When Things Don't Go To Plan

Pretty crap video quality as it's just from my digital camera, (hopefully a Flip is on Santa's pressie list)  but it shows the type of one armed training we have been doing for the past month.

Ever since Ivy arrived, I have been writing a list of the things I want to focus on with her each month and putting it on the fridge as a reminder but thanks to my own stupidity resulting in an accident involving a broken window, jagged glass and severing muscles and a nerve in my arm, the November list certainly hasn't gone to plan.

It could have been a lot worse and I am truly thankful that I am still around to blog about it, but I figure that almost 6 weeks of splinting, huge discomfort, feeling helpless and the ugliest scar out at least gives me some credibility in having a little pity party - but on the scale of things I promise it's very little indeed.

Training related, the things that I am most pissed about are:

-Missing the Susan Garrett seminar, especially after I had paid for both the seminar and accommodation.

-Missing my favourite trial, Warrnambool, with the kelpies.  At least Ivy got to go along for a beach holiday and some more trial socialisation and focus work outside the rings.

-Having to put an enforced halt on a lot of the work we were doing, espcecially when she was making such good progress.  We were just about to start alphabet drills and double box work, but these have been put on the back burner - hopefully for not too much longer.  Seesaw training has also been put off for a bit as I really feel I need 2 arms to train it safely the way I want.

My long hair has also gone as I couldn't manage it with one hand, so I now have a new much shorter haircut to get used to which will also take me some time.

Luckily there are a lot of positives to come out of our revised training plan for the past month.  Not being able to do so much has meant that I have probably looked a lot more closely at what we have done, rather than just thinking 'that's ok' and moving on.  So our focus has been:

-more crate games, and trying to invent some creative ways of using crates.  We have been using two crates to teach a verbal left and right cue.  I don't know that I will ever use this on course, but she is totally nailing it and we have had a lot of fun with it.  I have also been recalling from the crate with a high value ball on the ground in various positions where she has to come to me and tug first before I release her to the ball.

-lots of startline work and lead outs, as you can see on the video.  I have been trying to vary the angle and distance of the jumps to really get her to think about her jumping. 

-revisiting 'jump around the clock' type work with one jump, varying how close I set her up to it.  She generally finds her take off point a lot better when I set her way back compared to when I set her up close so this is something that I need to be aware of and may need to use a stride regulator at some stage.

-set point exercise using the spread jump in loads of different configurations.

-recalling through the weaves, which is something that I always focused on when teaching channels but haven't done so much with 2X2's.

-continuing with lowered contacts, the A Frame is almost at full height now and I am planning on the dogwalk going up next week, once I can get back to adding some run bys to the recalls and sends.

-some straight line work involving a tunnel, 2 jumps and a table. (Thanks Trish)

Last week my splint was shortened so I now have 2 good hands at least, and the splint is a lot lighter so I don't need the sling any more.  Yesterday I was able to start on push through threadles with her which she had no problems with.   I have to say this whole experience has also made me realise how much more important good positioning and shoulder movement is rather than sticking your arm out and pointing, so another positive thing to come out of it and a lesson I need to remember.  Plus I already have a training list ready and waiting for me for the next couple of months when this splint finally comes off.

So I am grateful that I am still here to spend time with my amazing Ivy and that she loves me unconditionally - no matter how many arms I have and what my hair looks like and how cranky I feel sometimes.  Fingers crossed for getting back to normal training soon.

Coming and Going

Love working with this girl so much......... Love trying to work with Photoshop so much and once I get around to reading the 'dummies' book that has been sitting on my desk for the past 3 months I may love it even more......... if I ever get this layer thing figured out that is.

I really enjoy reading Nancy Gye's blog on training her new dog (see the link on my Blog List)  and a few weeks back she had a great post where she compared her training to Greg Derrett's '3 point system' relating to which way to turn your dog around a jump.  I thought it might be helpful to do the same thing with Ivy's training at the moment so being a bit of a compulsive 'list chick' I am going to steal the idea and look at 'where we are coming from' and 'where we are going to'. 

First up - FLATWORK
Coming From : A ton of foundation here, especially Circle Running and incorporating Crate Games.  This is one area where I think I have done a much better job than with any of my other dogs, but as knowledge of its importance increases I guess it is pretty much a no-brainer that its training improves with each dog.  I am a bit of a foundation junkie and have done a few seminars with different presenters, but I would have to say that last year's seminar with Laura Derrett was a big turning point for me - for the first time I actually saw how each exercise, no matter how trivial it might seem, forms the basis for something very specific in the Derrett system down the track.
Going To : Continuing Circle Running for life !  (I have been slack over Winter in this area and need to get back to it, especially those inside circles)  Adding lots and lots of distractions using Crate Games and my start line procedure.  Beginning change of arm = change of line foundation on the flat.

SHAPING
Coming From : Most of our proprioception exercises were taught with a clicker and also some simple 'tricks' like going to a mat, backing up, getting into a basket and things like that.  I am using a verbal bridge more often as the sight of the clicker sends her nuts and she immediately goes into a frenzy of offering behaviours.
Going To:  Using the clicker more often without it sending her nuts!  Documenting trick training more regularly than I do.  At the moment we are working on speak on command and standing on my shoes between my legs, kinda 'doggy dancing' style.

WEAVES
Coming From : 12 Poles taught with 2X2's.  Speed and footwork developing plus some good independent entries.  Can front cross at the end and rear cross the beginning.
Going To : Different environments, different sets of poles and lots of distractions.  Proofing staying in the poles whatever I do.  Consolidating speed and footwork. 

CONTACTS
Coming From : Lowered dogwalk and A Frame - recalls, sends and run-bys.  Working on sticking that end position no matter what I do and understanding of release cue.  Beginning 'bang' game on lowered seesaw.
Going To : Adding more distractions and further proofing of holding end position.  Working up to full height obstacles.  Deciding on which method I will use to train the seesaw so we can build on working the end behaviour - leaning toward 2 table method at the moment.

Something funny that came out of her contact training has been trying to get her to tug on the end of the contact.  She thinks I am offering her the tug as an 'it's your choice moment' and absolutely refuses to take it.  Ideally I would like her to tug while maintaining her position on the end but there is no convincing her that this is OK to do so.  She literally clamps her teeth together, turns her head away from me if I try to insist and then gives me this look that says, ' you can't trick me, I know I'm not allowed to take it until I finish my job and you release me.'  Then when I do release her she lunges at it and tugs like crazy.

Another funny habit she has is if I make her stay for what she considers to be too long a period of time on the startline, she gives this little growl as she takes off, sort of like a war cry.  That one cracks me up and I confess that every now and then I really drag out leaving her and releasing her just to hear it.

JUMPING - A whole entry in itself !  And I'm way too tired for now so this will have to be for another instalment.

There She Weaves by Night and Day

Ivy at 13 months - all grown up now. Her puppy days seem to have gone in a flash.

When I first downloaded the photos for this post, Ivy had started her 2 X2 weave training a few days earlier and had clocked up 8 very short sessions.

3 weeks later (yep, that's dial up for you- LOL) she is weaving 2 sets of 6 poles with a short gap between them which I plan on starting to close up at our next training session.

Ivy is the first dog that I have actually taught to weave from start to finish using this method, although I did use it with Cruz to train his entries after I taught him to weave on channels.

Although not quite '12 poles in 12 days' (which I certainly wasn't aiming for) I am still blown away by just how fast this method actually is. It's the first thing everyone says about it and you hear this over and over, but I think you have to experience it yourself before it really sinks in.

Same thing with the entries - they are truly mind-blowing at times and although a lot more proofing will need to take place over the next few months, I can't believe what this baby dog can do. Currently she is making entries that my Masters level dog would struggle with - after around 4 weeks of training.

It hasn't been all smooth sailing though - some people write about training this method and make it sound like it was all too easy from start to finish. It's easy to watch the DVD too and think that it's not that difficult to get results. Not even considering the fact that Susan Garrett is a highly experienced world class trainer, it does say on the DVD that what you see is a 'compilation' over a number of training sessions so even though we get to see some of the 'failed attempts' we don't get to see how many of them there actually were which makes the training process appear that it's really going fast.

One thing that I would have liked included with the DVD would be to see the success rate percentage from each of the sessions that the demo dog had. From my experience with Ivy, there were a couple of what I would call critical points where her success rate plummeted for a bit before coming back up again. I have a friend also currently training this method with her young BC and when we discussed our results we found that we both experienced this at around the same points in our training. This is not something that I found with teaching channel weaves, where the success rate percentage climbed slowly but steadily at each session, or maybe it's just a training kelpies V BC thing ?

So would I use this method again ? Absolutely, especially now that I have worked through it and have had the chance to use some 'problem solving' along the way. Would I recommend it to everyone ? Yes, but with some cautions.

Firstly, as SG says also in the beginning, you really need a dog that is comfortable with the shaping process and understands offering behaviours. Although I have trained Ivy with shaping right from the beginning, there were still occasional times when we ran into a stumbling block and I got all the associated stress behaviours of barking, spinning, doing zoomies, etc. Dealing with this, or with a dog that lies down and refuses to offer any behaviour at all, is hard and I think at these points you have to know your dog well enough to make a judgement call about how to continue. Plus it was also a first for me having a dog that defintiely 'stresses up' rather than down and was not easy to deal with at first, hopefully I have a bit more of a handle on it now.

For an inexperienced trainer, I would think that you need someone to actually demonstrate each stage along the way - I have seen a number of people training it from the DVD only who are not necessarily doing it 'right'- even though the DVD is very comprehensive it's still a lot to take in. After watching it 3 times now, I'm still getting little bits and pieces out of it that I missed the first couple of times. And people are very impatient. (Including me at times !) You only have to look on You Tube to see some of the liberties people have taken with this method, and to me this is not a method that lends itself well to 'a little bit of this and a lot of my own spin.' I am using it in one of my classes with a small group of students at the moment. Although I am pleased with their progress, it has taken a lot longer for them to work through and there have been a lot of misconceptions along the way, despite handouts and demonstrations given to them in most sessions. (The reward line concept appears to be one thing that is confusing to them for some reason)

Even as a more experienced trainer, I was glad to be able to compare notes with my friend - and there were times for both of us (no matter how brief they were) where we questioned whether this was going to be the best method for us when working alone. It was a big help when we shared our experience and discovered we had both faced similar things. This is the downside when you use a method that is not currently being taught at most clubs and many people have heard of it and watched the DVD but never actually tried it, or worse, watched it once and then believe they are an expert.

I also think you need to have the confidence to be able to work through any problems that arise. SG has really good troubleshooting tips available - and luckily for me the majority of problems Ivy had were covered. But there were a couple of times (those previously mentioned critical points) where her accuracy went right down and I had to deal with this, plus any stress signs she showed. An understanding of latent learning is helpful at these times, plus record keeping where you look for signs of stress, not always as obvious as that exhibited by a crazy BC but very important to be aware of and to understand how far you can actually 'push'.

Just for the record, my main critical point was:

-with 2 sets of 2X2's, the first rotation after the poles were already at 1 o'clock and 7 o'clock - this obviously changed the picture for her a lot more than it seemed to as this session clocked up 30% accuracy compared to the 90% recorded in the session before. All of a sudden she got totally stuck at going in the wrong side of the poles on the right although she had never done that before.

There were also a couple of 'lesser' ones along the way which I won't go into as this post is probably already boring enough for anyone not training weaving with their dog, and maybe even boring for those who are. (Yes, it's all about me - LOL)

My highlights along the way are :

-watching her weave 6 poles on video for the first time.

-adding a jump (and then a tunnel) before the poles and seeing her run a jump-tunnel-jump-poles sequence ....... I can't believe that the first sequence I have ever run with this dog actually included weave poles.

-and the big one for me........... weaving 6 poles outside the ring at club training last week while her 'bestest gal pal Sassy' tugged with her mum right alongside the poles. (We 'repaid' the favour when Sassy had her go !)

So a big vote in favour of 2 X 2's and everything that training them has taught me along the way. I would love to hear from anyone else who has trained them and what their experiences were rather than just the stock standard forum comments implying that it was easy to get the dog weaving using this method, but then the follow up that they 'tweaked' the method a bit.

Hopefully I will have just as favourable things to report about her contact training in a few weeks time, which has also begun to transfer from her travel board to lowered contact equipment. We will see how that pans out - so far 4 out of 4 dogs with sucky A Frames (except for Cruz on the occasions he gets his striding right and nails it ) - can I finally train one that I actually like with Ivy ? Watch this space I guess. My beautiful 'ball girl' relaxing between training sessions - and one 'up close and personal.'

A Border Collie in Kelpie Town

Last weekend Ivy became an honorary kelpie and tagged along with her 'big brothers' to the Casterton Kelpie Muster. She obviously felt that having Atilla and Cruz there gave her some legitimate kelpie street cred as she bounced around full of confidence all day, almost like a furry balloon on a string when things excited her .... like the street parade complete with very loud bagpipes, the pens of sheep, a whole bunch of people to kiss up to looking for a pat and of course all those kelpies. Did I mention that it doesn't really take all that much to excite her ?

Sitting pretty with L down by the old railway yards ...... now where did all the kelpies go ?

Posing at Island Park where all the bales of hay give some atmosphere to the auction held on the following day.

She really has her 'big girl' face now and at 510mm at the shoulder (or thereabouts as she looks absolutely identical to Atilla in height) I think she is pretty close to fully grown - hopefully anyway. This week she has a new 'big girl' collar, a new 'big girl' bowl and we are phasing out the puppy food for 'big girl' food. So I guess my baby is a baby no longer. This time between 12 and 14 months is a real transition time for me in her training. All the foundation work we have done will hopefully pay dividends when I apply it to equipment, which she is almost ready for, but it's so important not to rush things before she is totally ready. These couple of months are the danger time for me in that respect where it is so tempting to start start stringing things together but I know it's still better to wait and to really consolidate her foundation work.

And her favourite thing from Casterton after all the kelpies ? Toss up between the pens of sheep, the indian runner ducks and all the wonderful smells along the main street.

Happy First Birthday

I can't believe how quickly Ivy's first birthday has come around. It seems like only yesterday that she looked like this ...........

And all of a sudden the puppy has morphed into this ............

I decided on a very feminine theme for her birthday cakes, after all with hobbies that include excavating, gardening, swimming, ball chasing and sheep stalking through the fence, she is such a beautifully groomed 'girlie dog'.

This was part of her cupcake tree - unfortunately some doggie taste testing had already taken place before I thought about photographing it. But if you squint a bit and tilt your head you won't notice that there are actually a few cakes missing.

She didn't get to eat the icing, as Border Collies and sugar are not really that good a mix, but it didn't effect how quickly her cake disappeared anyway.

Looking back on her training I am very happy with where she is at 12 months. My main goal was to have what GD calls 'really brilliant circles' by now - I'm not sure if I would describe them as brilliant just yet especially by his standards, but they are pretty close.

Her toy drive is outstanding - she will tug with absolutely anything I present, any time and anywhere, which was also pretty high on the goal list. She has a very solid stay, thanks to crate games and also what I would call a good 'off/on switch.' We have done a few Susan Salo jump bump grids, although not to excess, and I am also very pleased with her work on these. At the moment I am working on her end position for contacts on a travel board and on the end of an extremely lowered A Frame (the wonders of a long length of chain !) and next month I will start weave training with her.

I love working with this gorgeous girl so much and I am so very grateful that her breeder decided to take a chance on sending her so far away to me. So Happy Birthday sweet Ivy and may you stay just as driven to work as you are right now for the next 12 months ! I have lots of new things in store for you over the next few months.

Ivy Out and About

One thing that I really neglected when training my other dogs was getting the 'show on the road' and proofing behaviours in lots of different locations. Not that I didn't do it, but I wasn't very creative when choosing where to train and ended up going to local ovals and streets where they always had a similar level of noise and distractions to deal with.

As I am now paying for this big time with Cruz, I have been trying very hard not to make the same mistake with Ivy and so I am aiming to fill a list with 50 different (read the more unusual the better) locations where she will tug with me regardless of what is going on around her.

So far we have clocked up the car park at the local market, right on the automatic doors at the supermarket, inside the container at training while all the equipment is being wheeled out and banged around (luckily they forgive my little eccentricities at training!), directly under the flight path at Bulla (literally the last place the planes are still in the sky before they land at Melbourne airport), at the local skateboard park when it's full of kids on bikes and scooters, on the beach, right beside my neighbour's fence with his sheep directly on the other side (big points for that one), at the Airey's Inlet lighthouse and beside the local tennis courts with kiddy coaching going on. Probably not all that creative compared to what some other people do in terms of adding distractions when tugging, but way more than I did with the other dogs, so at least it's a start.

And she was more than happy to tug with me in every one of these locations, no matter what was going on around her.

Lately she's not as obsessive over the kelpies as she was, but she does love running with them when she gets the chance, usually at the beach.

Our new favourite is Anglesea, easy 2 hour drive so not as far as Warrnambool and nowhere near as crowded as it is over Summer. Plus around the middle of the day the tide is out so you can walk across the mouth of the river which doubles the size of the beach.

On this day it was so deserted everywhere we went that they even got to run on the beach at Lorne as well, usually way too touristy to even consider off lead running on the beach.

The lighthouse at Airey's Inlet aka tugging location #15. I would have even considered doing some circle running around it if there hadn't been a crowd waiting to go inside on a tour - the only place that we visited that actually wasn't deserted. I'm sure I looked a big enough nutter as it was tugging all around it, especially given some people's reaction to tugging. When we started obedience with Yasser years ago, we were told that tugging was the devil's tool and I believed it until I got into agility. Now I know better, blind crosses are the devil's tool.
Ivy on the beach at Lorne. Complete with her autograph in the sand, sort of like a canine Hollywood stars boulevard - and a split second before she couldn't wait any longer and had to hit the water.

That's more like it - throw the ball ! Not her prettiest look when she's all wet, but she loves it.



Wonder how my contact training travel board is going to fare on the beach next time - just kidding, although it's definitely a thought .............

Might As Well Face it.... You're Addicted To Circle Running

My beautiful girl is now 9 and a half months old ...... where did the time go - it only seems like yesterday that I was picking her up and bringing her home.


Two weeks holidays are coming up and all I am thinking about at the moment is how many mornings I will get up at 7am (or earlier once daylight saving time is finished) and drive to the local oval or the showgrounds so we can do some serious circle running. My non-agility friends at work are horrified when I mention this plan so it's got me thinking that maybe I am just the tiniest bit obsessed with running around in circles.......


When Greg Derrett was here earlier last year he was adamant that to succeed in running his system you need to have brilliant circle running with your dog. Although I ran circles with the kelpies during their foundation training (and plan to revisit them with both shortly) it wasn't my top priority with either of them as I was too busy training other things - like obsessive nose touches with Cruz for example.
Derrett's comment should have been a no brainer but was a big lightbulb moment for me. At the time I struggled with whether I should even write it down, let alone live it and breathe it. After all, who wants to spend so much time running around in circles - or running in any shape or form if I am honest about it.


Well, I bit the proverbial bullet, dedicated a page in my training journal to Circle Running (which has now turned into 2 pages and will shortly hit page number 3) and set a goal to focus on having brilliant circles by the time Ivy was 12 months old - well very good ones at least !

After a couple of months of training circles, I found I was actually enjoying running them and looked forward to doing them again. Which makes me think that I may be just a little bit addicted- especially now that I am planning getting up early on my holidays to run them in as many different locations as I can.
But there is something truly addictive about circle running with a dog that really enjoys it and actually tries to follow your body and match your pace. Not to mention the crazed tugging in between. As compared to 2 kelpies where number one runs great circles- about 5 metres away from your side and just about has a melt down if you ask him to come in closer to your leg. (Yes, he is a good Gamblers dog ) And number 2 is like a big sooky la-la lagging about a metre behind you because he only wants to do dogwalks with aforementioned obsessive nose touches, not run around with you. (Think we'll be revisiting motivation and reinforcement with kelpies as well.)


We have trained other things and not just circle running - honest ! I even have the videos (which I still don't seem to be able to post) and photos to prove it.
Here's Ivy playing 'It's Your Choice' with a toy - which is way harder for her than with food.
Her stays are really coming along well and she has been used quite a bit lately as 'demo dog' at club on Friday nights when instructors are teaching stays with distractions. I am very proud of her work but realise that we still have a lot further to go as although she is fine with everyone standing around watching, running dogs are still a big distraction for her - especially in the first 5 minutes of class before the tugging obsession really takes over.

And here she is posing in front of a jump bump grid - she loves these exercises and we are about to start some bend work plus some further 'problem solving' by dressing up the jump standards with streamers, pot plants, wings and anything else I can find in the shed/man cave.

But Circle Running still remains our top priority and I find that I am finally nodding my head and agreeing with GD when he talks about its importance, rather than screwing up my face and thinking that I really don't want to do this.

So why do I believe it's so important? It's teaching Ivy to respond to my body movement, plus building an understanding of the concepts of Blind Cross Body Line, Reinforcement Zone, Acceleration and Deceleration - all of which are vital to the Derrett system. The key is to build value for her being in the Reinforcement Zone (a concept that I didn't quite 'get' with the kelpies) so we have incorporated lots of play and reinforcement into the early training and still continue to do so even now when we can run larger and faster circles.

My ideal picture of Ivy's circle work - from my training diary- is:
Ivy runs at my side with no lagging, no forging ahead, no pushing on my line, no shaping of the circle itself, no crossing in front of me, no crossing behind me. Ivy also matches my pace when I accelerate and decelerate. Ivy can run both outside and inside circles of different sizes and can change sides on outside circles when I incorporate a front cross on the flat.


Our weaknesses would be :
Occasionally forging ahead on inside circles, although we are improving at this. Plus occasionally trying to dictate the size of the circle if she doesn't think I am running fast enough for her.


And my reminders to myself when running circles are:
Play often, carry the toy in both hands as well as in my pocket, make sure I am using the toy as a reward and not as a lure, reward quickly, mix in some straight line running with the circles if I feel she is dictating the size of the circle or forging ahead, run in as many locations as possible and add distractions when she is ready for them - which is probably now.

If there are any other circle running addicts out there - please make contact. We can form a support group if necessary and share circle running tips ...... which will make me feel better about what a tragic I am becoming when that alarm goes off next week at 6am !

Playing With Fireworks

8 months old and here's her monthly portrait straight out of the camera. She's looking a lot more grown up these days and gets lots of compliments about how pretty she is - no thanks to my spectacular lack of grooming skills I might add. A good brush is definitely in order for those ears.


This week I've been playing a CD of various noises when we tug inside. Not that she shows any signs of being noise sensitive in any way, even when I turn it up pretty loud, but I figure it can't hurt. So far we've gotten through 4 tracks of fireworks - which almost scared the crap out of me until I got used to it as it sounded like a full blown missile attack ..... or what I imagine one would sound like. On Friday evening we got some real life practice in when some moron on a motorbike decided to ride around the oval while we were at agility training. I am happy to report that she kept on tugging happily and didn't even look at him. Next week we have the delights of 'crow scarer' (whatever that is) , shotgun and light aircraft to look forward to. However this time I intend to preview them first so they don't scare me!


Training priorities are still circle running , circle running and more circle running - plus a whole load of playing with as many different toys as I can find. Adding distractions is also progressing well - I have been playing an 'off switch/on switch' game where I jump around like a mad woman and really get her revved up, then while she is leaping around and barking I ask her to sit. Then I start the jumping around, making silly noises, arm flapping stuff again and she is not allowed to join in until she hears her release word. She loves this game just as much as she loves tugging and would play for ages if I let her. (Way too tiring for me though!)


We've also started some brief rear cross foundation in front of the TV of an evening. This is one I am going to have to watch carefully as after the first couple of times she really started to anticipate and move her head before I had actually crossed behind her. As I don't want to create a flick away I will need to work at refining this.

We've also been working stays at home with distractions in as many different outdoor places as I can think of - I can throw toys in front of her and drop food beside her and she won't move. Last night I got her to sit on my small table in the agility area and ran off a couple of times then went back to reward if she didn't move. At one stage when I returned she was sitting in the strangest position with her head down and when I got back to the table I realised she had dropped her food on the ground and was trying to reach it without moving from her sit.

She is also loving plank work with the middle section of my dogwalk on the ground. At first I was taking her dinner outside and clicking and rewarding any interaction with the plank - she was super confident with this and it didn't take long before she was sitting, dropping and turning around on it. Then I used some stick in the ground poles (visualise the markers on a broad jump) on either side of each end of the plank to give it some more definition and started backchaining her running across the plank to a toy. Now she is flying across the plank and loves this game. If I was able to post video, you would see her speeding across with me running along (way) behind and the title ' Why I don't intend to teach a running dogwalk.' And the sub title 'When rewarding away from you your throwing skills need much work'. And the reminder 'Do not position plank near trees.'

Over the next few weeks I will be thinking about how I will train her contacts as I still haven't decided. We have been nose touching to my hand almost since she arrived - I am going to use this to line her up at the start line- plus I have started introducing a target disc in my hand and almost have it to the floor. I know I want a stopped dogwalk, but am still not sure if I am actually going to train a nose touch as I did with Cruz. Although there are a lot of things I like about the nose touch there are also a few things that 'the jury is still out on.' Looking forward to auditing the Lynda Orton-Hill seminar in a few weeks time to see what she does with training nose touches before I make my decision. At least the target disc will be a good party trick if I decide not to go with it.

Girl's Day Out

This is Ivy's new 'gal pal' Sassy, a 10 month old BC owned by a fellow agility competitor. For anyone who reads my 'Agility Kelpies' blog, Sassy is the star of the Greg Derrett DVD watching post made last year.

She has turned into a rather stunning girl, don't you think ? Plus she has brains as well as beauty, her only 'fault' is that she appears to think that she might be a mountain goat rather than a BC and has a whole list of 'objects successfully scaled from a great height' to prove it.

Last weekend we met up, along with another trialler who has an 8 month old pup and had our own puppy workshop. We did circle running, crate work, the puppy set point exercise from Susan Salo's 'Puppy Jumping' DVD, some stay and release work and of course play, play, play and more play. Very exciting for Ivy who hasn't done much training around other dogs - apart from ours. This was the first time she has done off lead work in a strange environment with some high level distractions and I was very pleased with the results.

No, she wasn't perfect and we had a couple of run offs to visit the other puppies, but all up I was happy with her focus, especially when she was working with me. She stayed with me 100% when working and gave me really good focus, plus she never broke a single stay, whether waiting to be released from her crate while I ran off or working stays around the others. Mostly the 'run offs' occurred once when I threw a toy for her to retrieve and on the way back to me she spied her mates, and a couple of times when we had finished and were returning offlead to her crate.

It was a very valuable session in that it showed up several holes in my training that I still need to fix - and without 'trying her out' offlead I wouldn't have gotten that information. Although I don't want her rehearsing 'unwanted' behaviours, I believe there comes a time when you have to put what you have to the test rather than always controlling and manipulating the environment that you train in. In the words of Susan Garrett, ' You should always set the dog up for success, yet at the same time he should experience enough environmental challenge and freedom that he does occasionally fail. This approach allows the dog to learn the boundaries of correct and incorrect responses.'

I believe this is something I did wrong with the kelpies as I didn't let them fail enough.

All the puppies did very well and there were 3 happy owners at the end of the session - still with 'lists' to work on I'm sure. Mine reads :

*Circle running - watch for forging ahead in different environment, she doesn't tend to do this at home.

*Continue to build value for motivators.

*Recall - still needs work. (Don't bother when she is running around with other puppies having a ball, although after they had run for about 30 seconds to a minute they did recall no problems, so maybe still working on recalling first time, every time, which would also relate directly to the value of the motivator.)

*More sessions like this one to continue to work on high level distractions.

It's hot today so we've been working on crate games under the trees. I need to find some higher level distractions for this as she has a rock solid stay in the crate and won't come out no matter what I do without being released. At our puppy session I even led out so she had to run directly past other puppies to get to me and she didn't even look at them.

In between the 'photo session' we worked on sending to the crate from every single extreme angle I could find and recalling for a game of tug incorporating lead out pivots on the flat, acceleration and deceleration. We can recall out of the crate from around the 20 metre mark and send in from around the same distance, so I'm pretty happy with that plus I'm also happy with the speed she is driving in and out of the crate.

Now I need to start a list of potential distractions, might be a good time to review the Crate Games DVD I guess. Any further ideas also gratefully received.

Show Me The Money

Ivy at seven months old today. She still hasn't really had the sudden growth spurt that both the kelpies had around 6 months but when I look back on photos from a few weeks ago, I realise that her change of height is gradually sneaking up on me.

I have been thinking hard about reinforcement and motivation lately and reading the post about reinforcement in this blog really struck a chord with me, so much so that I have printed it out for my training diary as a reminder of just how important building value for a motivator is.
And - wonder of wonders - once you actually have that high value, things like proofing for distractions become a lot easier. This is something that should be glaringly obvious but it's not something that I ever thought about until I read that post, strangely enough.

Since we have been lucky enough to have overseas trainers of the calibre of Susan Garrett and Greg & Laura Derrett visit these shores most of us who have been to their seminars have thought a lot more about reinforcement - and learnt that we are all extremely stingy when it comes to using it effectively. Ivy's training log has 'Building Reinforcement Zone' as one of the first pages, but when I looked back through Cruz's I couldn't find too many references to 'rate of reinforcement' and certainly none relating to RZ. In fact in most cases all I did was document what I actually used.

But after reading Justine's blog, I am now thinking reinforcement through one step further. It's not enough to have an extremely high rate of reinforcement, nor is it enough to have a dog that tugs and takes food willingly - although those things are highly desirable and a big step in the right direction. To go that extra distance you need a motivator that your dog is absolutely wild for - and this can be built up as part of your training process.

Ivy is the first dog I have had that is crazy about tugging and I think this has made me take this behaviour for granted in some ways. But there are many other things in her environment that she is also crazy about, so the first thing I have started to do is to test the value of her tug against other things.

My list so far, in order of (easiest first) my predicted difficulty :
1. Continue tugging with me when L. comes in the front door as she usually runs to greet him.
2. Continue tugging with me when L. comes outside and stands in the agility area.
3. Continue tugging with me when the 2 old dogs are walking outside agility area.
4.Continue tugging with me when L. runs around outside agility area, kicking ball.
5. Same behaviour but inside agility area.
6. Continue tugging with me when L. is running around outside agility area with kelpies.

So far we have passed numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 with flying colours. Have tried number 5 and she ran after the ball once but came straight back and tugged when I called, so this will now be our 'starting point' for distractions and also shows me that I can still build more value for the tug at home before I start to test it out in other environments.

I would have to say that the ball would have equal if not higher value at the moment - but I don't want another dog who is crazy about things that won't fit in my pocket, already have 2 of those! I know that a lot of trainers won't let their agility dogs play with balls at all, but at the end of the day, she is not an 'agility machine' and is still my pet so I don't really like the idea of taking away something that she absolutely adores and has fun playing with - at least the soccer ball is interactive. And depending on how I go building more value for the tug, I can still use the ball to transfer value if I have to.

So I'm off to add some more pages to my training diary - a further page to follow on from my RZ section that focuses on continuing to build value for reinforcers (rather than taking them for granted because your dog willingly 'does' them) and another page to focus on a list of ideas for more formal 'proofing' of behaviours that I am happy with so far - of which there are many, she's a great little girl. And one day, when I know I have that 'golden' motivator that kicks butt with all others, any time and anywhere, I will let you know !