Superpup

Not sure if I say this enough *wink*, but Dhali is Mr. Super-Awesome-pup.  He is so much fun. 

 Remember this spring when we took that seminar with Daisy Peel and she said Tibby was a party girl?  So wrong, so very, very wrong.  Tibby is a rule maker and rule enforcer.  Things that do not fit in Tibby's set of boxes must get away!  Far, far away!

Now if someone told me Dhali was a party boy I would say, "Ya, duh!"  

He plays with toys.  He likes to tug.  He brings the tug back to me, because???  OH I'm fun!  Wow.  Simple things that make me so, so, so happy. 

  He did tunnels and tugging and running and fetching balls.  He ran until his little tongue was hanging out of the side of his tiny mouth.  And he still wanted more.  He wanted more PLAYING WITH ME.  What?!?   But I said, "No.  We have to leave you wanting more.  Don't want to burn you out."  So he bounced off of the walls, couch, ran around barking, dug in the toy box.  Finally I gave in, "Ok a little more playing won't hurt.  In fact it might save the house from being torn apart!"  More fetching and now he is content to chew on a nice bully stick.

One of my biggest, important things that I worked on when he was little(er) was fetching.  I think it has payed off :)

Daisy Peel Seminar

So phase 1 of adventure week is over!  We went to the foundation session of Daisy Peel's seminar at Cloud Nine Dog Training in Hopkins, MN. 

Way back in 2011 I heard that Daisy was coming to MN and I thought, "Wouldn't it be neat to take her online class and then at the end of that class attend her seminar and meet her in person?!?"  So yup, that's what we did.

Oh, yeah and maybe I should have read the fine (or not so fine) print that said the session was from 1pm to 5pm.  Hmm, yeah that's 4 hours!  That's a long time for a dog to work and not have a putty fried brain.  Actually, that's a long time for ME to work and not turn into a zombie.

Yes, I turned into a zombie.

I signed up to audit the rear cross session which started at 6:30pm, but I was toasted by 5pm, so we left.  I looked at Tibby, I looked at the clock and then I thought about the 2 hour drive home.  It wasn't a very hard decision.

Daisy is like a totally normal, average person.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but she's OK.  Not scary or whatever like I had read in a few places.  In fact when we first walked in I didn't recognize her.  She's smaller than I thought she would be!! :P  Daisy said she thought Tibby looked bigger than she thought she would be LOL!   

Ahh the internets - where size is only relative.

The Cloud Nine place was nice.  Kind of small and built like a split level maze type (fill in your own word I'm tired).  They are having a teacup agility trial there at the end of the month.  It would be the perfect size for teacup agility!  Really, it was nice and all the people were very nice.

There were only 12 people there (1/2 working, 1/2 auditing), so it was really more like a semi-private lesson.

I want to say this in the nicest way possible, so please don't get offended:  Because I'm new to dog sports/agility/dog training I some times feel like I'm entering a new culture.  Have you ever been to a foreign country or high school???  It's like the first day of high school.  I try to soak everything in and figure out what these people are about.  So not only is the agility information new, but all the social stuff is too.  Like should I walk past you with my dog, if your dog is tugging or should I wait?  Is it OK to pet your dog if it comes up to me?  Or why would someone bring a dog they don't live with, but are planning on training and the dog's actual owners also are auditing, but they don't train the dog?  Confusing stuff.  :P

So anyway, Tibby did awesome.  She was CrAzY.  If she could have bounced off of the walls she would have.  Focus?  Not so much.  But I'll take crazy Tibby over scared Tibby any day.

My hand was actively bleeding 5 mins. into the seminar.  I think Tibby got a little ketchup with her hot dogs.  yuck! hee hee hee.  She has sharp teeth! 

She actually worked for 4 hours.  Right to the very end.  AND she played with her toy.  No issues, except that she wanted me to run around with her and actually play.

Of course, there were breaks for Daisy to lecture.  But for Tibby the lecture parts were the worst.  It took her 3 hours to remember that she had a delicious lamb stuffed Kong to lick in her crate.  So yeah, I crated out of my car and she barked.  Until she remembered the Kong and then she was quiet, but of course then we were almost done.  She also sat with me for part of the time.  I had a 2nd Kong and she licked that. 

Daisy would have us break up and practice in different parts of the room and then she would come around and watch us work.  By the 3rd time of doing that I stopped working until she came around to us.  First of all, Tibby would do it perfectly until Daisy came to watch and then she would get too excited to pay attention.  Second of all, I was getting tired and I thought Tibby would get full pretty soon with all the treats she was getting!  Third of all, I didn't want to practice it wrong a bunch of times.  So some of the time we sat on the (nice cushy mat) floor and watched the other teams.  I learned from that too.  It's interesting seeing a lot of dogs and handlers doing the same thing.  And yup we were all at about the same speed.  Everyone has a different issue, but we all have issues :)

I took some notes, but they would require a lot of back explanation.  If you have the Foundation Jumping book by Linda Mecklenburg - then you know what we covered at the seminar.

Things I thought were interesting (and new to me):

The cue to the dog to jump is the handler's motion towards the jump or location to the jump.

Building value for jumping - Dog should see a room full of jumps as a million opportunities to be rewarded.

Handler ahead of dog - forward cue

Handler behind dog - turning cue

Indirect eye contact - forward cue

Direct eye contact - turning cue

Example: weaves - indirect eye contact - forward cue

Dogs have to be trained to follow arm cues - this is not instinctual

Steer a dog with motion - motion is instinctual to dogs

Obstacle name = forward cue

dog's name = attention cue

She said none of her dog's know direction cues like right, left, ect. 

She said with a novice dog she would run them to where she wanted them to go instead of trying to use arm cues or directional cues.  They will get them evenutally, but it's easier to use your motion to move them around the course.

AND it's offical:  Daisy said I was very calm.  And that Tibby needs me to be less calm.  More rewarding with my voice. 

She said Tibby is a party girl.  Like a bunch of times. 

Ok, ok.  I'll try to be more of a party girl with Tibby.  But I was tired!  It was a loooong time to be training!  I don't have the stamina of Tibby.  :P

I think I was doing pretty good for the first hour or so giving Tibby verbal encouragement.  She does like it a LOT.  But after a while......

Tibby highlights:  She did one jump back and forth (boring) for 8 mins.  We worked our way around the room at different jump stations - Tibby did from 12" up to 16".  By the end of 8 mins. I was tired, but Tibby was still offering to jump the jump.  Back and forth.  Without me moving at all.  So all the work was Tibby's.

At the end of the seminar we did a little sequence of 1 jump wrap to a tunnel to a 2nd jump wrap.  Tibby did it and I think she read my cues pretty well :)  And that was after 4 HOURS of working! 

OH YEAH  and PS I had the wrong size treats AGAIN!!!  Every time I go somewhere they are either too big or too small.  Last night I spent an extra hour (around midnight) cutting Tibby's treats nice and small.  Then today Daisy said we should have big treats - like a cheese stick!  Or a hot dog!  Seriously I can never win.  Daisy would have liked the treats I brought to Jane Killion's seminar and Jane would have liked the treats I brought to Daisy Peel's seminar, BUT I can never get them at the right seminar!!!

So to re-cap if your couldn't tell with all my whining:  Good time, Tibby did great, Daisy was nice.

Daisy Peel Foundation Lesson - Standing Up Now

Another video for our foundations class with Daisy Peel.

This is what she said: "I think this is actually fine, but don’t be afraid to say good girl, or any other encouraging words it’s really easy to stand there and be pretty boring, and my examples are sometimes poor, because I tend not to say very much

I think this is actually fine, you’re changing your location fairly frequently, and pretty randomly, whether you intended to or not
sometimes, you are on the side, and sometimes, you are on the take off on the side, and that’s good.

The only thing that I might do differently, would be to clearly get myself on either the takeoff side, or the landing side, since standing parallel to the plane of the bar really doesn’t do much of anything in terms of cuing your dog towards one jumping effort or another. It is beginning, when we’re sitting on the ground, we are purposefully sitting parallel to the plaintiff the obstacle, because we’re trying to be in as neutral a position as possible, so as not to cue the dog to do anything other than to offer to take the jump. But, as soon as you stand up, you have to assume you are handling

I also don’t mind you are using the toy right at the end, as long as you can see that she sticks the landing, and is looking down, and as long as you don’t put the toy out there prematurely, which might encourage her to jump hyperextended, if she is looking up expecting the toy to appear.

I actually think this looks good! I might have actually gone that way out even earlier in the training session "
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And this is what I said, "“I might have actually gone that way out even earlier in the training session”
I think this means get the toy out? I had it out in the middle of the session and it perked her up a lot. You can see me stuff it down my shirt at one point LOL!!
Thanks for telling me that we can talk to the dog – I wasn’t sure about that. I usually talk to her – except when we are shaping something. So I will start talkng to her more. But we are still not supposed to cue the jump yet – right?

I will pick a side of the jump and not stand at the upright any more – I think that was what felt so weird!"
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And this is what she said, "Oh yes, sorry about that, stupid dictation software
yes, get the toy out sooner, that’s what I meant

I like the idea of “action cues” – cues that encourage the dog to take action of some sort without being specific about WHAT action. So while I might not say ‘jump’, I might say ‘what are you gonna do?’ or something else silly along those lines – an action cue."

Daisy Peel Foundation Class - Snow-hike-gility

I forgot to post this!  Here is another video of our jumping and crosses.  We took it on the road last week and did our homework on a long hike. 

Daisy said, "Oh my goodness, this is AWESOME – a stick and the snow I love it!
Tibby is like, you want me to do WHAT with this twig?!
 Way to make sure you are having FUN – maybe you weren’t have so much fun squatting in the snow, but I bet watching the video again made you chuckle
 I think this is easily the best foundation training video EVER. Seriously. No fancy equipment necessary
 And with the four basic turns, that trail with snow on it makes it easy to have a reference for a 90-degree turn
 Oh, no we are back indoors, probably with a cup of cocoa on that table next to you
 I think Tibby likes this a bit better
 She is sticking her landings pretty nicely, that’s good! I think you are fine moving on to the next step, changing your own location relative to the jump bar You are probably going to want to move quickly with her, she masters things and will get bored if you stick at one place too long
 Cool!"

16" Is Too Hard? Daisy Peel Foundation Class

This last week for our Daisy Peel foundations course we started one jump exercises - from Linda Mecklenburg's book. 
Our first try at the exercise was Ok.  Then our 2nd one we had TROUBLE and it was BAD.  And I felt sad for Tibby and frustrated.  Daisy told another student to let their dog work through the higher height and let the bar fall on their head, so they will figure out that going under the bar doesn't get them a click/treat.  She said to just be patient and let them work it out.  So I followed that advice.

I would really, really appreciate it if you all would watch the video below  - I know it's way long -  you don't have to watch the whole thing!  Our session goes waaaaay downhill at 2:20.  So skip to there.

I think 16" is too hard for Tibby?  She wouldn't even jump for roast beef.




Our 2nd try at the one jump exercise.



Video One - Our first try at one jump exercises.

Daisy told me our session was too long and I should try the exercise in new places.

Okay.

Daisy Peel Foundation Class - 4 Turns

We are taking Daisy Peel's online Foundation class.  The first week we worked on the 4 basic turns of agility - Pull, Front Cross, Rear Cross and Push.
It's really hard to do these with out a jump!  Well, at least I'm not the only one having trouble with it - the rest of the class is too.  I think the pull is the easiest one.  It sure would be nice to be able to pull Tibby.....
The rear cross took me forever to see in the assignment video and the front cross is hard too.  It's harder than it looks!  I think I finally got the push - having tape on the floor really helped me see where the 90 degree corners were.


First Try


Second Try