Fun at the Fun Match!

HI All!

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas!! I had a fabulous Christmas, both of my boys are home together for the first time in I don't know how many years that is fantastic!! The weather has not been great but who cares when you are surrounded by family and friends! I also had a fantastic Birthday :-) I was the lucky recipient of too many wonderful Christmas and Birthday gifts. I am definitely going to be a very well dressed agility teacher/competitor in the New Year!

The dogs probably wished for a slightly better Christmas, we had about 72 hours of 60-70 mph winds and so the pups had to spend a significant amount of time inside, plus there was that whole shopping thing that took precedence over all else :-)

Now that the hubbub is over we can breathe a bit and maybe actually get a bit of training done. On Sunday I broke tradition and actually headed out to another fun match with SoBe and Merger. SoBe had the majority of the runs but Merger actually got to play in one run as well. It is very comical the contrasts between Merger and SoBe.

SoBe needed 3 of the 4 runs because we had to have multiple discussions about what the actual dog walk criteria is, she needed a couple of start line reminders and then there is that whole collection thing necessary to transition from the first to the second weave pole :-) Ultimately she got all of that figured out and per the norm kept all of her bars up, had perfect running A-frames and teeters, as well as doing everything at the speed of light.

Truthfully we accomplished everything I was hoping to by going to the match, put her in trial mode and be able to "fix" things.

She also had the opportunity to hear some new noises that a microphone makes and get used to those as well.

Merger had perfect stays, awesome weave poles, and in general was a perfect boy, hence the contrast comment :-) His A-frame seems to really be coming together and his teeter was also very nice. I do not think he dropped any bars but is still in need of a bit of confidence in order to really offer the speed on course that I know he is capable of.

It is always very interesting to me to train polar opposites in dogs at the same time, it definitely keeps me on my toes as a trainer.

We had a very good time at the match and I am very glad I decided to go :-) We have a trial this weekend and I am really excited about it!

So, how did everyone like the course?? I have another that is even harder with some really cool challenges that I will post in the upcoming week.

Until then, have a very good week and a Happy New Year!

Let's have some fun! Part 2 :-)

HI All!

Here is the rest of the course, Merry Christmas to all and to all a great day!

Let's have some fun!

HI All! Yes, the course is here, I can actually see it... you see, I think I am one of the last humans standing that has absolutely no idea how to do anything on a computer other than type and check email, anything more complex than that and I just quit... So, I think thanks to my friend Amy who has a MAC also I was able to be walked through the process of actually changing something to something else so that it could actually show up here :-) Now we can have some fun!

This is the approximation of a course that I set up in my building yesterday and thought it was a great little brain teaser to share with the masses on a cold snowy day to keep us thinking about agility and course strategy. Gotta keep the mind sharp you know!

So, I only gave you the first 7 obstacles to start with, I thought the opening was very challenging in and of itself. What I want is some dialog about what you think is the best way to handle this opening utilizing the most efficient path and keeping in mind what cues and signals you need to use to get the correct response from your dog.

I will share my thoughts after some of you have shared yours! Have fun!

Workshops and Christmas parties, it is nice to be home!

I know I keep dwelling on how wonderful it is to be home, well, IT IS!!! However, I do not want to make it sound like I do not enjoy traveling to teach and trial, as a matter of fact I love it. I love meeting new people, I love going to new places and I love the fact that I have a job that allows me to help so many people all over this wonderful country and countries abroad!

But, being on the road so much also really helps me to appreciate my time at home. The biggest problem I have is that when I am home for an extended period of time I am not sure what to do with myself. Don't get me wrong there are millions of things that NEED to be done but I feel like I am spinning in circles sometimes trying to figure out what comes first, what to do next, and, all of a sudden another day is gone!

One thing I did get to do is a workshop for the local agility folks this past Friday. I structured it as 2 half day workshops, in the first session we focused on slightly (and I mean slightly:-), simpler exercises that were designed to point out both strengths and weaknesses in the foundational skill sets that determine overall handling decisions on any given course.

It is my belief that my job first and foremost is to teach the dog what they will be required to do, this includes all flat area cues and obstacle performance skills.

I am ultimately going to need to be able to trust my dog to do their job in order for me to effectively be able to do mine :-)

Being able to walk out onto any course and confidently define a handling strategy means trusting that I possess all of the tools necessary to adequately analyze the course for flow and efficiency. If I am missing tools I can still most likely get the job done but not as easily, or, most likely, without the efficiency that is necessary to come out on top.

The dogs also must have the correct tools for their job, when both dog and handler are prepared it is like a well oiled machine where dog and handler each take on the roles they are assigned and it is a thing of beauty!

We had a blast in the early session and all of the participants were brilliant in their ability to take the information and run with it! By the end of the workshop I truly believe there was a much better overall understanding of how foundation plays a huge role in what will eventually be a very successful agility team.

In the second session I cranked it up several notches and gave the group the responsibility of putting those foundation skills to work on a very complicated course that involved numerous handling situations that required a great deal of thought. It was designed to test the handlers ability to recognize what signals, cues, etc.. they needed to create seamless transitions between the obstacles. It also required dog and handler teams to really evaluate what is the meaning of these signals and cues as far as the dog is concerned, and, to determine if the meaning behind these cues is or has been consistent in it's usage and presentation throughout the dogs agility life so far.

It is always very enlightening to be pushed outside of your comfort zone and to witness just how well the human condition allows us to focus on what we are already good at rather than trying new and/or different things that may be a bit uncomfortable but ultimately the right idea. Plus, it is just a bad idea to limit yourself to jut a couple of tools when there are so many available and so many necessary applications of these various tools. Every side change can't be a front cross, every turn is not a HERE! there is so much more.

As with the early group I had a blast with a bunch of really amazing dog and handler teams who were more than willing to step outside of their comfort zone and try something "new". Great progress was made and a lot of fun was had. I am already looking forward to the next one...

Because I was mentally exhausted by the time we were done on Friday night I made the decision to not run my dogs and to just head home, however, since I was to be coming back to Liz's for a Christmas party the next night I asked her to please leave the course up and I brought the dogs back on Sat. night and we got to run the course! SoBe, Wally and Maze all got a turn or 2 and it was great fun!

Then it was time to party! It was so very nice to get to see so many people that I just do not get to see very often, tons of great food, great company, awesome gifts exchanged in a rousing game of Chinese gift exchange, is that what it is called? And, of course, a margarita or 2 :-) Thank you Liz for the opportunity to play and work in your building and for the unbeatable holiday festivities!

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!

What every puppy needs to know :-)

As I sit in Starbucks waiting for my heated seats to be installed in my "almost" new Suburban I got to thinking about puppy stuff...

What does every puppy need to know? LOTS of things, but, what are the most important things? I guess that depends primarily on what your goals are :-)

My goals are to be the very best teammate that I can possibly be for my dog, to be competitive while having the time of my life running with my best friend, to know that I can count on my dog to take direction and respond to every cue as if every forthcoming cue is the one he has been waiting for his whole life. 

It is my goal to be the very best trainer that I can be to insure the former will come to fruition. It is my goal to be fair and consistent, to expect no more from my dog than I am willing to give and to never blame my dog for my mistakes, understanding the whole while that any and all information that my dog gets comes from me and that I am ultimately responsible for the outcome of any run, training or trialing, one obstacle or 21.

It is true that dogs are capable of making decisions and choosing what behaviors they will or will not offer at any given moment, however, the better I train my dog and the more consistent I am in that training, as well as how consistent I am in usage of cues, signals, etc.. the more likely the dog will make the correct choice. 

It is also my job to define correct and incorrect choices made by my dog in order to help them WANT to choose correctly. 

I think it is very hard for people to truly understand just how important a role we play in creating the dog we run is. Sure, on a base level it is understood but human nature has a tendency to overtake common sense very early on and the thought process changes to one of rationalization and excuse making as well as gray area infiltrated training ideas.

You cannot read the rule book of any given organization, learn the criteria for a qualifying score and infer it to your dog through osmosis. 

Since dogs are incapable of reading the rule book, and we are not able to translate the rules in dogspeak we must become dog trainers and figure out the myriad of ways that we can translate the rules into behaviors that the dog can offer which fit the standard of perfection we are all looking for.

Ask yourself what is your expected criteria of the dog  for  the performance of any of the individual obstacles to be performed on any given agility course, if you begin your answer with Ummm, well, Ahhh, you have no canine understandable criteria. If you have to explain your criteria the dog cannot understand it. The answer should be simple, concise and to the point. You have a responsibility to teach the dog what they need to know to be able to offer correct behaviors immediately when asked.

This does not even scratch the surface of what is the really difficult part of running agility and that is controlling what happens between the obstacles :-)

Truly, in my list of what every puppy needs to know it is the flat area cues that make up the bulk of the list.

So, let's get to it... first and foremost is of course attention. I think I spend more time talking about attention, it's value and necessity than almost anything else, the problem is, it is very hard to explain what to do to earn the level of attention that I am talking about.

Dogs do not come understanding that you are to be adored, this must be taught. I have been going through this process with puppies of my own for so many years I find it hard to even break down exactly what I do, I just know that on average by the time my pups are 4 months old they already understand where their bread is buttered and although they are allowed tremendous freedom they are already far more interested in me than anything else that may present itself. When I take pups to seminars they are awesome demo dogs of what attention looks like. they are not interested in attendees, they are interested in ME! 

That is the point, right? I earn this by being the most important and rewarding experience in y pups life.

Another list topper is hand signal awareness, my hand signals out on course are ultimately going to dictate to my dogs where they are heading, what obstacles to take and also what not to take. My hand signals, arms included are like gates on course that open and close to allow or deny access.

I do not name this behavior I just teach the pup to offer a nose touch on an open hand for reward, it takes very little time to convince them of the merits of this behavior.

I have no idea how I have been able to get so many dogs around so many courses before I discovered just how ridiculously important parallel path work is???

My job as a handler is to direct the dog around or through a course, how incredibly helpful is it to know that my dog will seek out and maintain a path parallel to me while I drive? 

A dog's understanding of parallel path as well as hand signal awareness and unwavering attention allows the handler to actually HANDLE assuming responsibility to the dog for following said path and honoring all offered cues and directions.

This does put a formidable responsibility on the handler to offer the correct information but if you have properly trained the dog and you trust what you've trained all will be well.  

I must teach individual obstacle skills which of course vary in degree of difficulty depending on the nature of the obstacle.

Every puppy needs to be taught basic obedience commands at an early age, including but not limited to STAY. People wait far too long to incorporate stay into their set of skills and thus we have a huge start line problem in the sport of agility. Waiting until you have awakened the dogs complete lust for the equipment and then trying to incorporate the stay is definitely an exercise in frustration.

Finally, off the top of my head what does a pup need to know? He must need to know the value of reward, toys and treats. Food is a wonderful training tool, but if you forego toys while you teach initial behaviors with food you will have a hard time getting the toys back into the list of most valuable and wonderful things in your pups life.

Toys are interaction, toys are stress relief and toys are awesome training aids, you must incorporate play into every training session form the get go without fail. OK, I feel that "I" must, but, this is "MY" list :-)

I am sure I will think of more things but this is a good start and my truck is done so I am going to take a mile walk to go get it, anyone want to pick me up?? Have a great day!  

'Tis the season...

To get your thoughts together, get goals figured out, and, get to work :-) I know this is the most incredibly busy time right now for most folks but I ma happy, OK... VERY happy to report that I have a short but much needed break from traveling! I returned from Houston last night and find myself without airline reservations for any upcoming travel engagements and actually do not have to sleep away from home until Jan. 1, what a treat!

Of course as I have been looking forward to this time off I have also been relishing the idea of tons and tons of dog training happening! Well, as I sit here and write this I realize that before I can head down to the building with the pups I have to get my thoughts in order and think about where everyone is at this point and what my short and long term goals are at this point for each of them :-)

I also have to realize that I am just a bit tired and also a wee bit behind on housey stuff :-) I have spent the majority of today, picking up poop, cleaning stalls, vacuuming, putting up Christmas decorations and just generally getting my house and "other life" back in order. I have not finished or really started my Christmas shopping, not at all sure when that is going to happen.

And although I am admittedly a bit burned out on agility at the moment I am constantly thinking about getting out there with "my dogs".

So, it made sense to me, although I certainly could just jump right in, that I should think through exactly how I want to spend this very precious time and get my head in the right place before I head out to train.

At this point I pretty much have all of my goals organized, now I have to implement the plan. The Wasatch USDAA trial I recently attended helped me immensely in seeing where I am with all of the pups and what needs to be done.

First, what do they know? Wally and Maze pretty much know it all :-) They are definitely at the stay tuned up, a little practice keeps us perfect place in their agility careers with the exception of a few things that I would definitely like to improve, Maze needs a faster teeter performance and more proofing of his independent weave pole performance, I also want to really work on advanced handling drills to get him tuned up for the AKC Nationals and the FCI try-outs.

Wally certainly can always benefit from dog walk practice as his "moving" contact performance is getting very close to exactly what I want :-) He also will benefit from more advanced drills to keep us sharp for AKC Nationals.

The youngsters certainly need the most work but that is the way it goes, right? SoBe gets to play on the same drills as the big boys with an emphasis on independent contact and weave pole performance. Merger is going to be out of competition for a while because I need to get his contacts to a point that we are both happy. He will get to play in jumpers for ring experience as I truly believe that too be one of the most important things for him right now.

Merger is so at that confidence building stage right now and I think the best way to improve his confidence is through training and making sure that he truly understands his job.

I am also going to be spending a fair bit of time working on my mental game, I do not feel that I am having any specific problems in that area but it never hurts to take another shot of Lanny Basham just to stay sharp.

So, I will let you know how the training goes...

What a weekend!

I am up in very cold and snowy Salt Lake City. It is not supposed to be cold and snowy but you know those weather forecasters, sorry Tracy if you are reading this!
It was a great weekend though, Geoff and I got to trial Sat. and today, and, I am teaching my awesome Utah groups the next 2.5 days. It was really fun to see that at the trial 90% of the people trialing are my students, even though I only get to work with them every 2 months I am claiming them because they are fantastic!!! It was fun to see everybody showing, although Julie would have to point out that I have ADD and don't really watch anyway!
It was a very small trial and really fun! One of the things I was most looking forward to this weekend was showing Merger for the first time in USDAA, and showing SoBe again, it has been a while!
Merger first... he turned 18 months on the 31st of November so quite obviously he is far from seriously ring ready. However, since my intent was to call this a multi run fun match it was a rousing success as far as I am concerned.
Was he perfect, not even close. As a matter of fact out of 5 runs he had zero qualifying scores, but, he ran great! Even in those few runs I saw a huge improvement in his confidence and speed. He dropped two bars in his jumpers run and then did not drop another bar the rest of the weekend. He hit every weave pole entry on the first attempt and finished every set without missing a pole! He picked up my cues and tried as hard as he could to do exactly what I asked when I asked each and every time.
What did I learn? I learned where the holes are, I learned that although I have spent the majority of Mergers obstacle training time working on contacts and weave poles, his contacts are not even close to a finished product. SO, what have I been doing?? Not enough reps of what will teach the desired behavior, what is the desired behavior? Ahhhh... that is the question ,but, I do believe that I have finally figured it out.
I am going to stick with the running contacts, I just have to create a better understanding of the criteria for Merger, this means I have to sort out exactly what I want, how I want it to look, what I expect the desired performance to be, break it down, and, consistently train what I want.
My plan is to get home and lower both the dog walk and A-frame and leave them down for a significant amount of time, doing tons of reps with a hoop at the bottom just building speed, drive and stride placement, reinforcing a foot in the desired area with tons of play and reward! This is not an earth shattering new training method, this is what I believe is necessary to improve on what Merger already does fairly well and make it better. He had some very nice contact performances this weekend but not what I would call finished or even desireable. He is taking way too many strides on the dog walk and I have to address that issue before I go any further with that contact. He is starting to really get the A-frame and is driving up and over very nicely but is only about 50% successful in hitting the contact, that is not good enough.
I cannot train these behaviors in the ring so I have decided to refrain from showing him in any classes with contacts until we get it sorted out. I guess that means he is a jumpers dog for a while! That is totally OK as I am trying to look at the big picture, I will take the time on this end to train the behaviors I want rather than keep showing him and establish tons of bad habits that will never go away.
Thruthfully, the contacts are the only true "training issue" that I felt he had. He needs confidence which will increase his speed and we need experience running together so that I can more effectively handle him.
With the baby dogs you never really know what is going to happen or how they are going to run, this makes handling decisions very difficult, however, I do feel that overall he was wonderful.
He will grow mentally into his extremely large body and he will figure out that his front and rear end can work together it is just going to take time. I am happy to wait he is going to be a great agility dog and he is already a treasured member of my family, what more could you ask for?
Now SoBe, holy crap! What an amazing athlete and so much fun bundled into that feisty little package :-) SoBe is the most amazing jumper, she can maneuver herself from any angle at a ridiculous rate of speed over any jump with ease, I love that about her, one of the very many things that I love about her.
She is like driving a race car down a mountain road at top speed in a snowstorm! If you can keep control it is a huge rush and if not, well....
I learned this weekend that she must have ample warm up time before a run or she is not controlable, I learned that there are always going to be compromises that I must make along the way to keep the peace, I learned that she really is a fabulous team player I just have to be very clear in my direction, calm in my presentation, and, absolutely 100% focused and on my game at all times or she knows it and will gladly take over.
SoBe is power personified or would that be dogified? She comes off the line like a bullet and does not willingly slow down until it is all over. She pushed every start line but I pushed back and won, she pushed her dog walk performance and I am not sure that I came out on top in that battle. Her A-frames were fantastic, as a matter of fact they were the A-frames we of the running contact ilk dream of, up and over the top with just enough air not to have hang time but to put her clearly and deeply into the contact before the hasty exit. Please let them forever and always stay that good :-) You do realize that those of us with running contacts pray daily to the running contact gods :-)
Her weave poles were better than they have been in competition, she missed an entry or 2 but never popped out!!!!
It is proof that hard work pays off, and, SoBe is hard work but so very worth it. She makes me smile just to think about her how lucky am I to have such a wonderful dog in my life! Oh yea, I have many wonderful dogs, it makes me smile just thinking about them all.
In a nutshell the Sobster earned 2 advanced standard legs, a Steeplechase Q, a masters jumpers leg, and a masters snooker leg this weekend. She also went comletely nuts in advanced pairs, and, got carried off the masters gamblers course, she bit me several times every time I lined her up on the start line and barked like a crazy fool while doing it, this is why we do it, right?
Of course the older more distinguished canines in the group also rocked this weekend, Geoff did amazing with Rumor and Xtra, Wally and Maze were brilliant as always :-) Ahhhh... what a weekend!

It's a new day...

...Not a new puppy, but a puppy still in almost every sense of the word :-) I had totally forgotten what a cute puppy Merger was! I spent a fair bit of time going through some old dog photos today. There is something about losing one of the beloved family members that inspires a trip down memory lane.

It is time to move forward though, it is a new day and it is time to really get cracking with the Merge man and SoBe DoBe DoodleBug!

Off we went to the building today and what a great time we had!

First up was SoBe, she makes it very clear that she is to be first always and it is in my best interest to oblige.

I have mentioned in past posts that I have been very much on the fence about what to do with SoBe's contacts, I have decided to go with a running A-frame and she is doing fantastic! I am really a huge fan of running A-frames and I think they are very trainable, although training is a must and you definitely have to get creative at times.

Her teeter was the best it has been today with beautiful slides fast and flying to the end of the board into her lovely "Bang" position.

Now that pesky dogwalk, which continues to be brilliant in training extremely fast and always a perfect princess sit on the end. I have seriously thought about changing to a running but will more than likely go to an early release and keep the basics that I have.

BTW, after this past weekend at the AKC trial I am an official believer in 24" weave poles. I was never opposed I just did not see the absolute necessity of 24" poles. The boys did incredibly well with them, yes they have been on 24" poles lots but it really was obvious at the trial this past weekend that they were just that much more effortless in their performance that I say why not just go with it, now we have to convince everyone :-).

Allowing myself to digress a bit after the horrible night on Thursday, I pulled myself together and double Q'd both Wally and Maze on Friday so they both get to go to AKC Nationals this year!! I am pretty excited to go as I have not been to AKC Nationals since Secret went.

Anyway, back to training, we worked some pretty difficult sequences with tough weave pole entries and SoBe was brilliant, I guess she is just brilliant all the way around :-).

Merger is really figuring out the weave poles and I believe he is actually ready for his debut this weekend in Utah at the Wasatch USDAA trial. Merger and contacts, Hmmmm.... we will call them modified running just for fun. He has adopted Wallys philosophy on the teeter and runs to the end, drops the board and moves along, I like it!

A-frame and dog walk running/moving contacts lots of reps, lots of reinforcements! His jumping is looking good too. Merger continues to be a thoughtful young man who is going to put in amazing times with minimal effort, or what will look like minimal effort. Mergers stride is immense, I am really excited about his future!

I have set some goals for next year which really helps keep my training fresh and gives me a place to go as it were. Short term goals are to get Wally and Maze all tuned up for AKC Nationals. I am also planning on taking Maze to the FCI World team tryouts in May and going to the European Open in July with Maze and Wally.

Those things along with coaching the IFCS US World team should keep me plenty busy! And, of course there are the youngsters...

Ahhh, coaching the IFCS team, I have made no secret of the fact that I was trying out this year with Maze, the good news is that he ultimately tied with 2 other dogs for the 2nd and 3rd places on the team. The bad news is that the tie breaker criteria which was a numbers issue left me in the 4th position on what will be a 3 dog 26" team. I was pretty bummed but at least I know that Maze and I did our best and that in theory we DID make the team. The other interesting factoid is that Wally, who is just about 1/8" too tall to compete in the 22" height class at Worlds ended up the top point earner of that height division! I am really proud of how well both dogs did in such amazing fields of competition. There is always 2012! For now, I am going to be very proud and happy to once again coach the US team and a great team it is!

So, for those of you who have not yet established goals for next year, what are you waiting for? Everyone needs goals, both short term and long term that is what keeps us motivated. Next post, Goals and how to achieve them! In the near future top 10 things that every trainer must teach the up and coming agility prospect, until next time...

Happy Thanksgiving, I think?

Our family did what we usually do for Thanksgiving only we did it on Tuesday instead of Thursday... You see we are not even remotely like a conventional family, my job guarantees that! OK, not always my job, sometimes what my job doubles as, which is my hobby :-) I had entered an AKC trial in California over Thanksgiving weekend which I would be flying out to on Thanksgiving night so we decided to have our Thanksgiving feast on Tuesday.

As we sat down to dinner each of us had to say what we were thankful for, it was pretty much the usual, we were thankful for each other, for our great friends, our fantastic dogs, and really just thankful for being fortunate enough to have such a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner!

The next couple of day were glorious, beautiful weather allowing for long hikes and lots of outside time with the pups.

Thanksgiving Day was no exception, as a matter of fact the weather was the nicest it has been for quite sometime! Geoff and I took the dogs for a very long walk and really got to enjoy them just being dogs. At the same time we were marveling at how Geoff's little tiny barely 10" tall sheltie could run so fast that she could keep up with the border collies. We talked about the previous night when we had taken her down to the training building and tag teamed teaching her to run across a low dog walk and A-frame and what an incredibly bright future she had in agility.

This, of course was just icing on the cake as Geoff is just so madly in love with her that it is really a non issue if she ever does agility.

We laughed at her silly antics and constant boinging straight into the air and how she had the most incredible zest for life!

These are just a few of the many things we will miss about her.

Boing passed away on Thursday night just before midnight at just barely 6 months of age... After such a wonderful morning and afternoon without warning Boing was struck by a neurological episode of undetermined reason that left her essentially paralyzed and Unresponsive.

Unfortunately, Geoff and Nick were here alone as I had already left for CA. and so he was essentially faced with this catastrophe on his own. Geoff rushed Boing to the Animal Emergency Clinic where it was determined that the anurysm or whatever it was caused her to bleed from the brain and ultimately go into cardiac arrest.

Boing was with us for a very short time but she will live on in our hearts and memories forever!

It was during this short time that we got to know her incredible howl that was her plea to Geoff to get up and get going, her insatiable desire to tug that was sometimes diverted to border collie tails when there were no toys or when they were just a better option. She had to attack all closing doors including her crate door when she was sure she did not need to be in a crate. There were so many things to be Thankful for with our little girl Boing, and so many things to be thankful for in general, but this Thanksgiving not so happy.

Hugs to all your dogs!

Long time no posting :-)

Hi All!

OK, I know it has been beyond a ridiculous amount of time since I have posted anything to the blog... I do not have a very good excuse other than the pat, WOW, have I been busy! I have not had loads of time to train the baby dogs as I have been concentrating on the "older" dogs, getting ready for Nationals, etc...

So, what has been going on, Ummmm, let's see, I have been doing lots of seminars, I think I have become an honorary Canadian citizen as I have been up north so many times the past couple of months! What a wonderful bunch of people those Canadians :-) I have to say I am never disappointed when I head up to the frozen tundra to teach, OK, it is really not always frozen, and, a good time is always had by me, if not all!!!

I do have to give a huge shout out to my friends Phil and Mary Zacharatos as they can put on a party and boy can Phil cook!!

I have also had opportunity to show my dogs a bit :-) Actually it has been a very good year for me in the agility arena, Wally and Maze have been tearing up the courses and SoBe although still pushy, mouthy and just plain naughty has already qualified for team at the 2010 USDAA Nationals and just 2 weeks ago proved that she "can" weave in a trial where she laid down a 21 second open jumpers with weaves course including starting and completing a set of 12 weave poles on the first try!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love that little dog? Oh yea, I have been missing in action so I have not really mentioned anything!

Besides having a great year in agility in general I just returned from USDAA National Championships where Wally got to play in the Steeplechase Finals and Maze got to play in both Team and GP Finals! The boys had fabulous clean runs and other than a slight face plant by Wally and the small collision between Maze and myself in GP Finals we ended up 4th in Steeple, 5th in team out of 180 some teams and, 6th in GP. Not bad I say!

The very best thing of all was the completely and totally unexpected perfectly clean and ultimately fast enough PGP semi final run that landed Able in the PGP Finals on Friday night. Ask anyone and they will tell you the most fun of all at USDAA Championships is running at night under the lights, Able will second that. He absolutely loves the big ring at night! I admit I had to tear up a bit when I was walking the course because this was the perfect way to retire Able from the Championships, thank you Able for the great runs and great memories! Don't worry he is not dead or dying, he is just too old and arthritic to jump 22" very much longer. We really need to live for the moment as the time goes all to fast and the ride ends way too soon.

What a great Nationals it was from a spectator standpoint as well. Every year the competition get stiffer and I come home with all sorts of things that I "need" to train. The sport continues to evolve and just gets more impressive every year.

Hey, I am actually going to AKC Nationals this year! I have not been to Nationals since I took Secret and I am truly excited about going. Maze is fully qualified and Wally is sitting on 5 double Q's with a 3 day trial after Thanksgiving to hopefully procure that 6th double Q. Next year I may actually have to commit a bit more time to AKC as I do love the Nationals and the pups are really doing quite well in the AKC venue.

I realize my foray back to blogging is primarily shameless bragging which I really try not to do but I just needed to :-) I promise now that I have gotten back to it there will be actual training talk forthcoming!

Geoff and I returned from Nationals last night and although I have several lessons today and am of course exhausted I did manage to get a little training in with the Merger man.

After watching all of the incredible running contacts at this years nationals I am determined to get Merger running his contacts, so off we trudged to the building today ready to do a bit of analysis trying to figure out exactly how I am to accomplish this very daunting task with Merger the giant! Well, although I have been working on a stride collection cue on the dog walk for a short time I certainly did not believe that he has yet developed a behavior on the walk that would have anything to do with the steady command I have been incorporating. I was absolutely dumbfounded when he ran the dog walk at speed with a voluntary stride collection at the bottom, both directions :-)

His teeter has evolved into a thing of beauty and the A-frame is most certainly coming along. Weaves are nice and getting better all the time, and his jumping is really awesome!

As a matter fact I entered him in his very first AKC trial in JWW only as a test run and he was brilliant! He Q'd in both runs and the courses were vastly different a really great test of where he is at. The course on Sat. was very open and flowing and the course on Sunday was practically a grid exercise for Merger with a 4 jump pinwheel taken twice. He judged his jumps perfectly and adjusted accordingly.

He had a perfect stay on the start line and was completely at home in the trial environment, playing and acting as if there were not tons of people and dogs all over the place. I was very proud of him!

OK folks next time we talk training!

The secrets of success in agility

HA! If only it was a simple formula that could be written on this blog and magically create success in agility beyond your wildest dreams :-) It is!!!!
There are several foundational basics as I call them and they are Attention, Hand Signal Awareness, and, the understanding of Parallel Positioning. That would be the AHSAPP Principle :-) OK, just kidding, I just thought maybe assigning a fancy acronym would give it more creedence :-)
There is an inability of most handlers to communicate a start line position, maintain connection with their dog for any length of time, cue a turn over a single jump, etc... this got me thinking about how Merger, one of my young dogs (14 months old), who at this point was unable to weave a straight set of poles, did not have a full teeter or dog walk performance, is just now learning to judge proper take-offs in a jump sequence, and, has yet to do a sequence of more than 4 jumps at full height, can line up on the start line in a near perfect parallel position to me on a verbal cue, can stay for whatever duration of time necessary, understands how to target to my hand, seek out the parallel path, collect before a jump, wrap an upright with beautiful full body flexion, and, in essence is prepared to be "handled" through a masters course.
It was because of these things that I had an epiphany! The most difficult part of agility is handling the dog between the obstacles, not the obstacles themselves, therefore, I have subconsciously taught all of the between the obstacle behaviors before even completing most of the actual obstacle behaviors, making it impossible to show the dog before we are truly ready! You can fake the handling stuff and although probably not pretty, get the dog around the course but you cannot fake a set of weave poles if your dog has never seen them in a straight line!
Do you get it, I have successfully found a way to insure, (as well as we can insure anything), that my dog is truly ready to compete before I "can" compete!
I know I beat this foundation stuff to death but is there any substitute for proper foundation training? I think not!
By the time Merger has all of the obstacles figured out his flat area behaviors will be all worked out and I will be able to enter the ring with a level of confidence that allows me to handle even the greenest of dogs without spectating and micromanaging the things I have not yet trained. This ends the vicious cycle of no trust, spectate, lack of information to dog, wrong behavior, no trust, more spectating, even later and less information to dog, worse behavior, and it goes on and on.
I will go into the ring with a well trained, even if inexperienced dog who I will direct with confidence who will in return offer me the behaviors that I am asking for in a timely manner as correctly as possible for a baby dog embarking on a new journey. It must also be noted that there will be growing pains in any new partnership and it will take time for it to become the well oiled machine it may be with the older dogs I am running.
It was really awesome to know that I could use Merger to demo all of the bits that needed to be available in order to get the dogs from point A to point Z, even if he couldn't do straight line weave poles.
This epeiphany was a direct result of the secrets of success I know to be true in my experience as and agility/dog trainer.
The AHSAPP Principle :-) I feel that if my dog understands how to pay attention, has hand signal awareness and knows that it is his/her job to always be looking for a path parallel to me there is absolutely no configuration of obstacles I cannot get the dog thorugh. All of this is of course in reference to the between the obstacle performance, the obstacles do indeed have to be taught but that is a seperate issue.
It is also necessary to teach the value of the various hand signals and maintain clarity and consistency in their usage.
I do not need to practice a "serpentine," I need to know what cues to offer my dog to correctly negotiate the 3 obstacles in this particular order or configuration. My very attentive dog will read the hand signal and will accomodate what I am asking by reading dirction by way of seeking out a path parallel to me. It is of course important that the path that I am indicating is correct and that I am moving in the direction of the course :-)
You see the secret of success in agility is teaching the dog the to read and understand your cues , and, the various behaviors you will need on course and then trusting what you have taught so that you can walk a course for the most efficient path, share the necessary information with your dog expecting them to respond accordingly. It is your job to plan your run and run your plan.
Well, it is off to bed for me as I have another big day of teaching ahead of me tomorrow :-)

So much to do, so little time!

HI All!

I know it has literally been ages since I have last written! I truly stand in awe of those individuals that have the time and opportunity to update blogs on a daily or even every other day basis! 

I feel like summer and just time in general is flying by so fast it is incredible.

 I write this on the heels of C Spot Win summer camp and it was a BLAST! A huge success if I do say so myself :-) I would highly reccommend camp to those individuals who want to have a great learning experience in a very laid back FUN environment!

After camp it was immediately off to a USDAA trial in Farmington, Utah hosted by Colleen Hawker and Wasatch agility. Coleen really knows how to put on a trial, very laid back but efficient and the site was once again amazing! Thank you Coleen for continuing to offer these great trials!

I also need to make mention of the fact that the overall attitude of the handlers was fantastic! After all of my ranting and raving about what went on at the 4th of July trial it was really great to see people being so kind to their dogs and one another.

I must also mention that I have had more than a few comments regarding my last post and how helpful it was to be reminded that we are truly in control of our own destiny out on the agility field and that we really need to keep a close eye on what we are training and ultimately expecting of our dogs on course and in training for that matter.

I only showed on Friday and Sat. but my dogs were awesome! Able is narrowing in on that Platinum lifetime achievement award, 5 more jumpers legs to go! Wally and Maze were exceptional and capped off Sat. by each winning their height division in the Grand Prix. SoBe held every start line and stopped and waited for release on all contacts!!!We have not yet tried the weaves in a trial but at camp she was nailing them and staying in almost 100%! I really had a great 2 days of trialing :-) Even better was the fact that my son Nick actually agreed to come with me and we had some really nice mom and son bonding time, it has been a very long time since we have had that opportunity!

Obviously my focus at camp was teaching others but I and the other instructors did take some time after class to work and help each other a bit too :-) During one of these "sessions" I was able to really test Mergers running A-frame, I still had the stride regulator on it, but, I ran full speed cueing Merge up and over and he had to chase me for the toy after completion of the obstacle, he was brilliant! Solid contacts that according to Stephanie, (my  other set of eyeballs),  he went deeper the faster I ran really proving that he "gets" it! 

I will admit that I have given up on the running dog walk with the Merge Man as his stride is just too huge!!! I am really feeling confident with my methodology regarding the running A-frames however.

We are steadily closing the gap on Mergers weave pole channels and he is at approx. 2-3 inch spacing. I did not get to work the weaves as much as I had hoped at camp but back at it tomorrow! I did take the day off today, needed to just let my brain cool a bit :-)

Ann spent a bit of time with me and Merger helping with his jumping, we did determine that he does not have a jumping problem he is still just really unaware of how his extra large body works. It is a great learning experience for me that is for sure! Even though Able is a very big dog he is built very differently than Merger and his physical awareness seemed to be better sooner. She gave me some homework that I will keep you abreast of as we progress. 

My contribution was to help Ann with Synners A-frame and her her on track to teach a running A-frame, that was a lot of fun!

Now that camp is done for another year I can get back to a few other things that need my attention, there is always something that is for sure. It was a bit hard to relax today knowing that there are countless "things" that need to be done, oh well it always gets done at some point!

Back to trying to be more timely keeping the blog current! 

Who's the one with the BIG brain?

I am trying desperately to figure out how it is that a species such as human beings that have created and evolved so many high tech gadgets that we can practically do our wash wirelessly from 10 miles away but we cannot seem to grasp the concept of "consistency" and "criteria maintainence." 

I am certain that I am a bit hyper sensitive to noticing the countless examples of inconsistency that occur in class, at seminars and in trials because I witness them on an almost daily basis, but, I find it amazing that the average individual training one, two, or, maybe even three dogs has absolutely no idea what it means to be consistent in maintaining the criteria taught to their dogs. 

I suppose it is equally surprising how many handlers do not even begin the whole process of training with any clear idea of what they want the criteria to be.

Now, you could say that if they are not teaching criteria to begin with then there is no criteria to maintain, this is true, however, it would then be only fair to accept that the dog has not been trained to be responsible for the obstacle performance and should smile and say "good dog" no matter what the performance is.

We all know this is not the way it happens. I was at a trial this past weekend that seemed to exemplify this issue to a level that left me quite sad for a large group of dogs.

I do not know if the level of dog blaming was at an all time high or it was just the fact that the trial was not exactly moving at a breakneck pace which left more than the usual amount of time to watch others compete.

Either way, I was really quite distressed at how many people used what I am certain were supposed to be cues relevant to a specific contact behavior that quite obviously did not happen. In some instances the handler simply ignored the lack of criteria and went on, this would be the least of the problems, or, would have the audacity to get visibly angry at the dog for not doing what the handler had cued without requiring numerous times prior to the actual missing of the contact.

I found a large number of handlers that allowed their dogs to blow off proper performance without incident as long as it was still resulting in a qualifying score, if the infraction would result in an NQ you bet there was a reaction from the handler, how incredibly sad!

In what I guess was an attempt to get our reward of the almighty Q the handlers would then resort to totally new and unrelated cues that I guess would surprise the dog into offering the behavior, quite the head scratcher says me :-)

I write this on a day that I find out that a friends 8 year old Golden literally fell over dead on Sat. and another friends BC died of Cancer yesterday and wonder what are we thinking?

Even if Agility was not meant to be a game we play with our dogs, even if agility was a known cure for cancer, or could pave the road to World Peace we would ultimately fail miserably because although we have the BIG brains and thumbs, we expect our dogs to sift through the crappola and be able to do what we want or need them to do to make us feel good without any real training, or, total disregard for maintaining the criteria we may have actually taught them.

I hear a lot of  "I am working on that", "I know I am not very consistent", etc... without any real plan for change. 

Far too many dogs are trialing far too early and pushed too hard to do things that they have not had nearly enough time to learn specifically enough to hold up in a stressful environment like a trial. Most dogs do not have a clear understanding in training of exactly what is required, let alone the understanding necessary for the show ring.

I am a human as well and am equally guilty of my own bouts of inconsistency, but, I better notice it, and fix it! It is my job to have a clear understanding of what the ideal performance of any given cue or behavior is and my job to teach my dog how to do it correctly. 

It is also my job to not create confusion by allowing the one behavior that I have taught to evolve into any number of other behaviors because I am not capable of paying attention to what my dog is doing and run a course at the same time, I MUST be aware of what my dog is doing and what I am allowing at all times. I have to reinforce the behaviors that I want and must not accept and certainly not reward the behaviors that I do not.

It is my dogs job to perform the behaviors that I ask for correctly, when I ask. It is not my dogs job to fix my inability to properly train or maintain the behaviors that are necessary to be successful in agility.

The dog cannot walk the course, read the rulebook, obsess over course maps, etc.. any information that your dog receives on course or in training comes from you, they are simply reacting to the information provided, you do the math.

OK, now that I have ranted and raved and beat all of my wonderful readers over the head, might I remind you that agility is FUN!!! It is a GAME!!! Enjoy the time you have with your wonderful canine companion, it is all too short.

The moral of the story, do not have greater expectations of your dog than you are capable of returning. Now, go TRAIN your dog! 

  

Is it the handler or is it the dog?

As I travel all over doing seminars, camps, workshops, etc... I spend a great deal of time teaching people how to better handle their dogs. I also spend a great deal of time trying to impress upon said handlers the incredible importance of foundation training.

I think everyone out there understands that foundation training is super important but I also think that there is still a lot of confusion about what foundation training really is, and, how it applies to the overall big picture in agility.

I just returned from an awesome seminar in Minnesota during which this seemed to be a pervasive theme running through my head. 

Copious amounts of time was spent on trying to help people achieve the perfectly timed front cross, while even if the side change was indeed timed "perfectly" there was still a less than desirable outcome :-) 

The problem is that for so many people, even if they are perfect the dog is still not contributing to the overall process. It sounds here like I am "blaming" the dog but I am not...

Who teaches the dog their part or their responsibilities on course? That, of course, would be the handler :-) It always comes back to us, doesn't it?

I was finally able to really put my finger on the overall issue yesterday when I was doing a lesson with a very talented handler and there was a section in the exercise that called for 2 front crosses in succession, we cleaned up the handlers timing nicely but it still was not quite right.

I kept thinking about how I had run it that same morning and did not have the problem that was occurring, which was that the dog was over running the handlers side change. 

These were front crosses that required the handler to move through the side changes in order to make them both, however, in this case if the handler did not stop at the initiation of the cross the dog would over run her.

The main issue here is that no matter how "perfect" the handler is, the dog must also know what their responsibility is in all of this.

So, what was missing? This particular dog does not truly understand the value of the extraneous cues involved in the front cross. He is not bending to the handlers hand signal, he extends through a front cross without converging on the handlers path. 

He does understand that if mom decellerates and begins to rotate that he should come back to her but he is still extends over the jumps and turns back on the flat "after" the jump instead of flexing over the jump.

When a side change of any type is cued in a timely fashion the dog should never extend or have a straight body posture over the previous obstacle, there should be collection and flexion.

It is really important to practice timing and learn to "read" the dog and their position, etc.. However, in the meantime do not forget about the dogs part.

The dog has to be taught about collection, flexion, cue specifics, etc.. 

My style of training and handling focuses primarily on shaping "natural behaviors" into specific behaviors relevant to what I am going to need to be competitive on the agility field. It makes perfect sense to me to capitalize on things that are innate to my dog and add a few tweaks here and there to make these behaviors more specific to agility in general, however, the problem is this, because these are "natural" behaviors first and foremost we can easily forget to spend the necessary time to create the specifics that we need.

For example, one of the things that my dogs absolutely must learn is to find and maintain a path parallel to me, if my expectations are that my dog will follow me around a course reading my cues then don't I need to teach my dog to follow the direction "I" will be taking? If a dog is just willy nilly running across my feet or behind my back I will spend more time trying to keep the dog next to me and watching to be sure that he/she is next to me that I will not be able to get the course cues out in a timely manner or at all for that matter.

I need to be able to count on my dog understanding that their job is to always seek out a path parallel to me, this takes time and training as well as a handler who makes sure to notice if what they are teaching, (and you are always teaching), is what I want my dog to learn.

I start every exercise, even 1 jump work, with my dog parallel to me, I make it my mission to practice the correct cues, handling, position, etc.. whenever I am training and whatever I am training.

Pop quiz, does your dog know how to line up next to you on a start line in a parallel position without you physically manipulating them? If not, there is a big hole right there. If they cannot find this position while not in motion how are they to know to find it when you are running around a course?

I know there are not a lot of great foundation training resources out there at present but even just taking a step back and taking inventory of what cues you use and what they are supposed to mean to the dog is a great way to start to get a handle on what you have available in your tool box and what tools you need to acquire. 

Short list: 

Does my dog know parallel path?

Does my dog know and understand hand signals?

Does my dog know how to interpret the various hand signals?

Does my dog know how to interpret the variations in body cues, speed, etc..

Do I use these cues in a correct and consistent manner?

Does my dog know and understand how to pay attention through all levels of distraction?

These questions should get you started :-) I am sure there are many more that each of us could ask ourselves but 1 thing at a time....

To answer the question in the topic line of this post, it is both!

 

The 4 star was a 5 star :-)

OK, I know it has been ages again since I have actually updated the blog! I realized it was time to actually find time to sit down and write when several people actually asked me about Riesen and how she was doing, it was at this point that I realized that I had not let anyone out there know the great news! Although she had 3 mammary glands removed the "tumors" were all benign!! A downright miracle I would say.

Auntie Julie is of course taking the very best care of her and she is happy as a pig in mud, wrestling and tugging with, and, on her cousin Crush. What a life!!

I can say in all honesty that I have had very little chance to do much training since my last entry but I have worked a bit more on Mergers A-Frame. I have barely begun the dog walk training but if his progress on the A-Frame is any indicator, I think the dog walk will turn out as well.

Merger is definitely getting the hang of the additional "hit" at the base of the A-Frame and is genuinely seeking it out I am proud to say :-)

I am currently in Minnesota to teach at a 3 day seminar for Annelise Allan and Agile Canines, near the twin cities. When I get home I will do another video session and show you our progress! And, yes I really will put the videos up, I realize I have yet to download the SoBe fun match videos :-) OK, another thing to put on the to do list for when I get home.

SoBe is on vacation with auntie Deb this week as I opted to not take her to the Wasatch USDAA 4 Star event. A very good decision on my part as the show was very busy and the weather very unpredictable. The show itself was FANTASTIC! 

Let's talk about SoBe first, and about making decisions that impact the remainder of our dogs careers. SoBe occupies my thoughts a lot these days, not just because she is the spoiled little miss Princess SoBe that my World revolves around, but, also because I absolutely, positively know the potential that little dog has and I am consumed with trying to figure out how to get it out of her :-) 

As you all know I am certainly not referring to drive, she has that oozing out of every pore, I am, of course, referring to her need to take control of every situation. I firmly believe that is truly the crux of the issue, she is a control freak!!! 

I suppose it takes one to know one but if that is the case then "I" need to be in control. 

It does not need to be pointed out to me that the degree to which she has been spoiled does not exactly help this situation, but, I spoil all of my dogs and it has never come back to bite me in the butt with the ferocity that it has with SoBe.

I am a firm believer in picking battles, because of this I am rather lax when it comes to household rules. 

I am not even remotely lax in my expectations when I am training, so, it is a bit hard to take when there is a dog for whom the lines seem to blur.

It is quite obvious to me that SoBe is going to have to be "required" to be more responsible around the house if I am ever going to get her to be responsible on course, this will be tricky for me but I will do what needs to be be done to get everything out of her that there is to give.

I guess SoBe is going to have to join the rank and file of dogs that actually have to wait in their crate while the door is opened and actually stay there until released! I surely hope this new and improved household dog training does not kill one or the both of us :-)

One thing is for certain, at the upcoming USDAA trial she will hold her stays or she will not run, she will do her contacts properly or she will be escorted off of the course, she will do her weave poles from start to finish or she will be escorted off the course, and, she will not be entered in another trial until we have proofed all of these things to withstand, earthquakes, tornadoes, or any other force of nature in a training and fun match environment.

You see, it is one of the hardest things to do, pulling a dog from competition. It is also impossible for me to imagine spending this entire dogs career fighting with her in the ring when I can spend a few months or even a year getting it right. :-)

There are just some things that cannot be "fixed" in the ring and I believe that SoBe and I need to come to an agreement about who does what when and where, ultimately it is going to be awesome, right now it is going to be tough...

Next topic, the Wasatch 4 star USDAA event!! It was great! My friend Colleen Hawker puts on the most amazing trials and is very fortunate to have great workers and because of her dedication to the sport and the wonderful trials she puts on people come out of the woodwork to volunteer!

I would definitely give this 4 star event, 5 stars! The weather was a little weird at times but overall it was great. The trial was held at one of my all time favorite agility venues, outdoors on fabulous grass with a tree line surrounding the rings that provide tons of shade. We RV onsite and myself and a bunch of friends always have yearly bocci ball tourneys, (I think it is the bocci ball that draws us :-). We were semi rained out this year though and had to cut the games pretty short :-(

However, what made this event so awesome was the great competition that showed up, lots of people from different areas of the country that you just do not get to see anymore except at the big events.

I truly enjoyed going to a local trial and treating it like a Regional, it was a blast to have that kind of adrenaline pumping through me at a local trial :-) 

I also have to mention how fantastic my "students" in Utah are doing and what a great job they did at the trial, way to go guys!

Oh yea, I had the pleasure of running my student LaVar's fantastic sheltie Nic in the GP and we qualified!!!! I gave the Steeplechase a try but Nic had gotten wise and realized that dad was there and when he rounded the first major turn at the top of the course Nic decided to keep turning and head right out of the ring to dad! Thanks LaVar for the opportunity I had a great time!  

 

   

Tracking the Training

Today was a very good day! I still have a couple of dogs to work later tonight but we actually had almost a full day with no rain, a little thunder storm this afternoon was all, but mostly clouds with actual sun poking out!

I also got to ride my new horse for a couple of hours. Yes, I got a new horse! I have not ridden other than a trail ride in Costa Rica and a few other vacation spots in years and I thought it was time to revisit that hobby.

I already own 2 horses but neither of which would be safe for a rather noviceish, self employed, need to stay sound dog trainer :-)

I did take these facts into serious consideration before I made the decision to buy "another" horse. You see those of us whose job is also their hobby do find themselves a little tired of it from time to time, don't get me wrong I LOVE agility and I LOVE dog training but sometimes a person just needs something else.

Well, I find myself unable to truly embrace anything that is not somehow animal related and I also know that whatever I choose to do in my "downtime" needs to be either close to, or, at home because I really miss that as well, so, I looked for a horse that was as bomb proof as they come and I ended up with "Ruler" a 15 year old sorrel quarter horse gelding that was the family pet and main transportation to a 15 year old girl. 

She sold him because he was just too quiet and she was looking for more of a challenge! Sounds like the perfect old lady horse to me :-)

So, after a couple of test drives and a thorough vet exam I bought my more whoa than go horse.

He arrived on Friday and on Sat. I took him for a "short" ride to get acclimated, well I met up with my neighbors who joined me for this "short" ride and 6 hours later I was back home wondering if I would ever walk normally again!

So, today was our second ride and I managed to keep it much shorter but he is PERFECT! Never shies, spooks or is bothered by anything. We have traversed all sorts of terrain and surfaces and he handled it all like a champ. I am so excited about my new hobby! I will get a couple of pictures of him and post them with the videos.

Now, onto the dog training. I am so pleased with both Merger and SoBe's progress, it just goes to show you how a little consistent training goes a long way!

The weather was terrible again yesterday so I was not able to get to the fun match I was planning on going to but we got some good training in during the day anyway.

Yesterday was all about contacts and I am pleased to say that SoBe is keeping up her end of the bargain, we have a trial this weekend so we will see how it goes. 

I am loving the running contact method I have devised for Merger and he is really starting to understand what I am looking for. I have not, nor will I even think about fading any props for quite some time but he is actively working at adding the stride at the bottom of the contacts.

Today, he did the old flying wallenda off of the A-frame so I withheld his toy and we went back around to do it again, this time he was perfect, he is truly starting to get it. 

He also on one attempt ignored the broad jump board at the base of the A-frame, I once again withheld the reward and before I could turn around he looked to his left and went between the board and the A-frame and jumped it!

I have added 2 stride regulators to the dog walk and am asking for the same behavior as the A-frame, we just started this so it was not as clear as his A-frame performance but we did end on 2 very successful attempts.

Tonight was weave pole night for SoBe, Maze, and, Merger.  I was setting up lots of really difficult entries for SoBe  and Maze and I put the gates on the entries and exits of the channel poles for Merger, they all did extremely well I am happy to report.

I try hard to sort of compartmentalize my training sessions with the dogs to place emphasis on specific skill sets, this makes it a lot easier to track our progress.

The next big issue to tackle with Merger is body awareness over jumps and how to figure it out when sequencing.

I put him on a straight line sequence of jumps out of a pinwheel yesterday, wow, what a disaster! The spacing between jumps was all over the map and the big boy was completely clueless as to how to adjust his mammoth stride within randomly spaced jumps.

He was so on his forehand that by jump 2 of the straight line he was pretty much offering a handstand over the jump. I use the term over loosely as he basically crashed through the jumps.

Moral of the story, Merger needs grid work to help create a proper jumping style. Then we will move on to evenly spaced jump chutes and then on to a more random arrangement. Until we get there we will still do our single jump work which is always a good thing.

From a jumping standpoint, the Sobster needs collection work, I am sure you can guess what her overall attitude towards collection is. :-)

Maze did beautifully with his weave pole entries and jump work tonight, Wally got the night off.

Vandal is growing up and starting to run his contacts and learn more impulse control as well as low jumps. Stay tuned for updates.

In conclusion, there was a comment after the video post about SoBe's sit at the bottom of the contacts. The question was how did I teach that or was it her own invention, the answer is SoBe came up with the sit all on her own. I really like it because it causes her to rock back on the bottom of her contacts very nicely which is much kinder to her physically but it also helps keep her from being on her forehand literally pulling her off the contacts before release.

 

The Fun Match was FUN!

On Sunday I did something I rarely ever get a chance to do and that was go to a fun match. I took SoBe, Wally and Maze and we had a great time! 

This was my opportunity to get SoBe on contact equipment and weave poles in a "trial" situation. It was time well spent! 

SoBe is such a driven little imp that she was absolutely clueless that we were in a training environment and delivered exactly the performance that I knew she would.

I signed her up for 3 runs and the great news is that they got progressively better each run. I am posting the videos in the order that she ran.

The first run she broke her start and was appalled to find out that I would actually pick her up and carry her back to the start line! SoBe is definitely not a fan of being airborne without a plane :-)

She stayed after this and following the jump we had our first opportunity at the A-frame. We lowered the A-frame before she ran as I have yet to ask her for her 2on/2off contact performance on a full height A-frame. 

She offered a beautiful running contact performance that would have been great if that were the criteria that i asked for :-) I replaced her on the bottom of the A-frame, released her and asked for it again, at speed, she stopped beautifully!!!

Next it was time to fight the weave pole battle, this was almost a fight to the death, but, eventually I won and, as I said earlier she got better in each consecutive run. I consciously chose to skip the poles in run 3 as she had improved so much from the first to the second run. There is something to be said for quitting while you are ahead. I am also a huge believer in the concept of latent learning therefore we stopped with success in the poles.

I did add another "complex" obstacle in run 3 in lieu of the weave poles and that was the table, which interestingly enough she does really well :-)

Once we got through the weave poles successfully she settled in and offered beautiful dog walk and teeter performances, YEA SoBe!

We did not even get into "handling" as I was focused on complex behaviors and helping SoBe realize that even though you are running fast, you can still think. This is a very difficult concept for a doer!

SoBe's jumping was amazing as always, she did not drop a single bar and rarely does, she is a very athletic little girl!

It was my hope to get to another match tonight, but, it is raining cats and dogs, again!!! Colorado is no longer a desert as far as I am concerned! I do have the opportunity to get to another match next Monday evening and SoBe is entered in an AKC trial this coming weekend which I will absolutely use as an opportunity to train. 

Any lead out will be short and her potential inability to control herself no the contacts will result in a hasty exodus from the ring. 

Well, as I was uploading the videos, which were sent to me via email, a message popped up that it was not able to upload and I should call 1-800-computers suck! 

Instead, I will just be leaving you all on pins and needles until Deb. comes over and brings her Flip! camera and I will download them right on to the computer from the camera which has always worked in the past.

Anyway, I do have a very interesting observation about the fun match on Sunday... as I said earlier, I have not been to very many, it has been years probably since my last match, anyway, my interpretation of a fun match is a show setting with the energy, people, adrenaline, etc.. but also with the opportunity to fix problems that have a tendency to show themselves in the show setting almost exclusively.

It was certainly my intention to utilize this rare opportunity to put SoBes contacts, weaves, and stat lines to the test and I took full advantage of that opportunity by correcting the behaviors that I did not want and rewarding the ones I did. 

What was so interesting was the number of people that I watched become paralyzed by show mentality and ring nerves and allow the same inconsistent behaviors and lack of criteria they allow at a real trial. What is the point??

It is incredible to me how easily people create situations that allow for one set of criteria in training and a completely different set of criteria in trials. The more differentiate the requirements of a training situation from the trials you bigger the gap becomes between the two and the harder it will be to bridge that gap.

If you go to a fun match, show and go, whatever, use it for what it was intended, to bridge the training and trialing gap, not increase it! 

One last note, as I said I took Wally and Maze as well, my intention for Wally was to proof the stride collection work I have been doing on the dog walk, well I did but it was easy because the Wallymeister cannot be fooled and knew immediately we ere not at a trial, even though I went through our pre run rituals and everything! He is such a smart boy!

Maze came because I thought he would enjoy a run :-) He was pretty much perfect as I expected, also a very good boy!

So, in conclusion, try to sleep at night while you wait for SoBe's videos from the match.

Videos!!!

I promised videos and here they are :-) To begin with there is a video of SoBe hitting "and" sticking each of the 3 contacts just to show everyone that she really can! Sorry about the down time between contacts and the motion sickness potential as I move between them, I have not yet mastered the edit feature :-) 

She managed to do all of these contacts at speed, with me continuing to run and throwing her toy! What a good girl! Now we have to see these fantastic contacts in competition, or at least at the fun match on Sunday.

I am still working the 2on/2off on a low A-frame but she is working really hard to stick it as she comes flying over the top. She has actually missed stopping a couple of times allowing me to correct the behavior which is good in a training environment. 

SoBe does not back off even a little bit on the speed and because of this she is displaying her superior understanding of the behavior since she exhibits the apropriate behavior even though she is  moving into the position at a very high rate of speed! Yea SoBe!! 

This just hardens my resolve to keep and maintain the 2on/2off with princess SoBe, she has the best 2on/2off performance start to finish of any dog I have ever trained!~

Next video, I was proofing Mergers "Bang" behavior and asked him to start though a tunnel to build speed, straight to a jump beside the A-frame immediately offering the "Bang" at the completion of the jump.

The tunnel is set in a "U" shape approx. 9 feet from the jump/A-Frame exercise. Merger is expected to jump, hit the floor, bounce onto the A-frame hitting once before assuming the 2on/2off position. He is of course expected to maintain the position until released.

 

In the next video, I was playing around with running the A-frame with Merge. It was a lot of fun to try different things to get the striding I was looking for. Ultimately my goal was to get a 2 hit performance without a launch.

Initially Merger was using the stride regulator as a launch point which of course was not going to fly, pun intended!

I put a toy at the base of the A-frame to give him the idea that he needed to  go to the bottom, after I worked though this issue I added the Broad jump board to the bottom as a guide to hit the ground close to the end of the ramp. It took a bit if experimentation to determine a distance that would meet my expectations and remain comfortable for Merger. 

The first time or 2 I placed the toy between the A-frame ramp and the broad jump board to get him to put his feet down. 

Notice the orange gate, Merge also thought it was fun to come off sideways, I love gates! OK, that is a lot of props but by golly we got it to work. Notice Merger did on more than one occasion leap over the broad jump board without putting his feet down first, if he offered this option I simply withheld reward and he did it correctly each time after that. 

The stride regulator is just above the last colored slat and for Merge, the jump board is about 3 feet off of the bottom of the ramp. It is really fun to play with, definitely makes me think! There are 2 different videos of our trial and error session with the running A-Frame. I have not tried it with the dog walk...yet :-)

The last video is my baby boy, Vandal. As long as we were playing with running contacts it just made sense to give the Vandal a go :-) 

The only prop I am using with Vandal is the stride regulator, he seems to read it and honor it quite well.

As an aside, I am also working on a foot target with both Vandal and Merger. I am using the hit it board with my plan being, to ultimately remove the broad jump board in favor of a hit it board where I want the dogs to put their feet after the performance of the contact obstacle. The hit it board will be faded to a smaller and smaller item until it disappears altogether.

So, it appears I have modified the 4 on the floor method a bit more, so far I like it. It is clear criteria without slowing the dogs down, I also feel like it is something that the naked eye can pick up on to maintain consistency and proper criteria. Time will tell.

Vandal was having the very best time running his A-Frame! He has also been introduced to the dog walk and the teeter and so far seems quite unfazed by it all.

His tug drive has increased 150% since he has all of his adult teeth and of course we begin each training session with play, we play in between exercises and we always play at the end.

At the same time I am mixing up the behaviors that we are working on to keep it fresh. Vandal is learning to "go through" (figure 8 through my legs), heel and side, sit and down with short stays, running his contacts and playing. We do little bits of each every time we train with no rhyme or reason to how many of what or what order we do them in. It is always a small number of reps though, leave them wanting more is very true when dog training! Enjoy the videos.

Operation Contacts!

Yes, you read right, it is time to get serious about contact training! Who needs contact training you ask? Well, let's see here... 

"SoBe", she needs to understand that she MUST stop on her dog walk in competition as well as in training. That is the most difficult mission in operation contact for sure.

I was teaching a handling workshop at a friends house yesterday and so I took the doodle bug with me for a little off site training opportunity and lo and behold she was perfect! Even with multiple different and difficult proofing maneuvers she managed a perfect stop and hold several times! Looks like we will be hitting the local fun matches, Trish is it too late to sign up for Sat.?

Honestly, she has an amazing dog walk we just have to make the point that even with mega adrenaline she must do it properly.

SoBe's A-Frame is simply, yes I actually said simply, going to change to a 2on/2off performance to help her keep her brain together for all of the contacts.

"Merger", because of his gigantic size, I had the presence of mind to teach Merge a very solid 2 on/2off  behavior which we continue to work in an effort to proof and solidify the performance. 

Also, due to his enormity :-) I have been letting him run the contacts just to get an understanding of where is feet are. When I first started putting Merger over the contacts he was either nervous about the narrow dog walk or over thinking the bottom behavior that he thought he was supposed to offer, regardless of the reason I knew what he really needed was to just be able to run the contacts for a while. My friend Ann calls it teaching them the concept of "see wood run".

Well, the really good news is as of this writing Merger is absolutely flying over the contacts without hesitation, the bad news is now the work really starts, pairing the contact equipment with the stop behavior.

To do this I am going to begin with exercises that really test Mergers ability to drive into the 2on/2off and hold it. I will put a few of these on tape and add them to the next blog installment, which I will do in less than 10 days time :-)

Once I have really worked these it is time to put Merger on a low dog walk and ask for the behavior at speed, the proofing is reintroduced once Merger gets the "connection" of run to a stop. Not a very easy concept to wrap their minds around.

So, it has become apparent that I am referring to the A-Frame and dog walk and not the teeter, I do not consider the teeter to be one of the contact obstacles. Because of the nature of the teeter and the movement and noise, etc.. as far as I am concerned the teeter stands alone from a training and overall performance standard. The training of the teeter will be addressed separately.

"Wally", has a perfect A-Frame and teeter as far as I am concerned :-) But, there is still that pesky dog walk issue. The good news is that last weekend in an effort to guarantee a qualifying performance in GP I "sat" on Wally a bit on the dog walk and caused the addition of several strides yet he still took second place by less than 2/10ths of a second!! I must say it gives me tons of confidence going forward that even if I teach Wally to add a stride at the bottom of the dog walk we are still going to have winning times!

So, what's my plan? My plan is to teach a modified 4 on the floor for the dog walk. I am going to teach Wally and Vandal to drive to and drop on a mouse pad, towel, flat board, whatever immediately after leaving the plank in an effort to get stride collection with out the stop. I will fade the full stop at some point. Wally may have slightly different ideas about how all of this morphs, but, as long as we come to an agreement that suits both of us and the rule book I will be happy. 

"Vandal", I have not started any contact training with him other than a little see wood run stuff to check out his level of confidence. I am happy to report that he runs a full dog walk and a low A-Frame without hesitation! I have started to teach a 2on/2off on the flat board but i am leaning towards a stride collection and a "moving" contact on the dog walk and a full running A-Frame.

I am of the belief that to accomplish this I am going to have to commit to the process and do a really good job of logging progress, both in writing and on video. 

I will gladly share with everyone what I am doing and how it is going, starting today! Wish us luck!

The roof is no longer retractable!

Look, it has a roof!! :-) And a beautiful floor! The restoration company actually used a truck mounted vaccuum and along with the vac job they also shampooed the carpet. Truthfully it has not looked this good in a long while. Now I can be even more anal about my floor :-).

There is one pretty deep gash in one section but for the most part the flooring came away unscathed I am very happy to report.

Geoff and I got all of the equipment back in and I was actually training inside my building last night and this morning, I sure have missed it.

Riesen update, she came through the surgery just fine but is pretty sore at this point. Julie is of course taking beyond expert care of her, my reccomendation is that anyone dog or animal that needs TLC plan an extended stay at Auntie Julies place there is no better care anywhere!

They did have to take 3 full mammary glands and the incision is pretty major but she is her tail wagging, happy smiling self from all reports.

Now we wait for the pathology report, which I continue to believe will be good news.

So, let's talk about contacts, again! I took the youngsters down to the new and improved building last night and worked on contacts. Interestingly enough if you were to ask me right now, let's pretend you have, would you teach running contacts to SoBe or 2on/2off, I would answer 2 on/2 off :-) If you were to ask me the same question about Merger the answer would be running! 

This is exactly opposite of what I would have said a month or 2 ago. Why the switcheroo you ask?

Well, it does seem odd that I would even consider a running contact on a dog that is almost 23" tall, and equally silly to think about stopping a barely 18" dog who has to jump 22". 

The rationale is attitude and that whole thinker/doer thing.

SoBe is so completely all about speed that she has virtually no self preservation instinct and honestly not a lot of team spirit. SoBe knows that there is no "I" in team but has made a point of noticing that there is a "me" in team :-). BTW, I find this incredibly fun and training little miss SoBe is always a blast so if she can just refrain from injuring herself it is going to be a thrill ride from start to finish training her!

In training she has a spectacular 2 on/2 off dog walk and teeter, however, these same behaviors have been quite elusive in the trial environment. SoBe has a lovely running A-Frame that seems to morph a bit at the trials as well, this of course got me thinking. If she is allowed to run her A-Frame and has a balls to the wall overall attitude does this not potentially bleed into the dog walk and teeter performance values?

I believe it does, and, I also believe that there is going to have to be very clear and specific criteria that leaves no room for alternate interpretation for me to get the level of consistency I am looking for in competition. It is for these reasons that I am going to shape a 2 on/2 off A-frame as well. The little speed demon is plenty fast enough to control herself during the process of negotiating her contacts and still kick butt. What I am not so sure she is capable of is the impulse control that is necessary on the dog walk and teeter if she is allowed to run the A-frame. Time will tell, of course, but at present it makes sense to me.

Merger is a thinker and he most certainly is a team player, not so much a team captain but a great player! The good news is that we are not looking for a new captain 'cause that job is filled by me.

It is his great attitude and desire to please, along with how he is performing the contacts right now that leads me to believe that we may have running contacts in our future. I am still practicing his 2 on/2 off position and he is still fantastic at it, but, we just may not need it. Even though he has an immense stride he has been naturally 2 hitting his A-frame and adding strides on the dog walk to take him all the way through the yellow, YEA!!!

I am trying to be realistic about this and he may also end up stopping on the end of his contacts, there is still time to decide, however, the decision for SoBe has been made, she will be stopping!

Time to get serious!

 I have been spending a crazy amount of time teaching and trialing over the past few weeks and it has been a great reminder of how much I am not doing with my own dogs! I admit, I have not had the greatest motivation to do a lot of training since the building has been out of commission but it is time to get back at it.

Speaking of the building the "crew" is down vaccuuming and shampooing my carpet as I write this so I am actually going to be able to get back in the building to play by tomorrow so that is awesome! 

I am really just exhausted at the moment, it has been a crazy couple of weeks with a lot of stress, good and bad.

Besides the FRAC trial, the Jen, Dana and Stacy mini camp, the ACAT trial, building repairs ,and getting Veruca off to Becky for breeding I had the additional stress of Vandals mother Riesen's mammary cancer returning after just short of 3 months post op from the first tumor removal. Needless to say I am scared silly about what this means from a longevity standpoint for this most incredible and sweet 2 and a half year old Border Collie. 

She is having surgery today to remove the 2 affected glands and I guess we go from there.

My wonderful, awesome, dear friend Julie is dealing with all of this so that Riesen can have undivided individual attention throughout the recovery as well as constant spoiling, cuddling and treats I am sure. Prayers for Riesen would be greatly appreciated.

So... with all of that it is probably needless to say that I have done virtually nothing productive with my own dogs! And, I must also admit yesterday and today are purely days of rest and recuperation. I can whine a lot about not getting to train my dogs but I am also smart enough to know when I have to just step back and take a day or 2 to decompress. 

Just because I need a bit of a physical break does not, however, mean I have stopped thinking pretty much non stop about agility and what I need to be doing with baby dogs and competition dogs alike, pretty sad huh?

So where am I currently in the grand scheme of my goals for the year? Well, Wally, Maze and Able are all fully qualified for the 2009 USDAA Nationals, OK the "Cynosport Games", Geoffs dogs are too for that matter so those are big things checked off the list.

I have seriously been on the fence about any AKC goals, i.e. Nationals and I think I have finally decided that it is not a goal for this year. 

I have a few more AKC trials entered and if Wally and Maze happen to qualify I will most likely go but it is no longer a priority. I love the sport of agility and simply love playing the game whenever possible but I have also realized that I have made my primary goals around USDAA competition and IFCS Worlds and I really want to focus on that. 

I am also very busy teaching and traveling and traveling and teaching and I LOVE it! But... to keep loving it I have to find some "me" time and even some Geoff and Me time would be great so I am going to try to dedicate a few weekends a year to non agility related endeavors, hard to believe I know!

With this in mind I figure the smartest thing to do is put AKC n the back burner and dedicate a few of the AKC weekends to horsing around :-)

Back to the goals, in order to meet my short and long term USDAA goals there are a few things that need to be cleaned up on "the boys." 

First, I am still going to find a way to get Wallys running dog walk more consistent, when I figure out exactly how I will let you know.

Wally also needs a bit of work on staying close when there is pressure, i.e. stay on a line with me through a tight jump box, it is very hard for Wally to resist the urge to move off my side and take the lateral jump when we are running through a box, he is very pressure sensitive and these situations are tough for him.

My mission is to spend some quality time working on this over the next few months. In truth, the rest of this summer and fall will be all about getting Wally ready for Nationals so we will be training up a storm both at home and to a degree at shows.

Maze is just 1 gamblers Q away from his ADCH I am very proud to say! When he came back he was still shy 3 super Q's and 5 gambles so he has done well to close in on the prize. Mazes goals for this year are a bit different from Wallys, I am hoping to get Maze qualified for the IFCS World Championships. Wally is too tall for the 22" division so he gets a reprieve and Maze is "The dog" to try out.

I am going at this with a very positive attitude and want to keep it fun, so , although we will be training towards this goal there are others as well to keep the pressure to a minimum.

Last year I was fortunate enough to win byes on all 3 boys into the finals of the USDAA Nationals with the byes no longer available it is a 2009 goal to get all 3 into the finals from the semis.

Maze is a pretty put together dog, I think the most challenging thing in regards to training Maze is the fact that I am never sure what to train, he has all of the skills sets, consistency, accuracy and knowledge, but, his biggest issue is just checking out mentally on occasion without warning. It is a very interesting issue that hopefully will resolve itself with consistent training and more experience.

Able has been feeling pretty good of late and I think the best thing for his is the fact that I am limiting the number of runs he has in a weekend, he still gets to play but not as hard, boy getting old really sucks!

The real quandry right now is the babies :-) I will most certainly put SoBe into that classification as well as Merger and Vandal. 

SoBe had some moments of brilliance this past weekend and she definitely improved a bit in each run. She is still not quite capable of doing a lot of thinking while running so impulse control is the order of the day at this point. Contacts are still very iffy and we spend a lot of time regrouping and withholding immediacy of the next obstacle/reward on course but her start lines have improved and she is still jumping wonderfully!

She did on her very last run of the weekend nail the starters jumpers course with a blazing time of 15.85 seconds! She was on fire :-)

Lots of start line and contact/weave work awaits miss SoBe when I come out of my sleep deprivation coma!

Oh yea, it will still be a 2on/2off teeter and dog walk and a running A-frame, I think all of those choices work well for her.

Vandal is telling me that it is time to start working, all of his adult teeth have come in and he is back tugging and playing much more enthusiastically which is awesome! He and I are very bonded and he is far more interested in hanging out with me than any of the dogs or other people he may encounter. The recall is going great and his is quite reliable off leash even with a lot of distractions, all of these things point to a puppy that is ready to work with his human on more actual agility related stuff.

Merger is also growing up :-) He is learning about where his feet are and is just becoming a pleasure to work with. Merge is just innately obedient and attentive, has tons of toy drive and just likes to work he is really going to be fun, and, will most likely pass SoBe right by :-)

I am going to compile a to do list of what needs to be done with the "pups" to start moving forward and will share it with you when I do.

Until then, think good thoughts about Riesen!