were exceptional groups that were bundled up for the unheated training building on a very chilly colorado winter day, ready to do agility!

The agility community is getting incredibly astute in their understanding of the need for proper foundation training, consistency of cues, behavior training and criteria maintainence, what is still lacking is application.

The overuse and misuse of verbal cues is alive and well and the consistency in cuing a turn profoundly late still plagues the majority. Why is that? First and foremost I believe it is the classic problem of trying to be acutely aware of all of the necessary handling components while everything is happening at speed.

When I ask the group questions such as at what point do you offer the direction change cue it is a unanimous answer of before the turn is supposed to occur, good answer, if the cue occurs when the turn is supposed to be happening there is no time for information processing, which also negates the dogs ability to properly set up for the direction change and generally results in a wide turn with a late lead change and potentially disasterous outcome for both dog and handler. 

So, back to the point, if we know the answer why are the masses so chronically late? Handlers need to first and foremost trust what they have trained, walk a sequence or course for the most efficient path, concentrating on what handling maneuvers they need to utilize to get the job done and commit to giving the dog the information and trust them to respond appropriately and do their job. 

So many handlers, although they have trained their dogs beautifully, run the course or exercise as a spectator, giving a cue and then hanging back and watching the result, this is completely ineffective as the handler continues to get further behind from a timing standpoint and the dog becomes increasingly unable to offer correct behaviors without information. Remember, all information comes from the handler, if incorrect or nonexistent information is being passed on to the dog there cannot be a good outcome.

Good timing is a result of confident handling and is based on the ability to move around a course or exercise set with full awareness of where you are, where the dog is and where the course goes, to know all of these things is power, it enables you to make quick decisions and adjustments when necessary and keep your dog moving consistently through the course. 

So, although we know the answers there is still a huge discrepancy between knowing and doing, the sport is reaching new heights everyday and the demands on both dog and handler continue to increase, I will continue to do my part and will continue to hone my personal skills and learn new and improved ways to help the awesome people in the agility community to give their dogs the best possible information at the best possible moment because as we all know the times they are a changin'. 

Different but the same

So I am still thinking about yesterdays topic of discussion and I feel like I definitely left a few things out. First, how do you recognize what is the "best" course of action for any given dog? This is not an easy question to answer and I think it is definitely a stumbling block in all training programs. The answer, although simple enough, requires a lot of innate skill on the part of the handler or trainer. You must be able to "read your dog" and go beyond what the books and DVDs tell you. You have to look for nuances that are unique to every individual and notice them. Some are more obvious than others. 

Back to Veruca, I said that her build was not what I would consider appropriate for a 2on/2off contact performance, so I wanted to do something else. What was not so obvious was a) what to do, and b) the ability to finally see that she was very comfortable with her "learned" behavior of running to the mouse pad and laying down on it. It soon became clear that using the pad in some way relative to teaching the contacts was a given but again, how?

When I placed the pad on the floor directly against the base of the A-Frame or Dog Walk plank she was very careful to stride all the way through the entire ramp or plank every time. This was important as it meant that my prior reservations about a 4 on the floor and a dog's desire to simply launch off the contact to the mouse pad and drop were not necessarily going to be an issue for Veruca. This helped narrow down the options considerably and when I moved the pad out away from the base of the planks she told me very clearly that this would work for her. Although she was targeting to the pad she was willing to run all the way through the obstacle to get there. 

The moral of the story is that although this method of contact training is not my method of choice, Veruca "told" me that it was a good option for her and rather than force her to conform to what I thought the behavior should be, I worked with what was comfortable for her and ultimately she learned beautiful, consistent contacts that are in large part due to the fact that it was a team effort.

My dogs' start line behaviors are another case in point. As I mentioned yesterday, I have several different behaviors going on amongst the several dogs that I am showing and training. I am very careful to pay attention to what my dogs natural default behaviors are and work with them to get what I want. I have always been a "stay" person, attaching it after every stationary behavior (other than stopped contact behavior). Start lines with fewer battles are far better, this led me to what I have done with a couple of my dogs. I ask them to line up in a parallel position on either my right or left side and simply tell them to stay, allowing them to assume whatever position they find the most comfortable with the stay being the only potential battle to be fought, instead of the stay and the position. 

With Merger my 6 month old, he just "gets" positions and I noticed one training session that whenever he was placed in a position or just assumed a position he would not leave that position until he was released. I never introduced a stay command, he simply inferred the stay from all of the shaping work we have been doing. I noticed this and just went with it. It is unlikely that Merger will ever learn the word stay he has already told me that he does not need it. 

As long as I maintain the criteria that sit means sit and continue to sit until I release you he will have a stay that was almost self taught. His input will surely make the behavior stronger because it was primarily his idea and as long as he believes it to be true and I do not give him an idea otherwise we are golden!

So, although many of my dogs have different behaviors they all add up to the same thing, consistency and understanding that lends itself to a high rate of success that stands the test of ring nerves and adrenaline!

My First Time :-)

HI Everyone!

OK, first off let me say I am not a "blogger" so anyone who reads this, enjoys it, and, gets something productive out of it can thank my dear friend Amy who has twisted my arm into a pretzel to get me started :-)

I admit it is a great marketing tool and an even better way to reach gazillions of people who are equally obsessed with dog training, more specifically, agility training. I am just not incredibly good a tooting my own horn, or keeping up with this type of thing. You could also fit my technological savvy in a thimble, these are a lot of strikes against me embracing the blogging format.

With that said I want to do this not only to spread the word about C Spot Teach but also to talk about agility training!

It has taken me a while to even know where to begin, but I had an epiphany when I was out training my dogs yesterday and it continued with the phone conversation with a friend, described herein, so here goes.

Blog topic no. 1: The value in paying attention to your dog and deciding on what behaviors to teach and how, based on your dogs comfort level and understanding of of different methods.

This is quite a mouthful I know and here is how it came about. I was on the phone with a friend and we were discussing various learned behaviors and how important criteria maintenance and clarity is in the overall picture that you are trying to create with your training, I mentioned that amongst my many dogs there are a vast number of differences in the cues as well as the methodology used to teach agility behaviors. This includes flat area cues and behaviors as well as obstacle performance criteria and training.

For example, I am currently competing with 4 different dogs and they each have different variations of start line and contact behaviors. One dog learned a 4 on the floor contact performance, another has running dog walk and A-frame, another has a running A-frame and 2on/2off dog walk, and the 4th a modified version of all of the above! :-)

On the start line, 2 of my dogs have a position cue and a stay command and 2 have no position cue and a stay command. I am presently training a pup that has no stay command just position cues that have a built in "stay".

It is not my desire to perpetually live in a state of confusion by teaching an inordinate number of behaviors to my various dogs, but, my fondest wish is to get the best possible performance with the greatest level of accuracy and consistency out of each and every one of them.

I have found that the best way to do this is by "listening" to the dog and adapting my training to fit their understanding, physicality, level of athletic ability, temperment, etc.. Veruca learned a 4 on the floor contact performance although truthfully it is not a method that I would ever choose on my own simply because of the number of dogs I have witnessed miss the contact while they are diving for the drop after the obstacle. This is not, nor should it be construed as an anti 4 on the floor testimonial as I am sure that in many cases it was perhaps missed steps in training, but it has just never appealed to me as a first option. Anyway, Veruca is a rather short backed stockily built BC who I knew was not set up for a 2on/2off or a running contact so my initial plan was to do am modified running or moving contact utilizing a foot touch as the catalyst for shortening her stride. In the process of teaching the foot target I just kept shaping more and more criteria until she was racing to the board and laying down. At this point it still did not occur to me that I was going to do a 4 on the floor. My plan was to place the mouse pad or board on the end of the contact in the yellow area and cue her to hit it before leaving the obstacle.

It was purely accidental that I had the board on the floor a foot or so away from the contact and Veruca ran to it and laid down on it.

"Lightbulb moment", why not use what I taught her and shape it in a way that made the most sense to her. Although I am sure that subconsciously I have been training to my dogs strengths for many years this was the turning point in truly making this a part of my conscious thought process when deciding on what methodology or behavior criteria I am going to use with any dog.

Dog's are not cut from the same cloth or made with a mold, they are all different and it is important to respect those differences within any training program. The need for consistency and clarity never changes but the methods you employ to get from point A to point Z certainly can.

I think it is going to be fun to share ideas and bounce some of my thoughts off of the agility public! Thanks for listening and input is always appreciated.

I guess I left you hanging on the start line issue, oh well another topic for another day..

Stacy