Learn to Weave

I love platform training!  It is amazing how useful they can be to help train new behaviours.  I did a session with Michelle Pouliot at Clicker Expo in January where we started on a few behaviours that I have decided I need to finish up teaching.  Here is a video with Stella learning to weave.  This is a fun trick but I am also hoping to use in as a heeling game to keep things interesting for Stella.

Recallers Video

I recently made this video as an entry for Susan Garrett's recaller course contest.  We weren't selected as a finalist but I really like this.  It reflects my journey to the wonderful relationship based training methods I now strive to use.  The course is coming up again and I plan to work through it with Stella this time.

A trial and bad news

Last weekend the dogs and I headed over to Victoria for a dog trial.  This was Stella's very first trial.  I had originally planned to just take her along to introduce her to the environment and see how comfortable she was with the crating, noises and other dogs.  Last minute as I was submitting the entries I decided what the heck I would enter Stella in one round of rally novice each day.  Once I entered her there was a few mild moments of panic when I checked the exercises and realized I had a few things I had to teach quickly.

Riley has been injured the past month or so and had aggravated that injury the weekend before so he also had basically no training or work in the time leading up to the trial.  Needless to say I didn't hold high hopes for our success. We headed over on friday night in time for the "correction" matches and to set up all of our gear.  During the practice with Riley he slipped on the floor and again seemed quite sore.  I was all set to scratch him for the weekend but after a nights rest he seemed more comfortable.  He wasn't quite his normal self and his sits were slow but we did manage to finish off his pre-novice title and his final two rounds of Rally Excellent title so I was very proud of my handsome dog.  We moved up for a round of novice obedience which didn't go so well but considering he wasn't feeling great and there was a lot of distractions I wasn't that disappointed.  That same weekend there was a confirmation show and a horse show on the same grounds as our trial.  The trial was indoors but it was hot so all the doors were open and we shared some areas with the outdoor confirmation show.

Stella was wonderful in her two classes.  Her first round was a 96 and won her first place in the class.  She would have had a 99 but I screwed up and mishandled a turn.  I even managed to screw it up again on the redo!  Riley reads my body language better so I didn't provide the extra information she needed for the about turn.    Her second class also went very well and we scored a 95 and second place.  I was very proud of my happy, bouncy bean because even though she was a little distracted she was happy, comfortable and worked well in the ring with me.  I am even starting to see a few moments of lovely attention heeling with her which I have only just begun to start working.  She also seems quite at ease in all the chaos and other dogs which makes me very happy!

Here is the video of our first rally round.


It was a nice weekend away and on our return home we were all exhausted.  This week I took Riley in for his xrays and received the horrible news that his left hip is quite dysplasic.  I am still trying to digest that information and process all that means for the future.  I'm generally a pretty accepting person but when my furries are hurt I get all knotted up. I've had quite a few crying moments while this has been happening but will post later this week with more information.  Please keep my wonderful big dog in your thoughts.

Shaping

It was brought home to me this week at dog class that my shaping skills suck!  I am a lurer and a lumper and I need to improve.   Stella also showed that she has poor shaping skills and gets easily frustrated which makes sense because I obviously haven't taught her how to work through it.  I have found luring to be easier in my brain and then have just faded the lure as quickly as I could.  Unfortunately lots of times our bodies still unconciously lure even when we think we aren't "helping" anymore.   I'm not really against luring as that has actually been fairly successful for Lucy, Riley and Stella in the past but as I travel farther down the positive training path I understand where shaping is a valuable and necessary learning tool.  Shaping will help Stella learn to think things through herself and also how to work through frustration. 

When I walked into class on monday and saw that our tasks this week were a bunch of shaping challenges it was interesting that I had already been inspired by some recent webinars and had started this week to shape a "bring me" with Stella.  I guess sometimes all the stars align to bring a point home to us :o).  Stella's favourite game is playing keep away with Riley and I want to make sure that game doesn't carry over to playing keep away from me.  It is actually going quite well once we had gotten past a useless first session and I rethought things and broke it down into much easier steps and a less distracting environment.  That tends to be my problem as I struggle with how to start something without luring. 

Anyway it was a good session for us monday night as we worked on shaping three different things and did two of them quite well.  I think things became a lot more clearer for both of us and I plan to work on this quite a bit over the coming weeks.

This is a little video of her retrieving.  I am using a regular toy and a metal canning jar lid and we are gradually upping some distractions.  We started out in a tiny closed room and have now moved to the hallway and we even have a visiting Sam barking in the background.  I need to start videoing more training footage so I can see myself make some of those silly gestures and stop doing them!

Recalls

I started reading Susan Garrett's blog a few years ago and quite enjoyed her philosophy of dog training.  She posted a blog about dogs having a good recall that started a huge conversation and then that eventually flowed into her offering her first "5 minute formula for a brilliant recall" online course which I enrolled in.  That was just before we said our goodbye to Lucy so I really enjoyed having some focus to work with Riley even if I didn't quite complete all the exercises.

She offered the course again this past spring and generously rewarded past particiants so once again we enjoyed it.  The daily "games" are about building a great recall but even more than that they are a wonderful way to have training fun with your dog.  I regularly use some of the games we learned to keep focus with Riley when training and Stella has also learned some of the basics.  Just the other day I had made a mental note to myself to keep up the "fun" for Stella in her recalls.  She has a very good recall and I need to not take that for granted especially as we move through the remains of her first year.

Susan Garrett is once again gearing up to offer the course and is running a contest for previous participants to make a video about their experiences.   This is my contribution and I encourage anyone to participate.

Heel Work

I injured a finger on my left hand last week requiring surgery to repair the nerves and stitches so I haven't being doing very much training.  Today on our walk I decided to do a bit of heel work with Stella.  Susan Garrett is a famous agility competitor who stresses the importance of having a good "reinforcement zone" which is the area next to the handler where the dog wants to hang out because really good stuff happens there.  I have worked this concept with Stella since we brought her home with some fun games and good rewards.  This video is basically just another game working on her choosing to be in heel position and enjoying being there.  She has caught on quite well and thinks this is a pretty fun game.  

We also had a great time crashing through all the fall leaves.  I have wonderful memories of being a teenager riding my horse through trails full of fallen leaves and it always makes me happy to walk the trails in fall.

Bugging Riley as per usual

Plotting to ambush Riley

Stella's Adventures

I am continuing to work with Stella on obstacles while we are out and about.  My hope is that this will help develop her rear end awareness as she continues to grow.  Additionally she will be comfortable with being in strange positions and have confidence about attempting new obstacles which should help us with dog sports later in her life.  Plus we have fun!

We also attend classes two days per week with her and am very pleased with her focus and ability to work/play with me in distracting environments.  She has gained a lot of confidence when meeting other dogs and plays very nicely.  All in all I just love this puppy! 

Here is a video of some of our recent adventures.

Dog Agility

I've become very interested in dog sports over the last few years.  They are wonderful things to do with your dog that help to set training goals and build our relationship.  I have done obedience, rally and tracking with Riley and would love to do agility.  Unfortunately he would probably be to big to fit through the tunnels and he has poor structure so this would put a lot of strain on his body.  Riley runs mother nature's agility course almost every day  through the forest and that suits him just fine.

One of reasons I was interested in the Vizsla breed is their athletic ability.  I plan to do dog sports with Stella including agility.  Her breeder introduced her to a few pieces of equipment but unfortunately I do not own any. I also have never done the sport so I am a total rookie on things I should be training.  Puppy class has introduced us to a puppy size version of a dog walk, tunnel and a jump and I am also using local park equipment to work things resembling equipment.   These obstacles will help Stella learn body awareness.  She also gets to run through the bushes, around, over and under trees after Riley which will also help with that and promotes balance.

Here is a short video of some of our fun.

Beach fun

We have wrapped up our visit to Long Beach (Tofino) on the "wet" coast which more than lived up to it's nick name.  We started our time with a few beautiful days of sunshine, had one horrible weather day in the middle and then two normal rainy days.  The dogs were still happy to go for their daily beach adventure although on the really horrible day Stella was quite chilled.  Luckily my friend K had brought a few small dog size coats for us to try for her.  The next rainy days she wore her a dog coat and that seemed to make her much more comfortable.  The labs in our life have rarely needed jackets and Riley especially hates to wear anything (harness, coat, boots etc). 

Rainy days on the beach are still great fun as long as you are dressed for the weather.  There were a lot of surfers out enjoying the big waves which is both inspiring and entertaining to watch.  Today I got quite the surprise on our final walk as we happened upon a dead sea lion.  It was very windy last night so the high tides washed up a bunch of new logs, tons of seaweed etc. and a few icky things. 

Here are a few quick videos of the dogs.

and some more pictures ....