Tuesday at the Barn - February 21st, 2012

Good session for both boys tonight (and a night off teaching for me!) Teller's session in light circles and Kippie's in the dark circles.

Tuesday at the Barn - February 14th, 2012

Quiet night at the barn tonight, just one private lesson and then I worked my two boys. We're back to spring-like weather again here in Vermont. I can't explain it, but I won't complain!

And for Kippie:

From the Barn - February 9th 2012

No fancy sequences tonight - just some contact work for both boys and some weave work for Teller....Murphy (not to be left out) benefited from a solo walk tonight after my treadmill session (3.5 miles plus .75 miles).

Wednesday at the Barn - February 1st, 2012

I had another private lesson tonight, the student requested emphasis on weave entries and a-frame contacts. This dog is solidly running at the AKC excellent level but with so many repetitions on the weave poles I broke the set into two sets of six, MUCH easier on the dog's body.

Tuesday at the Barn - January 31st, 2012

Another "June-uary" day here in Vermont with temps in the mid-thirties today, rising overnight and super-awesome 45 degrees tomorrow. We had a great session at the barn for both Kipling and Teller. Here's what we worked on (light numbered circles for Teller, dark for Kipling):

Kipling working some rear-crosses on the green and blue numbered courses...

On a personal note: my 2012 goal was to get better about taking care of myself - to that end I've given up anything white - no rice, no pasta, no bread, no cereal, no sugar - nothing at all processed. Other than greek yogurt which has become a staple - if I can't cook it in my kitchen I'm not eating it - which makes dining out with me super fun :-) It's been easier than you might imagine - though there have been a couple of days where I've really craved a sandwich and a diet coke! Oh and the day the office had a going-away party for an employee with trays of lasagna and mac and cheese and a giant red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting (I ate my salad like a good girl).  Frozen sauce-less veggies have been my salvation along with super lean proteins (in large part from my favorite butcher shop The Meat House) in handy dandy vacuum sealed packages. 

I've also been walking or running at least two miles at a time, five or six nights a week. In the back of my mind I'm eyeing the Disney Half-Marathon next January (2013) - BUT thirteen point one is a whole lot more than two miles though!  It's nice to finally use that super expensive treadmill I bought a few years ago! 

And here's the point of this personal note. This morning knowing today had a high probability of being CRAZY, I got up extra early this morning to run 4 miles on the treadmill, went to work - put in a 7 hour day in the office before I left to drive home, pick up Teller and Kipling and head to the barn. I taught a 30 minute private lesson, worked my own dogs for an hour, drove home, put Teller and Kipling in the house, leashed up Murphy and out for a walk - I was planning to do a pretty relaxed 1.5 mile walk (two laps around the neighborhood) as I was about to start the second lap I was feeling pretty good and Murphy wasn't having any 'cold feet' issues with the salt on the road and sidewalk so I decided to take a detour around the village finishing with a 3.5 mile walk. My pedometer reports an impressive 19,258 steps (as of 8pm) which is a little over 9.5 miles for the day. Go me, go me, go, go go me!

Videos from the Barn - January 28th, 2012

With the busy day yesterday it took me a bit to get videos processed and uploaded.
Here's Teller working on his obedience:


And Kipling working on Figure-8's and speed circles:

Friday at the Barn...January 27th, 2012

It was another obedience night for Teller at the barn this afternoon - Of course I left the camera at home tonight because both boys had sessions I would have liked to watched...Teller is so brilliant, he's heeling like I've actually worked obedience with him recently - just right there where I want him to be. Fronts are great, drops are fast and clean and his up attitude is just perfect!

Decided that Kipling should do some speed circles and variants of speed circles - something he hasn't done yet. I mention to folks that he's a pretty clean slate - he's got some fundamentals on-board, but he hasn't gotten a lot of formal agility training, my philosophy is that there is still so much time to do that when he's more physically and mentally mature.

Nevertheless, one of the next things I want to help him with is looking for the next obstacle. He's at the stage where he has his favorite things 'to do', the things he's gotten a lot of reinforcement for doing (the dogwalk, tunnels, etc) and he's at the stage in his understanding where he's offering equipment a lot. That's great Kippie, but I haven't introduced you to the whole a-frame, kindly get your furry bottom off it please :-) On the one hand you applaud the enthusiasm, but you need to interject a bit of control into the situation.

So when I setup said circle I delibrately put jumps near the dogwalk ramps, tunnels and a-frames. I broke down the initial speed circle into about four pieces, clicking and treating for working WITH me. Tough lesson Kippie! In typical Kippie fashion he figured out the new game pretty quickly and had some nice sequences - I'm particularly impressed with his ability to SEE the tire in a pinwheel. In the process I also introduced some baby-rear crosses (you want me to do what while you almost run me over?) and a few blind crosses as well. No biggie says Kippie.

Here's what we worked today:

Tuesday at the Barn - January 24th, 2012

A light agility day for Teller at the barn today - it's been months since he's worked any formal heelwork (or any of the open/utility exercises for that matter). If my goal is to get that CDX this year I need to train a bit of obedience here and there. So here is a very rusty Teller-Woo pretending to be an obedience dog. He loves to play the game - any game...this dog is such a huge piece of my soul.



He did get to play a bit of agility after all that 'work':

Kipling got off easy tonight - no obedience for Kippie, but probably the hardest sequences he's seen to date. He was particularly amazing in the baby sends to the jump #1 while I moved away for crosses. Don't quite remember teaching him that trick :-)

And Kippie the video:

Sunday at the Barn - January 22nd, 2012

Teller had the last week off after the SAAC trial, but today after a week of not so much exercise Teller (and Kippie too) needed to work. So, just a simple setup before launching into a busy week of working and teaching.

Tuesday at the Barn - January 10th, 2012

Not a lot for Teller (light colored circles) tonight, he had a great weekend last weekend so I just wanted to work some speed  (modified speed circle in blue) and some contact/weave reps. Kipling's skill sessions in the dark colored circles:

A bit of Teller's session and most of Kippie's session:

Monday at the Barn - January 2nd, 2012

A so-so session for Teller tonight - I think the incoming weather pattern had all the dogs off this afternoon. Anyhow, here's what we worked on:

And here's what the puppy worked tonight:

Oh what a year...

Late December back in...oh wait! It's RIGHT NOW! I always take a look back at the past year before looking forward to the next, so in the class tradition:
My 2011 goals for Teller:

qualify for the 2012 AKC National Championships in Reno, NV. 
I wanted so badly to qualify for the 2011 championships in Virginia, but things just didn't come together for us. To qualify for each year we needed 400 speed points and 6 double-Q's (QQs). This year Teller had all of his QQs by the end of March and we officially wrapped up those speed points in May.

I really wanted to button up his MX (Master Excellent Standard) title and finish the year with half of our QQ's towards MACH.
Teller finished his MX on May 8th and finished his MACH on November 19th. For the year he earned 22 QQ's and just over 900 MACH points

Photo Credit: Sharon Pica

That last CDX leg
Here's one we didn't accomplish. There were a couple of shows I was going to enter (Syracuse Cluster and Thanksgiving Cluster) but in both cases I didn't make the decision to enter in time for closing - in the case of the Thanksgiving cluster I had fully intended to enter and missed the closing by an hour. No worries - if I really wanted to make it happen I would have made it happen. 

A puppy - specifically a Teller puppy.
I'd been approached to use Teller on a number of bitches - none of them were a good match. One had clearances and some nice starter titles but she didn't have a history of clearances in her pedigree - there were other reasons too, but that is a biggie for me. In general, people crawl out of the woodwork wanting to breed 'fluffy' to titled dogs. A lot of stud dog owners look the other way - have dozens of litters sired by their dogs that will never show up on www.k9data.com, some aren't even AKC registered. The check clears so they breed their studlies to BYB 'fluffy'. Anyhow, back to reflection :-)
I was absolutely thrilled when the possibility of what is now Kipling became a possibility. The pedigrees looked great on paper, the timing was right for all involved and we got four beautiful puppies. Beautiful, smart - so uniform in their temperament testing, personable, biddable, good looking dogs that will excel in whatever they're asked to do: agility, obedience, conformation, counter-surfing, playing ball in the backyard, climbing Mount Equinox....With any luck there will be some more Teller puppies in 2012, but - this is the looking back post not the looking forward post!

Starting and finishing the year with a happy, healthy golden retriever - fit in all senses of the word.
Mission accomplished there too.

Murphy's 2011 goals were a bit less tangible:

Certainly starting and finishing the year fit and happy.
Keeping Murphy fit has always been a challenge, perhaps the early neuter, perhaps just who he is - but he's never maintained the muscle tone that Teller seems to maintain so naturally. Murphy scared the heck out of me a couple of times this year healthwise.
The first was that damn tick-sized lump on his hock. We were really sure it was nothing - but if it got bigger, removing it was not going to be nothing. So surgery for Murphy to remove the lump on his hock, which turned out to be benign - but evolved into an infection, torn sutures, another infection, another suturing back together again, another infection and finally staples and glue. All told that round of 'life' cost Murphy 45 straight days in a cone....

Murphy - 10/12/2011

The second scare came in October with a spot on his muzzle. I thought he'd rubbed it - then he was scratching at it, I treated it like a hot spot, but it was clearly no hot spot. Diagnosis was Demodex - not a big deal, that's treatable - BUT what the heck is going on with his immune system to cause a mite issue. Cancer? Lymphoma? Cushings? Some kind of auto-immune issue? MMS? So many possibilities. Murphy has been hypothyroid since he was about 15 months old and medicated since he was 18 months old. We'd upped his dose back in May after his senior panel looked a little low. I pulled another senior panel in November to see what we were dealing with - bloodwork negative for cancer, negative for lymphoma, negative for addisons/cushings - thyroid low again. OK - THAT I can deal with. Now nearly 2 months later, the hair on his face is back, his thyroid is still a little below optimal, but we're going to watch him for another 30 days and pull another test before doing any more adjusting of medication.

Therapy dog work for Murphy
Technically whilst Murphy is eating raw he's unable to make therapy dog visits, reading with kids, etc - it's a silly rule (I mean really some dogs eat poop (of all models of origin), dogs eat dead things in the woods, dogs lick their butts, dogs lick patients in hospitals who have dirty hands - how is a piece of raw chicken, consumed hours before a visit really a threat to anyone? Anyhow - I follow rules (I'm a rule follower) - force of habit - and that means that Murphy didn't get to make any visits to the nursing homes this year. I'm bummed - but it is what it is.

Kipling's Goals:
Kipling got off easy, since he didn't exist in the beginning of 2011 - he didn't have any goals. BUT he accomplished a lot:

He got to be a puppy

Teller on his way to a best of breed puppy 

The best thing I ever did for Teller - just be a puppy. Kipling got to be a puppy too. His training sessions were short - focusing on learning to learn, life skills, socialization and attention. If he has those things I can put anything else 'in' at any time in the future. Kippie traveled with us everywhere, he made his own roadtrips from time to time on local errands.

He got to go into the conformation ring
and have a good time, no pressure - no expectations. Trot around, have chicken, have fun and get some mileage. In the process he picked up a Best Puppy in Breed at just over 6 months! Well done.

He learned stuff
Plank work, walking on a leash, gaiting, stacking, stays, waits, tunnels, how to play with a cat without getting scratched, jumps, tables, how to wait patiently for dinner, dogwalks, teeters, retrieving, tricks, coming when called, how to chase squirrels, how to play bitey-face, that bitches are in fact, BITCHES :-) In the process he got his CGC (AKC Canine Good Citizen). All good stuff!

Our Year in Review:

Kipling's barn session

Finally had another set of hands to tape Kippie's work tonight...People AND dog distractions in the arena tonight!

Weird iPhone resolution this afternoon (yes, it was light outside still), we really weren't training in the dark, but this video came out like we were training in a closet....note to self, don't use the iphone camera at the barn.

Friday at the Barn...December 30th, 2011

Great group out at the barn tonight - some fun sequences for the big dogs :-)

Monday at the Barn - December 26th, 2011

Ever have one of those sequences that you're SURE your dog will nail, you'd put money on it - setup one of those with Teller today, I was so sure he'd just get it - and instead we struggled with it. Here's ours - the killer was 1-2-3.

In related news, we clearly need to get some reinforcement in on the tunnel/dogwalk discrimination. As I flipped back and forth dogwalk/tunnel/ he clearly favors the dogwalk - even when he was correctly taking the tunnel he was looking really hard at that dogwalk before fully committing to the tunnel. Lots and lots of reinforcement on the dogwalk lately!! Now the tough part, I thought for sure he'd come out of the tunnel - read the 'out' cue and take that wing jump. It was like he didn't even see the jump. Then (in classing Woo form) when I tried to send him under the DW to just the jump he actually looking for the DW support and jumped THAT instead!  Once we got it, it was a beautiful sequence to run!

Kipling's sessions are still really short and obstacle focused. Today he saw his very first tire - which was kind of a non-event - "oh, I go through the round part?" Got it! When I have a baby dog or a pre-novice dog there's a ton of reinforcement and sequences are super short. Sometimes one obstacle, sometimes three - but super short. I don't want to start a pattern when the dog has opportunity or desire to disconnect from his (or her job). I stress to my students to break things down, to make success, to reinforce while things are going well - even if it means they have to stop running a fun sequence to reward. It's hard to do, when they generally get to see the grown-up advanced dogs running at practice - or the older dogs who are products of a lot of very deliberate training over years - and try to run their dog like an excellent or masters dog. 

Here's what Kipling worked on today - all of 10 minutes of work, super short sequences - lots of reinforcement. Party, party, party, play!

Kipling's Dogwalk - December 23rd, 2011

My dogwalk isn't adjustable - it's super-safe, it's very sturdy, there's no wiggle in the frame, ramps have a pretty innovative suspension system in lieu of separate ramp supports and the hinges are 2" thick pipe (similar to the traditional A-Frame joint). The down-side is that it's one height only - competition height or bust. This is fine for 99% of the training that I do - but it also means that I've had to considerably change the way that I teach the dog-walk to puppies and beginner dogs.

It's not better or worse - it's just different. We spent much more time than I typically would with planks on (or nearly on) the ground. I used some cinderblocks and I actually worked a couple of sessions where I wanted Kipling to come off the side of a slightly elevated plank.  We all know that the great thing about a low dogwalk is that a dog can learn to fall off if necessary, control the fall, land and get up. It's a lot more stress falling from 4' feet.  In between formal plank sessions (we 'planked' every 7-10 days or so) he would often get a quick 10 reps of getting on the side of the full-height plank and getting into his 2o2o. I will continue to do more contact reps than full dogwalks with him (Teller does the same contact rep exercise as warm-up).

This learning path put Kipling on the dogwalk for the first time last week and he did beautifully! Here he is on his second session of the full-height dogwalk. As you'll see he's very focused on his end behavior and he's very deliberate about where he puts his feet - he knows where the plank is under his feet and he's controlling his body as he goes up and over. That is a very hard skill for a puppy to master with a growing body!

Friday at the Barn...December 23rd, 2011

Perhaps the best compliment we've ever had today, pardon a bit of setup as I get to the point...We're at the barn, I worked Kipling first - he was uncharacteristically unfocused - not sure where his head was, but I ended his session after about 8 minutes. One of his lessons right now is that if he doesn't want to play, that's fine, but he goes back in his box. Play the game, make mistakes, try stuff - all good. Put your head down and sniff and your turn is done - no emotion, no cajoling - it's not my job. (grin)

Teller is next up, and as I'm working Teller a mother and toddler (there for a sibling's riding lesson I presume) wander down to our arena to watch us work. Teller always appreciates an audience, doesn't miss a beat and continues to work beautifully. After a nice sequence (ending with nailing - and holding - a dogwalk), I break off training to toss an udder toy for Teller (he goes zipping off after it).The mom turns to me and says "That dog is the happiest worker! It looks like he just LOVES his job!" I grinned like a fool (I'm sure) as Teller comes bounding back to me with the udder inflation for either another throw or another sequence. Teller does love his job of course, but the secret is that he loves playing the game with me - any game would probably do...

Here's what we worked today - 15 minute session.

A matter of fairness...

Sometimes in the course of training dogs, or teaching humans we have to take a step back and evaluate what we've taught and what we need to teach with critical eyes. I think I've taught X, but the dog has interpreted that as Y, but I have expectations of X - didn't get X, generalized that dog should know X and perhaps become a little annoyed that dog didn't do X, when the dog clearly thought his response was correct. Clear as mud?

I had one of those mea culpa moments today with Kipling. Kippie had broken through the baby gate in the kitchen for about the tenth time this week - in less than 20 seconds actually - on a mousetrap I thought was pretty well put together. Kipling usually only challenges the baby gate when I'm on the other side, though on a couple of occasions it was the cat who enticed him to jailbreak. It doesn't appear to be anxiety, and when he moves the gate, he clearly thinks he's pretty clever. Hey! Look at me, I figured it out!

I'm in the kitchen, he's supposed to be not in the kitchen - and suddenly he's right there at my feet - or in the dining room harassing the cat under the dining room table. This morning the setup was similar, I left all three boys in the den while I went through the kitchen and into the living room to put outgoing mail in the mailbox. By the time I had closed the gate and turned towards the front of the house, there was Kippie right behind me.

His yellow-ness got marched back to the den and into his crate for a time-out. Yes, he did probably need some downtime (and he immediately settled down for a nap) - but it got me thinking about the fairness of my expectations. The same puppy not 24 hours earlier had maintained a 10 minute downstay in the den while I took a shower in another part of the house...certainly we've proofed those stays. What's the deal with busting down baby-gates?

I think the answer is pretty simple - I haven't put any value or reinforcement into staying behind the baby gate. Murphy and Teller respected the gate from day one around here - Kipling isn't identically programmed and indeed, Kipling has gotten a lot of reinforcement for problem solving - how to get cookies by cramming himself in a box, how to balance on an exercise ball for his core conditioning. Lots and lots of reinforcement for thinking outside the box and coming with me - no reinforcement whatsoever for hanging out with the other dogs without actual direction in the den while Erica takes a shower.

So the question of fairness - and the fairness of expectations - sometimes when our dogs 'fail' we really need to go back and look at what criteria we've taught and to make sure we've taught what we think we taught. This is true for dog sport as much as it is for every day life of dog. Is it fair of me to expect a 10 minute out of sight downstay for my 8 month old puppy? In my house, with normal distractions - you betcha. Is it fair for me to take him to PetSmart and proof a 10 minute downstay? Of course not. It's up to handlers and trainers to work very hard to make training and expectations fair - and to recognize when they're not fair.

As for Kipling, he's getting some remedial lessons on how to stay behind a babygate and some extra credit for novel application of escapism.

Sunday at the Barn - December 4th, 2011

Another lovely late fall aftenoon - windy as all get-out but it ended up being a nice day to get out and train. Here's what I setup for folks today:

NOMAD Run-Throughs - December 3rd, 2011

So off we went to run-throughs this morning, I'm still not feeling great and it shows in my handling today, really can't get the head clear and thrice daily doses of DayQuil isn't helping the cause..
Here's what we ran:

And here's the video - Teller running first at 24" and then at 20" (NOMAD is primarily a USDAA club so the triple was set to 22" for both runs) the runs were about 10 minutes apart.