Game On! Dog Training

Do you know that feeling when you put on a good pair of new shoes?  They often feel different, and you THINK about how they feel.  Then, over time, as you wear them, they gradually seem to mold to your feet and no longer take up any part of your conscious mind…they feel comfortable and are worn without restraint…almost like they become part of you, and you trust they will do their job.  When I run 8 yr old Breeze, that’s how it feels.  At our last few trials, we had some spectacular, dare I say, near perfect runs.  If you’ll permit me to switch to another metaphor…We ran as a finely tuned, well-oiled and efficient machine and it felt great!

With 2 yr old Tai…even when things go well, I don’t yet have that comfortable old-shoe feeling.  This is not surprising when running a 2 year old,  fast dog.  But the bigger issue, is that Tai is, well, so much bigger than Breeze.  With a MUCH longer stride length, it changes the timing of all cues, let me tell you!  It means I have to be very conscious of how quickly I may need to cue a turn or be conscious of  how much distance I will need to get to where I need to be, of how fast he will take a line and how fast I had better get moving!  Way to much thinking going on!

A few weeks ago, I was working on a very difficult, international style sequence with Tai.  You really needed to hustle to get into a difficult front cross position.  I started out with a new pair of shoes I was testing out for running.  Here is how it went with each try:  1) Send and run to get into position; 2) Send and run harder to get into position 3) Get more lateral, send and run really hard to get into position.  Not happening.  I paused, thought about it and before trying again I changed into my old trusty Ditas and sure enough…I got lateral, ran hard into position and made it…Success!   Just that little bit more trust along with a bit more tread made all the difference.

Tai and I are winding down on our first trial season together.  We’re working together to develop that old-shoe feeling of trust and sub-conscious connection and timing.  No time to THINK on course.  Just FOCUS and DO.   We’re also polishing our skills into better tread for those old shoes.  A little more independence on the contacts and weaves; a little better timing and  footwork on my part.

I just re-watched video from our trials from July through October.  Some great stuff!  His jumping at both 24″ and 26″ looks great.  The few mistakes were an occasional bar (you want me to go where??),  a refusal here and there (what??), a missed weave entry here and there (you want to to SLOW DOWN while you are running REALLY FAST???), a few self-releases from teeter and dogwalk and the dreaded A-frame misses.  He is way too comfortable with a one-stride running A-frame…which has often been too high.  Despite a number of attempts, and months of training, to encourage 2 strides with approaches and a variety of stride regulators, he reverts back to one stride.

A few weeks ago I made the decision to switch to a 2 on 2 off behavior on the A-frame.  Fortunately I had all the  foundation in place as he stops on both the teeter and, since the Spring, on the dogwalk too.  I lowered the A-frame a bit, sent him and as he hit his first stride on the frame, said “Target!”.  He came to a very nice 2 on 2 off position…like he had been doing it that way all along.  So, after over a year of running the A-frame, he has since been perfect in 2on 2off, with all kinds of handling, except for a couple of self-releases,  including at a trial just 5 days later.  Amazing.  Criteria is a wonderful thing. LOL.  Now if I can just remember to give the command since all of my shelties have had beautiful running A-frames.  So, for now, our running contact adventure is over.  No regrets…learned a lot!

Here is a video of some of our runs from late July through October.  You’ll see what I mean about the A-frame.  Enjoy!

Attitude…”If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it”.  ~Mary Engelbreit

I had a recent couple of trial days with young border collie Tai that  sent me into my garden for therapeutic weeding and a glass of wine… and an attitude adjustment.    Tai is my first border collie and I’m still learning to live with this unique breed. The Border Collie Rescue web site states: “Training a Border Collie can be like trying to teach a nerdy child that likes to overanalyze everything – it can be frustrating and an exhaustive exercise in patience.”   Combine that with his strong herding instinct and I’m sometimes left scratching my head or worse, feeling anxiety and frustration creep up on me.

Here is a simple example.  At a recent trial, I was challenged to get him lined up at the start line and pointing in the direction we needed to go…Believe me, at home and away from the ring, we have brilliant line up skills.  But on this day (and for the first time at a trial) something kicked in and he picked a point in the middle of the ring to point toward…maybe the judge, not sure but what was for sure is that it wasn’t the direction we were heading.   I retried several times and each time he ended up in the same direction.  Not sure what to do (the judge would only wait so long), I led out, released him and sure enough, he missed the second jump.  This issue was repeated in most of our runs that weekend, although not always with a resulting error. Here’s where the attitude adjustment is important.  Yes, it was annoying that after all the training around this particular skill it would fall apart in this situation.  Yes, this is a skill that was straightforward for my shelties.  But really, he’s a dog, and oh yeah he’s also a  border collie.   He can’t help how his brain is wired.  He didn’t choose my home or this job.  I’m asking HIM to play this crazy sport with me and do it my way.  So it’s up to me to figure out ways to help him get it right.  Because isn’t that my job and my responsibility?

Attitude: “Learn to smile at every situation.  See it as an opportunity to prove your strength and ability”.  ~Joe Brown

My attitude adjustment is this:  Yes, I can have goals that determine our training and trialing,  but on each given day, let go of expectations, let go of ego, embrace the dog I have – with all his brilliance and a few quirks – and enjoy the ride.  Smile as we begin each run. Laugh when it doesn’t go as planned.  Celebrate each effort. Observe and acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses for both of us. Problem solve. Train.

After reviewing the video of that weekend, Tai’s brilliance shown through and I could believe the words of so many of my friends that “Tai looks great!”.  Thanks for your support, by the way :-).   The next day was much more successful…I think we actually had a “q”, but what I remember most is that I enjoyed the day and sincerely celebrated each run with Tai.

Because I enjoy watching videos, I’ll include one here from an indoor trial the previous weekend…with an error that I did laugh at…something I didn’t expect but as it happened added proofing around tunnels to my training list.  You won’t miss it.

Often, the results of a competition only tell one part of the story.  Breeze and I just returned from the AKC World Team Tryouts.  We finished dead last amongst the talented teams that competed in the small dog division.  Ouch.  Double Ouch. Of course, I was disappointed in this result.  We had worked very hard to get ready..and I felt the most prepared ever walking into this event.  With the mild winter, I had more training opportunities than usual leading up to this Spring event (usually, I only get a few weeks to train outdoors before leaving).  Breeze was well conditioned, running GREAT and I was in decent shape.  Over the last year, I had made massive improvements in my mental game.

So what happened?  As expected, the courses were extremely challenging.  There were very few clean runs across all competitors.  Some of my errors were timing errors, forced by the yahoo lines that got me behind the speedy little guy.  But a significant contributor to our results was a weird weave issue that popped up on Friday.    During our practice time, all was all good until Breeze hit the weave poles.  He popped out around pole 8 or 9 and looked confused.  When I entered him again, he put poles together,  then he didn’t want to enter at all.  Ok,  then…what the heck?????   After our practice time was over and I was puzzling over this, I saw the ring crew resetting the poles.  Turns out, the poles were set up wrong and the legs were in the wrong place…apparently where his feet were supposed to go!!  About 1/3 through practice, the organizers figured this out and fixed them.  Everyone affected had a chance to get our dogs back on the weaves but apparently that wasn’t enough for Breeze.   He refused entries and/or popped out of poles in all but one run.  He was thoroughly checked out.  Physically, there didn’t appear to be a problem.  His weave concerns were most damaging in the last round when he refused the poles 3 times in the easiest entry of the weekend in an otherwise near perfect round.  He simply refused to acknowledge the poles were there until I stopped him in front of them and said “weave”.  In international competition, 3 refusals results in an elimination and 50 faults.  At that point in the competition, the results of that one round made the difference between being in the top 10 versus dead last.

Despite the results, there was much to be proud of.  Overall, I was pleased with my handling decisions and execution…we had beautiful lines through some of the most challenging sequences. Breeze was fast, responsive and accurate with the exception of the weaves (and one teeter). My mental game rocked and all the work I’ve done over the past year paid off.  Before every run, I felt confident, relaxed and focused.  After his first weave refusal in Round 1, I was sure to visualize him entering correctly so I wouldn’t inadvertently let my handling make things even worse. Even when things were going really badly on Saturday, I was able to put that behind me.  I’m proud of the fact that I could come back after such a disappointing first day and found a way to get into that zone on the next day’s runs.

After every competition, I ask myself what I learned.  Training opportunities?  Need to get back to a consistent full stop on the teeter in trials.  Breeze has a fast teeter because he runs nicely to the end of the board but the risk is that if he doesn’t shift weight and work his stop, we can get a call.  Hasn’t happened much…maybe once in the past trial season but he’s been uncomfortably on the edge of late.  He’s so light that it can seem to take forever for the board to drop and patience in waiting for the drop is not his strong suit (see picture above where he did shift weight).   I need to make sure he knows this isn’t an option!

And what about those weaves?  Why did that one bad moment in practice have such an effect?  It’s not like him to worry like that…he’s had plenty of little things happen over the years…falling off contacts, hitting metal jump cups, maybe even his handler knocking a jump down on top of him.  He’s always just gone right at it again.  So, it’s quite uncharacteristic of him to worry about anything like this.  Not long after arriving home, I couldn’t resist trying him out in the backyard in a couple of short sessions.  He did great…driven, confident and  accurate on tough entries.  I’m going to assume for now, that the issue was isolated to weaves in Hopkins arena.  I’ll be sure to add the highest value rewards to his weave training and work on even more independence to build his confidence.

From a handler perspective, I’m still noodling over how to know when I can get places on some of these long speed lines. Could I have trusted Breeze more in round 4 and made it to serp position before the double threadle?  After watching video, I think the answer is “yes”!  Can I train to be faster?  Yikes, Tai is coming up.  Since I’m not sprouting longer legs, I need to work smarter on my handling and harder on conditioning and running form.

Most of all, I’m grateful for having the opportunity to play amongst such talented teams and to be running this gifted dog.  Hard to believe I can say this after what happened but its still my favorite event of the year.  Am I crazy?

Here is the video of Round 5 (thanks Agility in Motion!) where you can see the weave problem.  It’s a journey!

Incredible…one word to describe my little buddy Breeze.

Just returning from our 4th AKC agility nationals held in Reno, Nevada, I want to celebrate:  His cool – even in a big venue, & even bigger casino hotel.   His endurance – thriving after long air flights both ways.  His toughness – working through some soreness.  His athleticism.   His skills.  And his overall cuteness – that he was happy to share with the many people (including kids) we met on our travels.

After a little bit of a rough start on the warm-up day, we did well in the competition, making it to the Finals with a 4th place cumulative score across 3 rounds (among 170 dogs of his height in the competition).  With a decent Finals round, we ended 7th place.  Ahhh…but for that little brain blip that caused a refusal at obstacle 19.

A perfect agility run is rooted in confidence – knowing what to do and how to do it; relaxation – a balance of holding on and letting go; and focus – being in the moment and executing without regard to the past mistakes or future outcomes.

Staying focused on the “now” is more of a challenge for me than for Breeze.  I recently saw “now” described as occupying no space but as a hypothetical gap between the past and the present.  “Now” is hard to hold on to.  Learning to be present in the moment takes practice.  Learning to let go of outcome takes practice.  Learning to forget the mistakes in the past takes practice. Learning not to be afraid of success takes practice.  Like most of us, I’m still practicing!

Anyway…here is a video of Breeze at the Nationals…my incredible boy.

With dogs of different ages, my definition on The Best Of…is all about perspective.  For 12 year old Lacey, the best right now is good health and soundness.  For 8 yr old Breeze, it’s about peak performance for us as a team.  At his last trial, he was just phenomenal – a nice place to be with Nationals around the corner.

For 2 yr old Tai, it’s about finding those best moments and nurturing them.  It’s also about believing that those moments will happen more and more often as Tai matures, gains experience and we grow together as a team.

It’s officially Spring now although we hardly had a winter this year.  Tai turned 2 years old on New Year’s Day and since then we’ve done three trials, two great seminars – Nancy Gyes and Susan Salo – and spent 2 weeks at the beach.  A good balance.  Tai’s trialing has been limited to T2B, Fast and Jumpers.  It hasn’t yielded much in the way of qualifying but has been invaluable in providing experience for both of us.  Here is a newsflash for you…handling a long-striding border collie is a lot different than handling a small sheltie!    Well, that difference has got me on the path to becoming a better handler, for sure.

With lots more to work on — including proofing contacts before we begin trialing in Standard Classes — I decided to take some time to celebrate some of “The Best Of…” Tai’s moments over the last few months.   I’m a firm believer in holding close what is going well, while acknowledging what needs improvement and continuing to strengthen skills on both our parts.  So, enjoy this video and I hope you will embrace your “Best” moments too.