Agility and obedience practice

It's been tough to find opportunities to practice agility outside of classes or private lessons. Fortunately Jump'n Java scheduled 4 fun matches around the holidays, and we were able to attend the one after Thanksgiving, plus we'll be at the upcoming one on Boxing Day.

Cai and I are totally out of practice. This was a new location, outdoors on grass. Despite these things, Cai did super well! He was focused the entire time we were out on the field, other than one time he couldn't resist the allure of the tall grass along a fence line. But no staring off at barking or running dogs, like when we did a fun match a year ago. The power of fresh-cooked rabbit meat helped, but he's definitely gained maturity and focus.

On the Jumpers side, we did a Novice course. The first time I got lost, but the second time went smoothly. I actually heard a few "oooh"s as we finished up. We also did some on-the-fly sequences.

On the Standard side, we mostly practiced the weave poles. We have 10th pole syndrome. I'm going to take some more time to heavily reward the completed poles, and put him back in if he pops out early. If that doesn't make a difference, I'll have to schedule private lessons to help us figure it out.

The best part was that he was eager and fast on the teeter! I babied him and lowered it just a tad slowly the first 2 reps. Then I let it fall normally. He slowed down briefly at the tipping point (which was almost at the end of the board, since he's so fast), then quickly moved up to the edge. The next time, he leaned back when it tipped but was at the end as it hit the ground. WOW!! Then I had to focus on rewarding him for staying at the end, to prevent fly-offs in the future. So proud of my little guy.


On Wednesday we returned to the drop in obedience practice at SLDTC. There were only two other dogs this time. We practiced playing, heeling with tricks, recalls, stays, dumbbell retrieves, and the broad jump. No one bothered to ask why Cai didn't sit on the halts and fronts. (It's because rally-free and freestyle are higher priority than obedience.) We also practiced crating with me 10 feet away or briefly out of sight. He's slowly improving on that front - no barking this time, but a little scratching at the crate door.

Stays with a Yorkie and Sheltie.

Agility obstacles update

I managed to switch classes to a better time (afternoon rather than 7:30 am), and we've attended the new time slot twice. All the new dogs meant that Cai spent a lot of time barking during the first class. I stayed close to his crate and gave lots of treats when the other dogs were in his field of vision. During the second class he was much better, but he's still quite reactive to the other small dogs, because he really wants to play with them.

Updates on obstacle training progress:

About a month ago he suddenly developed a fear of climbing up the contact obstacles. I have no idea what caused it. I switched to rewarding him for climbing up however high he felt comfortable, and then cuing him to go back down and do his contact (lie down on mat on floor). Last class, he finally was back to normal on the dog walk and a-frame. I was even able to take away the mat and cue the down verbally (and by turning toward him), and he confidently lay down. We didn't do the teeter that day, and we still have to finish up his basic training for it. I really wish that they let students rent the space for private practice.

Speaking of contact obstacles, I'd trained Cai to do a table at home but we hadn't used it in eight months of classes, until last week. No problem hopping onto it and lying down. I trained the down to be consistent with other obstacles, and make sure that he really stays on it during fast, exciting runs. I don't know yet which venues we'll be competing in.

Other obstacles that are new for us: last class Cai saw the chute for the second time ever. The first time, the instructor had held the end of the fabric open and lowered it with each pass. This time, she held it slightly open for one pass, then left it on the ground. Cai went in, backed out, and ran around. She showed him a high value treat on the ground right at the end of the fabric, and I picked him up and put him back at the entrance. This time he went all the way through, though he slowed down and was moving his head in confusion in the middle. I gave him a jackpot - a steady stream of high value treats with lots of praise. The third time he didn't slow down as much, got another jackpot, and then after that he was happily running through. Yay!

The tire is still new and we haven't had enough practice with it for me to properly "explain" to him not to go under the tire/chains. We got around this problem in class by lowering it all the way to the ground, and then he would consistently jump through the tire. However, once again I need extra time to practice on the obstacles on my own so that I can make sure he understands the criteria.

He's only seen the broad jump a handful of times and is still figuring out that it's a jump. Other jumps are almost never a problem. He's just under 12 inches tall and jumping 8 inches, so he soars over the bars. Doubles and triples are not a problem because of that.


His weave poles have gotten worse. For a while he was reliable on six poles if I didn't move too quickly, and I was working on proofing them. Lately he's been skipping the middle poles in class. It's not always the same poles, and I think that it's a problem with getting his stride and concentrating on his job. We're working on it at home as well as we can.

His focus is very good when we're running -- he enjoys the game! It's rare for him to stop running and sniff something or look around, unless there's a sudden big distraction. He does want to sniff and look around while I'm setting him up at the start line, though.

He is now quiet in his crate even if I walk out of sight, aside from the dog reactivity. That makes me very happy!

Posing in downtown Pleasanton

Getting out of the house

I've been saying for months that I'd like to get out and have more adventures with Chimera, but I was honestly too busy and tired to do it. My schedule has settled down now and I realized that I can finally do it! I've taken him for a couple of walks in our new neighborhood. (I'm not in the habit of daily walks for my dogs, as for years they used to go to my daycare job or on my daily hikes, and that provided exercise and stimulation.) Today we went to Petco to train. We mostly worked on heeling, stays, and position changes at my side. He did quite well, even when we were close to employees. There were no other dogs in the store.

I bought him a floatation vest. I'm hoping that it will help him enjoy swimming more. He's a good swimmer -- from the first time he accidentally waded into "deep" water, he's been able to swim to wherever he wanted to go, even turning around in the water -- but he just doesn't enjoy it. One of my housemate's dogs loves swimming, so we're planning a trip to Lake Anza soon. Maybe the other dog will entice him to follow.

I just have to remind myself that if I don't get him out to work on his dog reactivity, he'll never get better. He's already SO much better than he used to be, but it's exhausting, as every reactive dog owner can attest. Plus, if I want him to successfully trial in any sport, he needs to be able to handle a variety of environments and distractions. So new goal is one adventure a week!

Obedience progress

We don't practice our obedience skills as much as our agility skills, other than little heeling doodles and fronts. Mostly that's because I'm in agility class every week, while I don't have something helping motivate me to work on obedience. I'm writing a quick update here because that's likely to help me keep practicing!

With heeling, we're working on pivots (smoothing out my footwork and teaching Cai to respond to that footwork confidently), stepping off at a good pace (Dragon used to be slow to start), outside turns (always practicing to keep his drive up), and my holding a toy as a distraction/reward. We've used food for heeling for a long time because we were working on precision and a high rate of reinforcement. Now when I introduce toys, he starts jumping up and down in excitement and forges terribly. We keep the sessions short because he burns out quickly due to the difficulty of thinking when excited.

We've progressed from fronts that consistently pointed his bum to the left to 90% close, straight fronts. I'm working on adding distance now. I almost always reward him to having him go through my legs to get the reward, which keeps him wanting to be close and straight. We're also working on him recognizing my body langauge (stiff and straight, arms very straight at sides, head looking down to my toes).

Down on verbal -- pretty good response, unless he's within two feet of me, and then he frequently sits instead so that he can easily keep eye contact. My goal is for him to quickly lie down on the verbal cue anywhere, anytime, to make the drop on recall a cinch.

Go out to platform -- an easy way to build confidence moving away from me and create a set up for coming to front from a distance. I should teach him to target a piece of blue tape or similar so that we can practice go outs without the platform.

Dumbell -- so happy -- he has a great 3 second hold!! We only practice this in a specific context right now, to make the training very clean. I want to build up to 5 seconds before I start proofing in different locations. He takes the dumbell while sitting, which will help with backchaining the final retrieve. He always gets big rewards for the hold, and we only do 3 or 4 repetitions at a time.

Articles -- haven't practiced this in forever. He had been about 90% with metal canning rings and maybe 70% with leather rings, but at this point I'd have to back up in his training. Oops.

Stand for exam -- have done a handful of sessions with friends helping, and worked up to him standing while the person looms over him. Going slowly so that he feels really comfortable with it. (Dragon had the BEST stand for exam, sigh.)

Signals --  have to work them on a chair to keep him from creeping forward. Building muscle memory in with his recognition of the signals. I want him to know sit, down, and stand fluently. Not doing a signal for front yet since I want him staying back.

We still have a number of exercises to go: stays (ugh, really need to work on this, as he has little duration, because I find it boring), gloves, broad jump, and a LOT of distraction work and ring prep. No hurry.

Agility 4.6 summary, Petco trip

Guess who is now weaving 4 poles?!

He needed some extra steps to be able to link to the two sets of poles together. My instructor had me stand onside between the two sets, and rotate as he entered the first pair to direct him toward the second. I believe that Chimera interpreted the shoulder rotation as a 180 cue and would come through the second pair of poles backwards. He did this so consistently that I knew that I had to change the set up or he wouldn't figure out what to do before he totally lost drive and confidence in the first pair of poles.

The first thing I did was rotate the second pair a little bit (as my instructor suggests keeping them lined up from the beginning unless the dog has trouble). No go. So then I broke protocol and decided to backchain the exercise. I positioned Cai right before the second pair, rewarded him for going through a few times, and then positioned him as if he were leaving the first pair and sent him forward. This was the missing link. After some practice starting from the left side of the second pole, I was able to get rid of the rotation on the second pair, and then get him started from the entrance to the poles. At this point the two pairs are lined up like competition poles and he is consistently going through when started onside, and we're rotating farther into offside.


The other things we've been doing in class is longer sequences of jumps and tunnels, using pulls (lots of 180s and 270s lately), threadles, and serpentines. It is so fun to be running with the dog! I have to make sure to give my cues early (as most novice handlers do, I wait too long because I'm watching my dog!).

Next week we are starting session 5, which is contacts. At this point, my plan is to have Chimera do a modified running contact by lying down immediately after getting off the a-frame and dog walk. I have been using a rectangular piece of yoga mat as his target. Early on, I made the mistake of allowing him to go to the mat and turn to face me as he lay down on it. SO BAD. I should have taught him from the beginning to run to it and lie down in the same direction as he was running. So lately I have been making a chute from a wall and an xpen and using that to force him to lie down in the correct direction. He will do it if I am ahead, next to him, or in front and laterally to the side. I need to still work on it with me behind him. I have also started putting a contact trainer flat on the floor in the chute.

I am a bit nervous to start teeter work since my last dog, Dragon, had trouble with the teeter despite an excellent wobble board foundation. (I could put my foot down on the high end of the board and toss him up into the air, and he would give me the "where's my treat?" look.) He taught me that it's important to have LOTS of various interactions with the teeter rather than just focusing on building the end behavior. For example, the thing that helped him get past the pivot point the most was having me and another person on opposide ends of a lowered teeter, and calling him back and forth across it. He didn't have to do anything besides run along it and get used to the pivot point at speed. My previous instructor made a face when she saw this, but I was convinced that it was an important foundation game. By the time we get to competition, the dog will have had lots of practice doing a final, correct teeter behavior which has been proofed against any temptation to run back along the teeter, and will be following my handling to the next obstacle.


In other news, on Wednesday I took Chimera to a Petco to work on his reactivity. He's at the point now where, if I'm ready to stuff chicken in his face at that initial sighting (or sound of) another dog, we can practice BAT in a large store. There were no dogs the whole time we were there! So we practiced his tricks in this new, distracting environment. He did very well! Sounds would distract him a lot, like someone going through the employee door, or a squeaky toy, or footsteps behind us. But we practiced heeling (pivots and outside turns), fronts, stays with me going just out of sight in another aisle, waving, backing up, and (once we were in the parking lot), barking on cue.

I've been using "beep beep" for backing up and "speak" for barking, but he started to confuse them and then combine them. So I switched to "woof" for barking, and he recognized it right away. Now I just need to get rid of the barking while backing up. I may end up switching that cue to "back".

Agility 3.4 summary

Instead of warming up with boring circle work in a circle, we went right into taking turns with a sequence: tunnel, front cross, jump (which was at an angle), pull into tunnel, decel at next jump. Chimera consistently had a problem with running right to my side after the tunnel, and then squeezing between me and the jump stanchion even if I left very little room. So we need to work more lateral distance, especially in sequences, and running to a toy thrown ahead in sequences. Good info! My apartment, where I've done most of Cai's foundation training, doesn't have room to do lateral distance drills. Between that and a huge history of reinforcement for being at my side, it's no wonder he had trouble.

Cai is starting to jump on me in frustration if he is confused during jump drills, especially if we repeat something multiple times and can't get it right. Since this is just a side effect of mistakes in training (both his and mine), I'm ignoring it for now. If the behavior starts to escalate, I'll work on redirecting him.

After this we did a simple lateral distance exercise (stay, lead out, toss reward as dog goes over jump), and he did pretty well. The instructor said our goal is to being 18 feet away and able to cue the jump. I was about 3-4 feet away. Practice practice!

We set up another sequence, with a tunnel and then two jumps in a 180. At first we did a push through/back side of jump with just the second jump, then we added the first one in, and then we moved them just a little bit apart laterally. If the dog did well with that, we did the jumps as a serpentine as well. Chimera did this perfectly, even when my timing or balance was a bit off. We practiced it a bunch at home and at the play yard in Dublin during the past week.

Weekend in Tahoe

We spent the weekend with my parents and sister at their place by Lake Tahoe. Chimera has been enjoying it muchly. Everyone has taken turns playing with him, and he's gotten an hour plus long off leash hike both days. I also had time to do more training with him than I've had in a long time: heeling, stand for exam, dumbbell retrieve, retrieve over jump, stays, backing up, circling around me backwards, and one jump work: sends, push throughs, and serpentine. So fun!!

He also spent a lot of time barking at noises outside and on TV, and at the vacuum cleaner. Less fun.

Also, carrying around his chewies, looking for the perfect spot to "hide" them, leaving them, and after a few minutes retrieving them and starting over again.

Agility 3.1 summary

The title of the new 6 week session is "Dog Meets Jump". Today we had our dogs going over a jump bar for the first time! (In theory, as Chimera has been doing a bunch of handling work on super low jumps since he was little. I'm an overachiever.)

We did a few different jump foundation exercises. Restrained recalls, including with lateral distance. Jump around the clock, focusing on rewarding stays even more than practicing releasing over the jump. Shaping a collected jump with us standing in decel position. And using a collar grab to get our dog to focus forward, then running with them and throwing a toy/treats ahead. Most of this was old hat for the monster. We did some at 4 inches and some at 8 inches. It's hard for me to measure him, but he seems to be just under 12 inches. Eep, I hope he doesn't measure over 12, since that would put him in a higher jump height.

Since we've been working on retrieving different kinds of objects, I figured it was time to introduce a small treat container as a throwable reward. Up until now, I'd used toys when throwing rewards because I knew he would run away with any food containers. Toys are lower value, though. I did use socks with treats inside, and that worked okay, but he kept ripping giant holes in the socks and then the treats would fall out too much. So today I tried out a little pill bottle with cut up sausage, beef liver, and peanut butter flavored Zukes inside. It was a big hit! He let me put my hands on it every time so that I could open it and hand him a treat, and a few times he even brought it toward my hand. What a good boy. Besides using the retrieve to combat his guarding problem, I just love having a dog who retrieves all different kinds of things. I dream of teaching him the hot dog retrieve someday!

Agility 2.5

Circle work all in a group. Fairly good attention.

Crate games, working on lateral distance. I only did a handful of reps because this requires him running enthusiastically to a toy, which he will only do a few times before he starts calmly trotting to the toy instead.

Fun sequence with a curved tunnel: circle work all the way around the tunnel, rewarding the dog for NOT going in on his own, then sending in and doing a pull to continue on (so we stayed standing at the entrance and our dogs came back to us after exiting, circling around again, and then sending in and doing a front cross to finish up with the dog on our other side. Cai could hear that I was staying by the tunnel entrance so he had a lot of trouble continuing on to the exit, and would turn around and come back out. After a couple of failed attempts I did move to the exit so that he could be successful. The instructor didn't like that -- she didn't want us to change our handling if the dog is struggling. She had us do it again, and this time he was successful without me moving toward the exit, but I think that that was because I had helped him the previous time.

We did the exercise again going in the reverse direction, and again Cai didn't want to go all the way through the tunnel. She stood behind the exit so that the dog couldn't see her, and she had me send him again and tossed a treat to him when he came through the exit (so it was just raining down from the sky). We did this a few times until he was happily going all the way through while I stayed by the entrance, and we finished the exercise without any more problems.

Then another fun sequence with ladders, working on rewarding our dogs for NOT taking the ladders if not cued, taking them when cued, and one rear cross, which Cai did well. Yay!

All the dogs had been doing pretty well at the wobble boards (though Cai was able to handle the highest, wobbliest board, if I may brag). So we lowered a teeter and put a towel under the heavy end, and had the dogs bang the other end. Cai did just fine with this -- we started it quite low, and raised it twice, and he was quickly jumping on and off.


Things I need to practice more at home: running to a toy/food item (sock filled with liver needs the tears sewn up), stand-stay with distractions, circle work among small distractions, lateral distance with crate or our known mini-obstacles. I have also been working on contact training for a while -- I want him to do a modified running contact, in which he does a down on the floor immediately after the obstacle (obviously not for teeter, that will be a crouch/down at the end of the board). I have a target (piece of yoga mat) for him to down on. However he's pretty slow at getting to it and lying down. He lies down slowly. I guess I'll try timing him in my head and do some sessions just rewarding faster downs. I would prefer for this to be pretty solid before we start it in class (which will be a while). I've also been rewarding him for running over a plank at home.

Agility class 1.6, leash walking, making friends with Owen

Lots of review of skills we've been working on for the past few weeks: collar grab and releasing forward to a toy when the dog leans or pulls forward, lining up at our side, circle work, and stays. I barely did any training with Chimera over the past week because I was super duper busy, and that will probably continue for a couple more weeks.

At the end of class, we did the It's Yer Choice throwdown. Since we hadn't been practicing and Cai tends to move his paws a bit, I didn't think we'd last long. However we ended up holding our stand-stay longer than all the other students! I did lots of distracting things -- jump up and down, get down on the ground, twirl in a circle, shake out my jacket -- but I made sure to only do the things that I thought Cai could handle, and it worked. What a good boy. We won a new toy and a back issue of Clean Run.


Loose leash walking has greatly improved. Last week, something clicked in Cai's head and he started to come back to my side on his own after he would reach the end of the leash and I'd stop. Sometimes he does it quickly, and sometimes I have to wait a little bit, but he consistently comes back on his own. This definitely makes the walks more pleasant for me. If we're covering new ground, he still gets to the end of the leash frequently. However if we walk back home along the same route, he'll spend much more time walking nicely at my side.


Last Friday we met up with Sarah and her Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Owen, to do BAT. She picked a perfect spot -- wide open, grassy park, with very few people around. Cai started off doing very well. He got stiff and stared at Owen, but was calming down quickly when we would run away from him and sniff new patches of grass as a reward for looking away. After about ten minutes, he stopped to poop, and as I was tying off the poop bag, he lunged in Owen's direction and the leash slipped out of my hand! He made a beeline for Owen. I yelled and Sarah had time to pick Owen up. Cai started circling her and jumping up on her legs to say hello to Owen. He was not aggressive or reactive at this point at all; he was doing his usual over-exuberant greeting. However, the "damage" had been done -- even after this limited greeting, he no longer cared about being on leash with Owen nearby, so my "decoy" was ruined for BAT.

I was quite disappointed at first, but things took a turn for the better. Owen has a history of not liking intact puppies getting in his face, but he showed curious and friendly body language toward Chimera. We let them greet properly, and they became fast friends, zooming around and around the park.

Zoooom!

Playbows

Even though we'd intended to spend the hour doing reactivity work rather than a play session, in the end we had happy, tired dogs, and I can't be sad about that!

Agility class 1.5

Another great class this week. So happy with my little guy! We arrived early and I walked him around, doing circle work with frequent breaks to go sniff the equipment (which he's been dying to do since week one). This was the Give Me a Break structure from Control Unleashed. When the other dogs started coming in, he got happy wiggly tail as he watched them; none of the stiff body language from the first couple of weeks. He was particularly interested in a female English Bulldog who's been wearing panties for the past couple of weeks (gee, wonder why he's interested in her...), and a big chocolate Standard Poodle.

Warmed up with IYC stand-stay. Next week we're having an "It's Yer Choice throw-down", in which the last dog still staying wins, with a second prize being given to the owner who gets the most "style points" (in other words, can do the most interesting/entertaining stuff while their dog holds the stay). We're not going to win. :) But Cai is making good progress. We're battling foot movement, especially if he gets distracted by the other dogs, and then forgets what he's doing and reorients to me. I can toss treats and toys toward him, and do things like spin in a circle, jump up and click my heels, or get down on all fours like we're playing. It's the other dogs that make him lose his head.

The instructor explained the rear cross and had us continue the stays, working on going behind the dog. Cai sometimes moves his front feet when he whips his head around too quickly

We've been encouraging our dogs to pick up a toy, and then putting our hands on it and trading it for a treat, to build value for the dogs' putting their toys in our hands. Chimera is a big resource guarder, so I had to do this carefully, but I'm now able to take the toy right from him if he knows that I have food on me and he's in training mode. Getting him to willingly put a toy in my hand is another story -- but I'm working on that by shaping a retrieve and doing fetch training (throw a toy down the hallway, stand in his natural path back to the living room, and trade him when he gets to me).

For a couple of weeks we've been trying to build the dog's drive forward when taken by the collar, by dropping a toy in front of him and then letting him go to run to it. Cai just meanders to the toy, even when I tease him with it, even if I pry it out of his mouth during tug and immediately release him to it, even when it's his highest value toy (bunny fur tug). I mentioned to the instructor that he'll run if I toss these ball-shaped chicken and rice treats, so she suggested that I use food in a sock as his drive-builder instead. She wants us to put the food into some sort of pouch so that it's an item we can throw. I didn't try this initially because I knew that he would run off with the pouch and guard it, but I'll try it now that he is better about trading.

(If we never get the collar/drive forward thing down, we'll still be okay. Dragon learned agility without it, and I can already use my hand and arm forward to send Chimera to obstacles/objects.)

Did circle work, on our side of the classroom while everyone else went in a big circle together. Outside turns which face Cai toward other dogs are the hardest part of circle work, and we practiced this a lot, starting far away at first and slowly getting closer. I was VERY pleased with how much he progressed during these five minutes. If he did stop to watch them, I backed away and used a little bit of leash pressure if needed to call him back to earth. I felt comfortable with this because I could see that he had much more relaxed body language compared to previous weeks, and he was quick to reengage and go back to work. During previous weeks, I would let him watch the other dogs, because he was more worried about his surroundings. Of course, as much as possible I tried to work at a distance and angle at which he could be successful. A few times he disengaged to sniff the floor, and my reaction was to shorten the leash so that he couldn't wander, but to let him sniff until he was done. He didn't react to his name in these moments, and if I tried to pull him away I knew he'd get stressed. He may have been stress-sniffing in the first place. When he's fully engaged in heeling, he doesn't notice smells on the floor or other dogs moving around him.

Then everyone practiced outside turns, a quarter turn at a time. Cai did this okay last week, but this week he kept going forward and turning his butt out to face me. I'll practice this with Denise Fenzi's pocket hand to help him be successful. I don't think this is that important for agility, but it's similar to doing the pivots in rally, so we might as well. The instructor seemed to teach this as part of getting the dog to line up, but I get my dogs to line up with inside pivots.

Finally, we finished up class with restrained recalls, one at a time. We would call the dog, run forward, front cross as they ran up to us, then pull 180 degrees. Cai ran toward me super quickly and did the turns perfectly, no losing focus on the outside turn. Yay!

Agility class 1.4

Class went so well this week! We worked way off on the other side of the room during circle work, and it was a completely different experience for both Chimera and me. I was relaxed. He did beautiful heeling and I was able to give lots of reinforcement for attention. In fact he got more distracted by the equipment we were passing than by the dogs, until I moved a bit closer. When he got distracted by the equipment, I would pull him away from the distraction and reset him. With the dogs, I'd let him look for a moment but was able to call him back to work. I also was more careful this time to keep the work sessions very short. During rest, I'd sit on the floor with him and he mostly watched what was going on from my lap. I checked in with the instructor and told her that we'll continue working at a distance and slowly move closer to the other dogs, and she was supportive.

There was one section of the floor where someone must have been dropping treats, because he started sniffing madly. I was surprised to realize that I have literally never had a problem with Cai getting distracted by the floor until now. Previously he'd spent all his time either focused up at me or staring at other dogs or people. I tried gently inserting my foot under his nose to interrupt him, but he started stress-sniffing my pant leg. I mentally flailed for a moment, and then literally thought: "what would Denise Fenzi suggest in this situation?" I thought that she would try to make the sniffing as least reinforcing as possible, while making the work interesting and rewarding. So I shortened his leash until he couldn't move farther along the floor, waited until he lifted his head, and then did a little heeling turn and rewarded it. We had to repeat this a few more times. He did lose interest in sniffing those same spots again, but I don't know whether it will work long term. I should ask Denise what she really would do...

He's doing well on his stand stay once he's in the stand, but I still have trouble getting him to not sit. Cuing problem.

Worked on collar grab and driving to a toy. He tugged hard on his bunny toy. Yay!!

After class he saw the giant shepherd exiting the building and heading toward the potty spot where we were, and he didn't react! Yay again!!

Attention training

I'd already been thinking that I hadn't done enough impulse control/It's Yer Choice/distraction work with Chimera. I don't feel like it's my strong suit (I'm better at teaching tricks... classic clicker trainer problem), so I just kept putting it off. However I now realize that's become a real problem, because I haven't given Cai the foundation he needs to succeed in agility class.

To be fair, I have at least taken other classes specifically to work on focus around other dogs, and before his reactivity started we did lots of little bits of training while out for socialization. In a few weeks we're doing a three week class at Braveheart called Strength, Balance, and Body Awareness. Really looking forward to it!

I'm trying to think of all the attention games I've seen other trainers do:

Ask dog to get into heel position or front and give eye contact while you hold treats or toys out to the side as a distraction. (Did this today!) Later, ask for heeling while you hold them out/move them around.

Heel past distractions. Heel up to food/toy at dog's eye level (ie on chair), keeping leash short enough that dog can't reach if he goes for them. Reward turning away.

Have treats/toy on floor while you ask for behaviors, blocking if dog tries to go for them. (I did this when he was a baby, but over time forgot about it.)

Raise the challenge level on stays (which I have barely worked on). Yesterday I was able to drop treats and he would hold his stand-stay, which pleasantly surprised me. I can also walk back and forth in front of him. I can start throwing more stuff at him.

Recalls, sends, and/or retrieves past temptations.

Classical conditioning may help. In some contexts, Chimera orients to me when he hears dogs barking. Perhaps I could CC other dogs moving -- it would help with his reactivity, too.

Finally, a good ol' "leave it" cue, which I haven't bothered to teach him.

Of course, just going out to different places and asking for behaviors is also helpful. I've started doing this again. (I had stopped almost entirely for the past month or two due to his reactivity.) But we spend most of the time working on leash walking and reactivity training, with just a teeny bit of extra behaviors when the environment is quiet.

If my readers have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Agility lesson 1.2 recap

I went into class not having much of an idea of how Chimera would do. I was prepared for him to be barking at the other dogs and needing extra space and management. I was prepared for him to be very distracted by being in a new environment with new dogs and people. (Remember that lesson 1.1 was a people-only orientation.) My goal was to cultivate any engagement and joy of working I could, without putting too much pressure on him. If he spent most of the class distracted and not eating the boiled chicken I brought, fine, I'd do my best to work with what he gave me.

Well my crazy adolescent was an angel and blew me away with his attentiveness and joy! Holy cow! He alarm barked at another dog in the parking lot, but when I carried him into class (being carried reduces his reactivity), he showed only calm curiosity toward the other dogs. He had friendly body language all during class, and wanted to greet them, but did not get frustrated that he couldn't. He happily ate the boiled chicken as well as some Zuke's treats from the instructor. He was attentive about 80-90% of the time, and during breaks he often solicited attention from me or calmly lay down and looked around. (I've been rewarding default downs.) He would get more distracted when other dogs were moving, which was understandable, but if this great behavior keeps up I don't think it will be a big distraction for much longer. I think that the biggest reason he did so well is that this was a similar environment to the last agility class we were in, where there were only 2-4 other students and we were quite spaced out. That earlier practice is paying off!


The first exercise we did was heeling/circle work. The instructor had us go three at a time in parallel lines, walking straight, doing a front cross, walking back, and repeat. Chimera has already gotten lots of reinforcement for heeling, so he quickly recognized what I wanted from him and fell into position. Here and there he stopped to watch the other dogs. I kept the leash short enough that if he moved away from me, he wouldn't get within greeting distance, but I made sure to put slack into the leash once he stopped at the end of it. This is in line with Kay Laurence's "connected walking" technique, which has helped us make progress in his leash walking skills, and the slack leash with my body turned away from him is now a cue for him to check in with me, when he's ready. Once he reengaged with me, I would continue forward and reward him (with treats, praise, and smiles) for choosing to work with me. I reminded myself to relax my body and not hold my breath or otherwise become tense when he was distracted. I told myself that my goal was joyful engagement with my dog, backed up by yummy treats.

Of course the instructor did not know what my goal was, or our training history. Her advice was that if the dog stops, you should keep walking. She said "you're the leader" and that in the sport of agility, the human is the leader and the dog follows your directions, or something like that. Also that the reinforcement will build the behavior that you want (walking next to you), so just keep moving and keep rewarding and the dog will learn. At first she said this generally to everyone, and when it was clear that I was ignoring her and purposefully stopping and waiting for my dog to look back at me, she came over and patiently, kindly, repeated herself. I mumbled something about how he needed the chance to look around, and she said that he didn't need it, that "he's amazing", and that I shouldn't play into his game. I tried to say other things in between this, but she must have recognized the "yes, but..." expression on my face. Finally I looked her straight in the eye and said, "I think of it differently." She said, "okay" and left to help other students.


I was proud of myself for sticking to my guns under pressure, but I was quite adrenalized immediately after this exchange, even though it was polite and she certainly wasn't advising me to do something horrible. However I felt that physically forcing Cai to walk with me would have created conflict and frustration in him, and I want a willing partner who has decided, on his own, that it's not worth looking at distractions, because it's more fun to engage with me. Putting more pressure on him would have sucked the joy out of the work, for both of us. As she kindly said, he was already "amazing" in his level of attention. :)

The next exercise was standing next to a wall and giving our dogs treats for simply standing at our sides, between us and the wall. She said that this was classically conditioning our dogs to want to be at our sides. Here I took the opportunity to reward Cai for maintaining eye contact instead of glancing at the other dogs.

We reviewed the It's Yer Choice game that the instructor is using to teach our dogs their start line stays. I am doing a stand stay, since she pointed out that little dogs sometimes have a hard time doing sit stays on cold, wet grass. Dragon had a killer stand stay, but he was a less fidgety dog. Cai has surprised me though, and is getting the idea quickly. She discussed using treats and toys and funny handler movements as distractions to play the IYC game.

I had another "butting heads" moment with her when Cai wanted to sit in front of me, since that's a stronger behavior for him. We hadn't practiced getting into a stand much, and I didn't expect him to do it on anything other than an obvious hand gesture that was just shy of luring him with a treat. She wanted me to let him offer the behavior, which I normally would be happy to, but I wasn't holding my breath for it happening in this context. I didn't want to let him sit and stare at me because he would get frustrated, and also lose confidence in the sit. (That's okay at home, frustration can be part of learning, but I want class to go smoothly for him.)  She warned me that giving another cue after he sits is reinforcing the sit because it's an opportunity for more rewards. I agree! That can often be the case, and I don't want him chaining the sit-then-stand behavior. However the way she suggested getting him to stand was to put my hand under his belly to prompt him to stand up. I admit that I probably made a face at this, but I nodded to her. This would be a poor choice for Cai, since he has some handling issues -- I would expect him to either lean strongly into the pressure and resist standing up, or jump up and move two feet away from my hand.

Here's the odd thing -- later in class, the instructor was demoing collar grabs and how her dogs enjoyed them thanks to the classical conditioning she was having us do, and she showed how she used her hand to prompt her little dog to stand up. She put her hand under his belly, and when he stood up, she gave him a treat. So... the handling she was doing was just as much a signal for reinforcement as my big hand signal had been, and the dog could just as easily chain the behaviors together! I thought that was bizarre. Anyway, I'm working on putting the stand on a verbal cue...

Both of the suggested pieces of advice reminded me of one of my favorite Kay Laurence quotes: "Don't put positive reinforcement on top of traditional thinking."

After the instructor walked away, I look at Cai and thought about all this, and he ended up offering a beautiful kick back stand twice!! Geez, proved me wrong. But he didn't offer it again after we took a little break, so he does need more practice with that. I know I do tend toward giving my dogs a bit too much help, but I think of it as erring on the side of caution.

We played the name game -- call your dog's name, then immediately give a treat.

Then we did the collar grabs -- take your dog by the collar, immediately give a treat. The instructor will use this to create drive toward the obstacles without messing with stays, which is nice clean training. I wonder if I'll have logistical problems with this as Cai's fur gets really long...?

The last thing we did was start to build the behavior of our dogs putting their toys (or food pouches) in our hands, by enticing our dogs to pick them up, quickly putting our hands on the toy, and immediately giving a treat. This is something that I should do more with Cai. I've been shaping a dumbbell retrieve, and he makes an effort to bring it toward my hand. I've also done some fetch training, where I throw a toy down the hallway and interrupt him on the way back with a treat. (That was how I taught ball-obsessed Dragon to bring his ball to my hand.) I should also do shaped retrieves with more objects. I need to tackle this skill from all these different angles, because he's a resource guarder and he wants to run away with anything he has in his mouth. We've come to a truce with his tug toys -- he will drop them on the floor and lift his head toward me when he is ready for me to pick the toy up and play tug. If I reach for him while it's still in his mouth he runs away. On top of this I regularly trade him an object for a treat when he steals things. So the quick trading that the instructor is having us do would be helpful for him. I had a little trouble in class when he would pick up one side of the toy in his mouth and stand on the other side, making it difficult for me to put my hand on it. But if I were to switch to a smaller toy, he would guard it more. Sigh. In our last agility class, I avoided this by using toys on lines, so I could reach for the other end without him feeling threatened.

After the class was done, we walked around the cars in the parking lot, to decompress and practice leash walking. He did very well, probably because of all the attention and heeling work we'd done in class. A dog suddenly barked at him from inside one of the cars, and he barked back but was able to reengage and calm down after just a few seconds.

What a good boy. He'll be a fine working dog when he's mature enough to ignore big distractions and is past the reactivity. Someday...

Recap of first (new) agility class

Today was the first day of our proper competitive agility classes. (You may remember we joined five lessons of an ongoing beginner class back in December, which gave us some good practice, but ultimately wasn't a good fit.) This one is at Ace Dog Sports in San Francisco. This first lesson was an orientation without dogs, and I was very impressed with the instructor and the curriculum.

She had us practice pulls (outside turns) and front crosses with rolling suitcases taking the place of our dogs -- brilliant idea! Then we did the same thing with a classmate acting as our dog. She also had us practice taking a handful of Zukes treats and dropping into plastic cups one treat at a time, as quickly as we could

She demoed an "It's Yer Choice" version of shaping a stay and recommended that we start practicing at home before next week's class. This will be our start line stay. She recommended teaching a stand-stay for small dogs since they often don't want to sit or lie down on wet grass on the agility field. (Same thing for some short-haired dogs, too.) I did a couple of sessions of shaping a stand-stay without any cues after we got home. I've been luring Cai to switch between sit & stand and down & stand with his front feet on a platform, but don't have the stand in any other context yet. Dragon had an awesome start line stand-stay, but he was a less fidgety dog!

She recommended having an agility-only release word that means "drive to me" as opposed to "you're free to do what you want". That's a great idea for most people. For myself, I've been raising Cai with agility handling in mind since the day I brought him home, and his release from staying already means "drive to me". I tested it out to make sure I was correct, and sure enough, Cai runs to front if I'm facing him or to my side if I'm facing away, so I'll continue using my current cue.

We discussed knowing our dog in terms of what food rewards will work for them. She said that you don't have to teach your dog to tug, but you need him to be able to drive out toward something he values and pick it up in his mouth, and then have some semblance of getting it back to you. I have a food pouch I used a lot for Dragon, especially before he was comfortable tugging in class. I need to pull it out and teach Chimera to run to it, and then not run away from me with it! He's made a lot of progress recently with bringing objects to my hand, so this is a good time to introduce the food pouch.

No bait bags are allowed in class -- treats must be in easy-to-reach pockets, with no plastic bags in the way. That's the way I usually train. Cai knows which pocket in my sweatshirts is the treat pocket, and always tries to stick his head in there! (And the other pocket is the tissue pocket, and he's gotten very good at sneaking them out and shredding them.)

No luring allowed. Yes! The first six week chunk is called "power steering" and is solely about flatwork. Yes! After that we will be starting obstacle basics, including crate games, and using the crates as if they were obstacles. YES!!

She said that training collars and head collars and harnesses are not allowed in class. I said that I have a puppy who will lunge toward things he wants and that I don't feel comfortable with having a leash attached to his collar rather than harness. She said that I could bring the harness at first and we would work through it, but that "harnesses are useless in class". Something about the way she said it ruffled my feathers, and I felt my body become stiff and I know I got a hard look on my face. (I have trouble sometimes when people tell me things I don't want agree with.) I don't like the thought of working Cai on a leash going to his collar. With Dragon, I worked him on a harness until he was focused enough that I didn't need to have him on leash, and then I introduced an agility martingale/lead combo to get him used to it before trialing. Same with obedience work -- on the harness until he heeled so well that the leash was decorative. Well, I need to do more IYC and focus work, and then Chimera will stop lunging at OMG STUFF, and the issue will be moot.

Something else I liked was that she said that her dogs have no leash walking skills, because they rarely get leash walks and she doesn't care about it, and they have phenomenal heeling/circle work skills that she can cue if needed. Wish I could say the same thing for myself, but as a pet dog trainer I really need to have a dog with good leash skills or it will reflect poorly on me. Plus, it's giving me good experience to draw on when teaching clients.

I just looked up the instructor's profile again on Ace's website, and she went through one of Bob Bailey's chicken camps. This is all looking quite good.

Recap for today

Very slow hike in Redwood this morning. Chimera had a good recall and was getting good socialization off leash when he was a baby, but right now he has to be on a ten foot line because of his reactivity and poor recall. Repeat to self: it's just adolescence. Just keep plugging away.

I brought hot dogs and boiled chicken, and sometimes he ate it but much of the time he was overstimlated and turned it down or spit it out. Hung out at the entrance for a long time, rewarding him for looking calmly at dogs and people. He was still eating food here unless a dog got within ten feet, so we got good practice in. After this food beginning, his reactivity level was low for the rest of the trip. I was pleasantly surprised to see a decrease in his worry about people with hats and walking sticks. Still a lot of over-sniffing of dogs, especially at the beginning, and I had to pull him away a few times. Also worked on stopping when he was at the end of the line, putting in a bit of slack so there wasn't tension, and waiting for eye contact (a la Kay Laurence).

At home, introduced birch for Nosework to replace the green tea bags, which didn't smell as strongly and the smell didn't carry very well. Lots of reminders to myself to go very slowly with raising the challenge level. Warmed him up with lots of treats for nose targeting the tin, then did a few very easy hides in the kitchen. He was happy to nose the tin, but his body language really lit up with excitement when I hid the tin behind my back and he heard it snap to the fridge door. Proof that he enjoys the hunt!

Practiced metal scent articles, with a pile of eight canning rings. Was 100% correct in picking up the right one, and I was extra pleased that he was bringing it toward me and even toward my hand rather than just playing with it. I really need to get my leather articles. Not working on a formal send or front yet, just his understanding of selecting the correct article.

Started to shape picking up a plastic pill bottle. I want him to be able to retrieve more items. Realized that I need to add a verbal cue ("bring it") to the behavior with known objects, so that I can tell him what I want with new objects.

Worked on picking up the dumbbell from the floor. (He prefers to take it from my hand.) Set it in fun places, then tossed it just around the doorframe so that he had to go look for it. Saw his body language perk up as he would locate it. Brought it back to my hand 100% of the time -- big improvement!

Played tug with the squirrel and asked him to sit or down in between tugging. He correctly sat, then sat again, then laid down, and after that he started to just stare at me blankly when I said "sit". He might have been guessing or cuing off inadvertent body cues the first two times. I hate not having a reliable verbal response to sit and down, but I also hate working on instilling it. Ugh.

For agility, worked on sit-stay - focus forward - go! with shortened tunnel, tossing a long-handled rabbit fur tug as a reward. He may be starting to figure the focus forward thing out. I stopped working on it for a number of weeks because he couldn't figure it out and would get stressed.

Napped in his crate while I left to teach two classes. Not one of four expected students showed up. Spent ninety minutes chatting with Alison and Metro Dog staff members.

After not peeing all day since the hike, Cai had to go multiple times in the evening. I'm keeping him close by because he's still not reliable if he's loose with access to the living room. Three or four times, he started to bug me -- paw or bark at me or even pull on my sleeves -- when he had to pee. Good boy, sort of. At first I thought that he was just being a bored puppy, but he kept at it until I figured out what he wanted.

Of course we also spent lots of time cuddling and I told him how much I love him and what a wonderful, adorable puppy he is.

Before bed I will brush his teeth and his fluffy fur.

Conformation class

Took the Monster to the Braveheart drop in conformation practice, and he blew me away with how focused and well-behaved he was! No reactivity when he came in (it helped that the other students all had small dogs), and he heeled happily next to me with only occassional "I wanna go play!!" lunging toward the Frenchies. He let Vicki check his teeth and touch him all over. He even held a down-stay while Vicki purposefully walked between us! Of course it helped that I was waving boiled chicken in his face the entire time, but even so he was watching my face and body more than staring at the chicken, and he was solidly in working mode for the second half of class. Go Monster!

The other students were very impressed with his behavior at just six months old, until Vicki blew my cover as a professional trainer. :P

After class he got to play with one of the Frenchies and had a blast out-running her, haha!

Agility update

Third lesson in our new agility class. We continued doing our own thing, working on foundation. I did some jump work, building value for the jump by tossing a food tube with his new raw food to the other side and sending him over. Also did some practice wrapping around the standard while I stood facing it. I didn't see much drive or love for the jump, which surprised me, since we've done a handful of sessions like this already. But I think it was just the distracting environment that didn't allow him to relax, as this morning we did the same exercises and he was happily hopping over the 2 inch bar, even after I said, "Take a break."

Put him on a tippy board and rewarded him for walking back and forth and on and off.

Crate games, lots and lots and lots of chicken for staying in his crate. Some practice releasing him from the crate while I stood ahead of it (facing away) and rewarding at my side. Sending to crate.

My favorite part of the night was doing flat work with his food bowl. I would send him to the food bowl and drop a treat in when he went to it. He picked up on this immediately since at home he's had lots of practice waiting while I set the bowl down and then being sent to it. After some repetitions of that, I challenged him to follow my handling past the bowl or away from it, and rewarded that either with a treat in my hand or by then turning him around and sending him back to the bowl. He did SO well with this exercise considering it was his first time. That's foundation for you!

I used only food as a reward because he's been less interested in tugging for the past few days. I think it's because he's teething and it's less comfortable. No problem, I'll just give him a break until he's ready to play.

I decided to stop practicing stays except when on his mat or in his crate or on a another target. He needs to learn the concept and self-control in those easier contexts.

I vowed to practice more flatwork utilizing his crate and mat. Getting him fluent with the front and rear crosses, post turns, sends, acceleration, and deceleration can all be done without obstacles adding extra distractions and criteria. I learned this from the awesome book Agility Right From the Start. This brings up the question of whether I should continue with this agility class, which is quite a way ahead of us and we're just doing our own exercises anyway. There are only two more lessons in the session I paid for, so I'll go to those and then will probably take a break and wait for a more appropriate class to come along.


This morning Chimera got his whole breakfast via the food tube, doing jump foundation and flatwork. I was able to integrate some circle work into the jump practice. We could start doing the "Bermuda Triangle" exercise with jumps, which is from the book. Did lots of matwork and got him driving to the mat from a short distance, then coming to my side, following my handling to go next to the mat or send to it. It was great fun!

Second agility class

I was so proud of Chimera during agility today! He had excellent focus for a baby that's not even five months old yet. Only one other student showed up, the bearded collie. Chimera pulled toward him when we entered the building but there was no alarm or frustration barking and his tail was wagging widely. We worked off leash the entire time, and twice he decided to run over to the beardie. The dog would then playbow and jump on top of Cai, who would get scared and start biting in defense. Then I would retrieve him and tell him that he was being stupid. But the rest of class went great.

We were able to take more steps during circle work than before, and do more straight lines. Cai has gotten a LOT of reinforcement for moving at my side, thanks to practicing circle work, heeling, and loose leash walking, and it's really showing. Here and there he'd get distracted, and it was an opportunity to call him back and restart, and hopefully teach him that he doesn't get any reward for leaving my side.

I brought his soft crate this time, and after three previous sessions of crate games, he was running into it happily. I'm now able to use it to practice some easy things that usually require a start line stay or a restrained recall, such as releasing him and rewarding him for coming to my side, which we did for the first time. Other things we practiced with the instructor holding him, but which I could also use crate games for: accelerating past me to a thrown toy, and running up to me and stopping at my side if I am stopped (deceleration).

He went through a (shortened) tunnel for the first time, again with the instructor restraining him and me calling him on the other side. He didn't seem to develop any love for the tunnel, but was willing to go through. (Dragon developed an immediate love for tunnels and never needed specific training to drive through them!)

This past week I have done two sessions of standing at a jump stanchion and rewarding Cai for going back and forth over the bar on the ground. I have also practiced restraining him at my side and tossing a toy forward and releasing him to run to it, or setting out food and releasing him to it. Today I combined the two skills and tossed a toy over the lowered jump, and he ran over the bar to get it. He tried to run around with his sock tug at first, but he brought it to me or dropped it and came to me when I called him!! That's huge progress!

Our stay training has been very slow. Down stays have been reinforced more, because I reward a default down while I am prepping his and Jasper's food in the kitchen. (Otherwise he launches himself upward at the counter, even from a sit.) With sits, I often reward sitting momentarily (such as in front) and then reset him, so he tends to get up automatically after his reward. So in class today I practiced slow treats in a sit at my side, and then added just a little bit of motion with my outside leg. With the down stay I was able to take up to two steps at a time to the side, but not backwards (which has become a cue to come sit in front).

The last thing we practiced was running to a front foot target. We've done about ten sessions with this, but because one of my requirements is that he stay on the target without spinning/pivoting around to face me, I'm still using a very high rate of reinforcement to keep him standing still. This could be used for a 2o2o contact, but I'm going to do a modified four on the floor with him. However it's still a useful foundation to teach him to run and then stop and stay still, which is part of any stopped contact behavior, as well as the moving stand and drop on recall in obedience. I enjoy teaching foundation skills when I can see how they'll come up in many different ways in the future. But it's also fun to start putting his baby skill sets together!