Game On! Dog Training

When training a young dog like Tai…I’m often reminded that skills are built bit by bit.  Those individual skills form a matrix that when cemented make a solid foundation.  Rushing the process can result in a pretty shaky house!

I’m writing this post from Florida…where we have escaped from winter for a couple of weeks.  When packing…clothes, cameras, computer, some food to get us started, crates, pads, dog toys…I thought…surely there will be room for a couple of jumps, 2×2 weaves and the travel plank?  Sure enough, we managed to fit it all in.

We are renting a house with a partially fenced small yard.  Move aside the outdoor furniture, do a little raking and there it is…my agility “field”.  What a welcome change to walk outside, play agility for a few minutes  – with at least a little room to “rock”  — without slogging through the white stuff — and then repeat the fun later in the day.   Then a short walk and we are at the beach.    At low tide….perfect place to practice sit-stays and flat work handling.  I’m happy; dogs are happy.

One of my continuing challenges with 13 month old Tai is his excitement around other dogs doing agility.  I guess its a reaction to the motion and the noise – dog’s barking, the whoosh of  a dog running through the tunnel, the bang of the teeter.  He can lose his mind.  No use complaining or judging…it is what it is.  This little demon didn’t appear until he was about 7 or 8 months old.  So…starting in the late fall, I’ve been working regularly with other people training obedience….which is clearly not as exciting and was a good place to start.  He’s made good progress in this context…able to keep attention on his work while others work or play with their dogs.  At the few agility events I’ve attended over the winter, we’ve worked on attention around the rings or simply watching calmly.  Making progress but a long way to go.

At a trial we attended on our way to Florida, we had a perfect setup for this type of work.  The arena entrance and crating was at the top level and looked down on the rings.  Thus, we were pretty far away and I could back up toward the wall and remove the visual or go closer to the top of the stairs and give Tai a full ringside view of the dog running.  First day, we spent most of our time near the wall.  But by day 3, he could sit next to me, respond to cues and even watch calmly for a few minutes.  And at one point on day 3, he was lying quietly by his crate as we got organized for a walk and a handler RAN past Tai with two shelties in tow; practically leaping over him.  He never moved.  Problem solved?  Not a chance.  This is just one step in the journey.  Case in point.  I trained with a new friend here in Florida this week.  While her exciting “talkative” sheltie was running, Tai and I were behind the car where I could at least remove the visual.

The skill of self-control around running dogs is an important layer of our agility house.  Right now the matrix is a little weak but we’ll keep working on it!

It’s winter here in update NY and since it started way before the official date of Dec 21st, we are well into our 3rd month – snow covered and temps ranging from single digits to low 30’s if we are really lucky.  Not counting wind chill.  But I grew up in this area, so I’m used to it and make the best, generally “embracing” winter…getting outside for walks with the dogs nearly every day…taking note of the visual beauty, the quiet, the soft feel of freshly fallen snow, the crunch of cold, cold snow.  The dogs seem to love it – no complaints from them!

Yesterday, I joined a friend for training in my “winter” horse barn with Tai and Breeze.  While it wasn’t all that cold, my “thermal” layer was inadequate and I left after 2 hrs thoroughly chilled, yearning for a hot cup of anything to warm my bones.  And hey…didn’t the weather forecast say SUNNY!!  Not where I was.   But, I was out and about and decided to stop at a favorite park to go for a walk with the dogs before heading home.  I left the training session with mixed feelings.  Tai is now 13 months old and this was only his 4th trip to the barn, he’s full of hormones at this age and sometimes his choices are unexpected or at least unwelcome.  Fresh horse urine is really big distraction afterall .  Even though I KNOW it’s a journey, I left feeling a little frustrated.

We stopped at the park and started our walk, me still trying to shake the negative feelings.  All was well with both Tai and Breeze, checking in often giving great response to their recalls.  The meatball treats no doubt helped!  Tai and I also played tug a few times with my glove (forgot a toy).  But still, I just wanted to get the walk over with to get home and get warm.

Then it happened…I saw a flash of blue.  With a little orange.  What is that?  Oh my…an Eastern Bluebird!?!?  It landed on a bush just 20 feet or so away.  I stopped with mouth agape.   I don’t see Eastern Bluebirds that often in the summer, but had never seen one in the dead of winter.  Then another bluebird joined this one.  We stood still – and this is one of the reasons I call this a magic moment – the dogs stopped too and just waited.  They seemed to sense from my stillness that something was up.  We waited and yet another bluebird joined the group.  Then another.  So for a little while, I watched – with some interest from Tai and Breeze – this little group of 4 beautiful blue and orange birds flitting around in the brush.  After a bit, we left and continued our walk.

Suddenly, my perspective on winter and dog training had righted itself.  I began to see all the positives in winter and felt lucky that because of my dogs I had found myself on that trail at that time; and I could better see the positives in our training session too.  Afterall, wasn’t it Tai that executed the short jumping sequence so beautifully and with such enthusiasm?  Spring will come and Tai will grow up.  Best to enjoy the now while its here and the journey that gets us to those “better” days.  A reminder that they aren’t really better, just different.  And one day in the heat of a hot humid July day, I’ll look back longingly on this winter day.  And when Tai is fully mature, I’ll look back fondly on his puppy adolescence.  Enjoy today; more snow expected.

Note…according to Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, upstate NY is not part of the Eastern Bluebird winter range.  However, their migration patterns vary from winter resident (generally in milder climates) to long migrations from harsher climates to the south.  This winter, I’ve seen several flocks of Robins as well.  Seems to be an unusual winter on many counts.

Ever hear of “zig zag training?”.   No it’s not a new handling system.  It’s just a term I made up to describe how Tai’s training is going at just one year old.  In any given training session (or in daily life), I zig in one direction and then I observe a behavior that makes me zag in another direction.  Example: I rent a facility to train and expectations are we will work on jump grids.  I’m out on the floor and just ready to start, when a friend who is sharing this rather expensive facility chooses to work on the teeter at the other end of the arena.  This is when I discover that the sound of this teeter bang on the mats sends my previously attentive puppy into orbit.  Ok, we change direction….we are now training….can you keep your mind when the teeter bangs?

This can happen at home too.  Wintry conditions or not, we can sometimes work outside on flat work skills or even work on one or two  low jumps in the snow.  What might start out as a session to train lead-out pivots, may end up focusing almost entirely on his sit-stay or his focus forward on the 1st jump.  We zig and we zag.  Always moving forward,  but constantly revisiting those key foundation skills that will serve us well over the years.   Or discovering new things that need to be worked on for this particular dog or even occasionally discovering a hole that needs to be filled.

So different from a training session with 6 yr old Breeze where a goal is set for the training session and 99% of that time that is what we accomplish.  But of course I wouldn’t change a thing.  This process of discovery is one of the pleasures of raising a puppy.   He is smart, athletic, handsome and gets along with everyone.  He loves full body hugs and would really like to be a lap dog…unfortunately for him (but not for me!) my lap isn’t big enough to accommodate him.

He still surprises me in daily life. We put up our Christmas tree and he NEVER touched an ornament…a shocker of the pleasant kind.  He has recently discovered television.  I am not kidding, it was when I was watching Susan Salo’s Foundation Jumping DVD and Susan was just talking.  Tai became fascinated by her voice, then really for the first time began to pay attention to the images on the screen and especially notice any fast moving object.  Fortunately, I don’t watch sports much and he can be in another room when I watch dog training videos.

He knows to wait on his bed in the kitchen while his dinner is prepared.  Recently, I sent him to his bed, not noticing that my husband had set a laundry basket on the bed.  No problem, just climb in the basket.   This made me laugh.  But I wasn’t laughing so much the other day when for the first time, he climbed on the dining room table – I don’t mean front paws, I mean all four feet standing there.  What the heck?

He has a lot to learn, I have a lot to learn.  We’ll get through this already rather long winter, enjoying our walks in the snow and when spring arrives, opportunities to train his equipment skills will skyrocket.  Meanwhile, I’ll be patient, work on foundation skills that can be accomplished mostly in the small space of my house or the snow and be content with my zig zag training.  It will all pay off in the long run.  After all, that philosophy is exactly why his formal name is  “Longview Tai”.

Being a New Year’s baby, Tai is nearly 1 year old.    Hard to believe that fact and does that mean I can’t call him a puppy anymore?  He’s growing up to be quite handsome, although “goofy” is a more frequent moniker.   On a recent off leash walk  and before I could react, he took off to chase a lone leaf blowing across the snow 50 or 75 yards away and found himself submerged in the Erie Canal.  What he didn’t know was this lone leaf was blowing across a partially frozen, snow covered surface of water.  Fortunately, he broke through the ice right at the edge.  Let me also explain, that this also involved hurling himself down a 20 ft rocky bank.  It was about 22 degrees and snowing.  He was surprised when he hit the water, scrambled out, shook off and appeared completely unphased.  Brrrrrrr.   So, after my initial horror at what he had done, I laughed.  Lesson learned there – at least for me – no off leash walking near partially frozen bodies of water with a border collie – even if he would have to perform feats of acrobatics to reach the water.    This is a lesson I did not learn with my shelties.

His training is coming along nicely, although sometimes I admit  it feels like he knows nothing.  Of course, this isn’t true.  His developing fluency in response to verbal cues is where I’m sometimes left scratching my head and laughing.  It’s like there are lots of threads of partially learned behaviors in his head that he hasn’t completely sorted out and sometimes they get tangled up and his response ends up somewhere I never would have predicted. So, I laugh (and think about rule-outs to help him sort it out).

Or when his innate border collie-ness takes over and he becomes completely focused on a noise that I have to concentrate hard to hear.  It’s like….Earth to Tai!  I say to him…”you are such a border collie” and I have to laugh.  Or when he’s been invited up to give me a big hug and it’s like he can’t get close enough, so he keeps pushing and pushing into me, until I lose my balance; or if in my office chair, I’m rolling across the room.

I recently videoed one of our training sessions.  Admittedly, I was a bit challenged by the mechanics of this particular training…food, toy and clicker in hand….so I was getting unexpected responses.  I laughed a lot on this video.

I’m pleased to know that I’m laughing a lot…it keeps our sessions light and it means I’m enjoying Tai and the training process without feeling rushed.  I should also mention, by the way, that often, I’m not laughing, but simply smiling with pleasure at his brilliance.  I’ve been successful in not putting myself on a timetable…maybe a bit too successful, actually :-).  But now that we’ve been given the “gift” of an early winter – with lots of snow and bitter cold, I’m going to make sure that I keep laughing even when I’m rearranging my family room furniture to make more room to train,  training in a cold barn or bundling up to do flatwork in the snow.

I hope all of you are both laughing and smiling in your training sessions too!

Most of us think a lot about what’s going to happen or might happen or what we want to happen…whether it’s in our professional lives, personal lives or dog lives.  It seems we’re always racing to get somewhere else, to grow, to get stuff done, to achieve that next goal.  Nothing wrong with that.  But every now and then, its good to look back and take stock of how far we’ve come.  With a young dog, when I wonder if I’m making progress in my training, this can be comforting.   With an older dog, looking back at the journey we’ve taken together can be quite emotional.  My sheltie Lacey has a birthday tomorrow – she’ll be 11 on 11/11.

Lacey’s a healthy and happy 11 yr old for which I’m mightily grateful.  Lacey is the dog that taught me so many lessons, it’s hard to count.  It was just before Lacey came into our lives that I started working with Susan Garrett – who set me on the path to becoming knowledgeable dog trainer.  It feels like yesterday that I introduced Lacey at 12 weeks old to Susan and she had her first shaping lesson.  She was brilliant – I quess I mean both “she”s – Susan and Lacey.  Lacey was confident (to say the least), a bit independent (to say the least) and very quick.   She was a joy to train unless she had other things on her mind.  Building a working relationship with her taught me a lot (to say the least).   As I work puppy Tai through distractions, it’s not my more recent experience with 6 yr old Breeze that I think of…but what Lacey taught me.

“Denahur’s Racey Lacey” has all the titles an agility enthusiast could hope for barring a national championship.  Silver ADCH, Silver LAA, Top 10 USDAA, MACH,  Regional and National placements.  Her career was interrupted several times with injury – a recurring shoulder issue.  After the last go round in late 2008, I eased her into retirement but not before she was overall individual winner in the 2009 Northeast Regional USDAA Performance class and took home the Performance Grand Prix Regional Champion trophy.  She wasn’t the fastest out there that weekend, but she was the best.

So on Lacey’s 11th birthday, here is a list of  11 things that Lacey taught me.

1. Patience and the benefits of laughing while dog training.

2. That steak can have more value than squirrels.

3. How much fun it is to shape behaviors

4. How to invent a jolly ball on a rope – the first toy Lacey would tug on outside

5. That transfer of value really works.

6. That there must be really, really, really good smells in our backyard

7.  That a 3 foot fence will neither keep an athletic sheltie in the yard, nor keep the neighbor’s German Shepherd out of the yard (duh).

8. How to condition a dog to – hopefully – prevent injury, benefiting Lacey and all my dogs.

9. How to manage a dog who gets sprayed by a skunk – which happened incidentally 15 minutes before she and I were to leave for the airport – another story altogether.   I recommend Nature’s Miracle Skunk Odor Remover.

10. That one good way to  handle ring nerves – is to look  in her eyes, think of what a good little buddy she is and smile.

11.  The joy of really laying it down in competition, knowing that she knows too and celebrating together.

There is no doubt that Lacey still has more to teach me and here’s hoping that there will be many lessons over many years.  Happy Birthday Lacey!   So, give your older dogs a big hug and extra treat from Lacey and me tomorrow.  If you’d like, click on this You Tube link to see a pictorial of Lacey’s life so far.  I hope you do and that you enjoy it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egFY_RfyEao