Tracking update

A few months ago I posted that I was starting Zipper in tracking. And I did. Only to let it lapse, again.

See, I still have this whole love/hate thing with tracking. My dogs love it. I hate it.

Okay, I don't hate all of it. Actually running the track is fun. But the whole business of plotting a track, laying a track, and aging a track...well that's just boring as snot.

Well Vicki Miller promised to help me if I'd be dedicated. And I made a goal. I want to be able to Certify Zipper at the Show Me Canines certification the first weekend in December. So beginning last month, I started tracking Zipper again. And I'm sticking to a 2-3 times a week schedule.

I'm starting Zipper in very short grass that sometimes goes to bare ground (soccer grounds at Cosmo park). Tracking is harder in short grass and on bare ground than it is in deeper grass, because there's not as much cover to hold the scent; it spreads. But I'd rather start harder and go easier. Right now I'm only doing straight, short tracks. Vicki's philosophy is to only do one thing at a time. So we're on flat ground and working only on learning to scent. The track length is 80-100 steps, always aged 15 minutes. We started with food every step and I am stretching length between treats. Right now I'm starting with the first treat at 3 steps, then 4 steps, then 5, 6, and up to 10.

Another important thing to do at this early stage is for me to learn what Zipper looks like when he's tracking. When he's really into the scent he hunkers down a bit, his tail wags very slowly from side to side and his nose is deep. He does tend to cast back and forth some, but becomes more "serious" the longer the track.

I have a lot to add. I need to start teaching article indication (which I'll do here at home). He needs to do corners and of course much more length as well as taking treats off the track except (eventually) at the last article.

But we're on our way!

Donna Rock, ACE Award Winner

It was with great excitement that I learned yesterday that my friend Donna Rock and her Doberman Annie have won the AKC's prestigious ACE award for Canine Excellence in the Exemplary Companion dog.

A few of you have met Donna, most don't know her. She's not from here, she's from Louisiana. But her story is astounding and Annie is an incredible dog. Here is what the AKC says about Donna:

Exemplary Companion Dog: “Annie” owned by Donna Rock of Lacombe, LA

Annie is an 8-year-old Doberman Pinscher, who has comforted her owner Donna Rock through loss, given her hope, and provides the assistance necessary to help her achieve her goals. Born without arms, Donna originally purchased Annie to be her companion and to train for obedience competition. The two developed such an exceptional bond that Annie became Donna’s service dog, assisting her with everyday activities. Together, they have excelled at the higher levels of obedience competition, where verbal commands are not allowed and the dog must respond to signals. Donna and Annie have earned numerous Obedience and Agility titles, including the prestigious Obedience Trial Championship (OTCH) and the crown jewel in Agility, the Master Agility Championship (MACH). Their teamwork, skill and performance inspire those at ringside to understand the true purpose of the competition.

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit, Donna lost her home, belongings, and even her place of work. Donna, who is employed by the USDA, was temporarily reassigned to work in Washington, DC. Through it all, Annie was there for her owner, helping her in the subways, on escalators and navigating through large crowds of people. Annie has loyally remained at Donna’s side, giving not just physical, but emotional support as well. Their amazing bond is the key to their success, not just in Obedience and Agility competition, but also in their day-to-day challenges.

We all sometimes struggle with training and get frustrated when things don't go our way. I'm including two videos below which are incredible and inspirational. The first is Donna working with her new BC Roller and also some with Annie in a training session. The second is Donna's OTCH run from earlier this year.





No one deserves this award more than Donna and Annie. Congratulations.

Brisk. What is it and why should you care?

brisk

adj. brisk·er, brisk·est

1. Marked by speed, liveliness, and vigor; energetic: had a brisk walk in the park.

I've been going to obedience (and now Obedience/Rally) trials for many years. One of the most common mistakes I see in Rally and the lower levels of Obedience is a lack of briskness on the part of the handler. In straight English, I see a lot of handlers walking at a snail slow pace around the ring, looking at their feet, taking tiny steps. It's usually because of apprehension/nerves.

In Rally, lack of briskness (LOB) is a specific deduction. Enough hits for lack of briskness and a team may NQ (not qualify) on points even if they do all of the stations correctly. In Obedience judges don't have a specific LOB deduction but can and will deduct for a very slow team. Obedience heeling routines have a "Slow", and the handler must slow down perceptibly during this portion of the heel. If the handler is already walking slowly, it's much more difficult to have a perceptible "Slow".

In high levels of competition obedience, handlers learn exact footwork and pacing, often using a metronome. I'm not going into that in this post. For one it would take too long, for another I'm not the person to discuss that, Andrea or Paula are the ones to go to for that. Briskness applies to all footwork at all levels in all situations (except for the Slow), so I'll discuss briskness.

Though the above definition says "speed," briskness in Rally and Obedience should not be a race walk. You should not look like a five year old desperately trying to make it to the bathroom. Lively, energetic, vigorous; those are the important components of briskness as it applies to pace in the Obedience and Rally rings. You should move through the ring as if you have a destination in mind. A place to be. Not as if you're wandering aimlessly through a garden. You should stride out confidently, shoulders back, with long energetic strides. If you have a toy dog don't worry. In almost all cases the dog can keep up quite well unless he's very tiny and you have very very long legs. Even then, you can slightly shorten your stride yet still be brisk. Briskness is an attitude as well as a physical pace.

One thing that helps is to look forward, not down. If you're looking down at your toes you are less likely to be brisk. If you are looking forward toward the next Rally sign (or ring gate) you are more likely to be pulled to it and be more brisk.

One last huge benefit to briskness. If you are brisk, your dog is far more likely to stay engaged and involved. Moving briskly keeps the dog's attention focused and helps them be more up in attitude.

So get out there and be brisk! Practice it with and without the dog, and carry it with you to your next show.

Jump Class update

If you read my last blog, you'll know that Zipper had decided that jump class was quite boring, thank-you-very-much. And he'd rather be doing something else.

This week I decided to be prepared. I knew that I might need to do some extra lead-in jumps to each problem if he was being draggy, and I brought very yummy treats too.

Well for whatever reason, Zip decided that he liked the class this week. Which is a good thing because his handler had to keep trying one of the sequences because she couldn't get it right, which meant that he repeated just that one sequence four or five times. But he was cheerful about it, which is good.

I've probably written this before, but in agility, the skills the dog learns to physically negotiate the obstacles are important. I've put in the basics on Zipper and he's confident on all the obstacles. He has lovely jumping form and is rapidly conquering the intricacies of weaves. Most importantly, he thinks agility is fun and it has become self-rewarding for him.

Though it's the foundation of what comes later, the dog skill part of the agility equation is just a tiny drop in the bucket of what we will need to learn to become a team. Zipper still needs to learn to read my hand and shoulder cues. I need to learn which cues work best for him and when to use them. Coming from handling a big dog, I've got to totally reset how I think about which crosses to put in where, what his line will be and how to shape it. Where do I need to be on the course in relation to Zipper's position in order to help him figure out what I want? Which hand should I use when? I must guard against stooping and bending over, a very bad habit that's easy to fall into when you have a little dog. Do I need a verbal directional? Or not? I've been training one but haven't yet tied it to jumps, only spins.

I'm learning that Zipper is right footed. That means he prefers to turn right rather than left and that I need to help him be more flexible on his left. Knowing that will also help me know how to run him; he'll probably turn tighter to the right than to the left, so I'll need extra turn space when I need him to go left than when the next obstacle is to the right.

And that's just the start. I usually estimate that it takes two years of actually trialling with a dog before you really start to become a team. Before you're a team, you can have a lot of success but it sometimes feels crunchy or awkward. After you become a team, for the most part you and the dog just KNOW what you're going to do, what works and what doesn't, and when you run, you are extensions of each other, thinking and moving as one.

It's no wonder that newbies to agility have a very tough time with their first dog. This sport is incredibly fun and rewarding, but easy it is not! It looks easy and effortless, especially when done right. But there's an awful lot of training that goes into that looking easy part. New handlers are having to both learn how to train their dog for the skills the dog needs *and* how to learn the separate skills they need. Here I am, on my third agility dog, and I've got to work through all these things too. I have a bit more on the ball than the true newbies on how to train those basic skills, but this biggest part of the puzzle, the handling game, is something I have to struggle with along with everybody else. Because each dog is different and there's always something that may work better with this dog too.

So I'm grateful to my little 10# dog for putting up with me stumbling around last night trying one cross, then another, then yet another. Each time he showed me what worked for him and what did not. Because at the same time I'm training him, he's training me.

He doesn't like it! Now what?

This class session, I started a new class with Zipper. It's the Jump 3 class. Taught by the eminently capable Deb Heifner, this class is for dogs who basically know how to jump but need to learn some of the more common patterns seen in the agility ring like serpentines, pinwheels, 270s, 180s, etc.

In Jump 3, dogs are starting to cue in on handler motion and how to use that motion to know where to go and which way to turn. It's actually a very cool class and I'm having a blast.

Zipper, however, is not.

The first week, Zipper was very blah at first. He acted hot. And tired. And I could not get him going. Finally he decided to attack a huge toy, and I was able to use that to get him excited and going. He completed the class with verve and style.

But again last week, Zipper was flat. He was distracted, slow, and sniffy. At best he cantered. This time a toy didn't really do that much for him. He got through the class but was clearly demotivated. Once again I wondered if it was conditions. It was warm and he was panting rather heavily. However, when I took him over to the big ring, he suddenly came alive. He flew over contacts and jumps, running flat out, and giving the huffy little steam-engine pants he does when he's happy and having fun.

Hmmmm. So it's not the conditions. It's the class.

What to do...what to do. I love the class. Further, this is stuff Zipper needs to learn and it will benefit us in the long run. On the other hand, he's a young green dog and if he's demotivated too often it may carry over. Zipper has "happy drive," which means he appears to have lots of drive, and he does, when he's happy. But he's soft. He doesn't have the "do it or die" work ethic of my dobes. He does this for fun and because I like it. He likes it too, but not so much that he couldn't turn off to it if he felt too challenged. That's why I've treated him with kid gloves all the way along.

So now I have a decision. Keep going with the class and try to motivate him? Quit the class and just work in the big ring? Quit the class and come back to it later?

For this week, the answer will be to come to class and work with Deb to see if we can light him up. This class IS hard for green dogs. The jumps are tight and they have to repeat things sometimes. He doesn't like repeating. So maybe we don't repeat. And maybe we do a few extra jumps on our way to the problem. I'm sure Deb and I will come up with something, and I'll keep you guys posted.

Of intelligence and memory

Viva, UAG2 BJF Renejade Debt of Honor, CD, RA, MX, MXJ, EAC, O-EJC, TNN, WAC, TT, ATT, FFB, CGC

Dogs are not very smart. Scientists and researchers assure us of this. They are not anywhere near the intelligence of the greater apes, they say. When confronted with a sleeping dog who has REM and is giving off soft yelps while his feet twitch, scientists will say that absolutely is NOT dreaming because dogs aren't smart enough to dream. Dogs are so stupid, researchers and some trainers will tell us, that they can't remember why you're mad at them if they peed in the corner 2 hours ago. If you don't catch them in the act, they won't remember what they've done.

The great apes use tools, scientists will say, and tool use is the hallmark of upper level brain function. The great apes can even, with years of work, be taught sign language, so they may tell us what they want and need.

I think those scientists and researchers have never lived with dogs or if they do own dogs, have never bothered to open their eyes and actually pay attention. Do dogs use tools? Well no, they don't pick up sticks to dig for ants like the famous chimps that Jane Goodall observed years ago. Instead, when she's hungry, Cala will go get her metal food bowl, bring it to the living room, pick a spot on the hardwood, and drop said bowl. Loudly. Then she'll flip it upside down, put her front feet on it and scoot it around the room, all the while giving me pointed looks. "Hey. Lady. I'm hungry. Yo. Are you stupid? How much more obvious can I be?"

See, dogs, they don't need a stick. They have the bestest tool ever. Dogs learn that if they go to a door and sit and scratch or bark, their special handy-dandy tool will haul itself off the couch and come turn the knob. If that tool is a bit sluggish, a dance and a yip will hurry it up nicely.

Dogs don't need sign language. Why the heck try to speak or get your paws to work? Just sidle up to the human and put an appropriate look on your face and presto, that special itchy spot gets scratched just to your liking. The human stops too soon? Head butt them and they'll start again.

Dogs can plot and plan too. I once watched a fascinating interchange between Cala and Zipper. Zipper stole one of Cala's toys and took it to his crate. She instantly wanted that toy more than anything in the world, and he was not having any. He had the advantage, being on home ground where she couldn't circle around. So after several unsuccessful tries at outright taking it back, Cala stepped back and stood there a minute. Then she left the room. When she returned, she was carrying a different toy. She set that toy on a chair in full view of the crate and left the room again. Nothing stirred for five minutes. But sure enough, a Min Pin nose poked out of the crate. He looked around. No Cala. Out he came, and hopped up on the chair to steal the other toy. And the moment he cleared the crate, there was a big black blur. Cala was in the room, into his crate, snatched her toy, and back out of the room before he could do more than turn around and watch.

I spent yesterday in Warrensburg, at the United Doberman Club National. It's actually going on all week, but I only had the one day to go down and visit old friends and watch breed and obedience. The breed judge was May Jacobson. May bred Viva's sire, and for the first 18 months of Viva's life, May saw her often though Viva never lived with May. Then Viva came to live with me. For the next three years, I'd take Viva to a National and she would, astonishingly, recognize May. Even though they never lived together. Even though she would only see her once a year, for about 15 minutes. The last time May saw Viva was about 5 or 6 years ago.

One of my reasons for going down yesterday was to take the now 10 1/2 year old Viva down so May could see her, a living tie to Bro, her sire, that May loved so much who is now gone. I admit I was curious. Would Viva remember? That would be quite a feat after all these years. And the answer is, yes, she absolutely did. Viva is cordial but reserved with people she doesn't know, or, if they have treats, she backs up and strikes a "please feed me now" pose. But after a few seconds of sniffing May, Viva suddenly reared up and gave her a great kiss, squeaking in pleasure, then proceeded to do very un-Vivalike puppy wiggles, tail stub vibrating madly.

Call dogs stupid. Go ahead. I dare you.

A sad, cautionary tale

Viva popped open the chute end by rearing up, which sometimes meant tangles. When possible, dogs should be trained to run low and straight through the chute fabric. Unfortunately Viva never learned that method, but she was never seriously tangled.

This morning I heard a very sad story on one of my agility lists about a young up and coming agility dog in the Dallas, TX area. It seems that these folks have agility equipment in their backyard, and let their two dogs out in the morning while they got ready for work. The following is reprinted with permission from the post.

"After some time, Sue went to bring the dogs in the house, but Mattie was gone. With help from neighbors, they scoured the area but couldn't find her. When they got back to the house, they noticed that the agility chute in the backyard looked funny. The fabric had been bunched up in the barrel. It was typical chute fabric, not a tarp. Sue found Mattie's body tangled up in the chute. She had gotten twisted tightly in the fabric and suffocated. They tried to do CPR, but it was too late."

What a terrible tragedy for all. And it reinforces my opinion that dogs should never, ever be allowed around or on agility equipment unsupervised. The potential for injury is very high. Not just from getting tangled in a chute, but dogs could get legs caught on teeters, have bad dogwalk falls, have a tire or fall on them. If you let two dogs out to play, what happens if one flies up the teeter to slam it down and the other one is standing underneath it? I used to be so afraid of that happening with my little dog that even when we let dogs play supervised in Kathy's agility field, I'd go tip the teeter over on its side.

In addition to accident and injury, allowing dogs to run around unsupervised doing equipment can end up really sabotaging your training. If your dog learns that running down the dogwalk and leaping to the ground from four feet up is fun, and he does it repeatedly when he's out playing, how successful are you going to be at teaching a stopped contact? If your dog's favorite place to view the world is standing dead still on the top of the aframe, how fast will his aframe be? Besides. Having unlimited access to equipment diminishes its value. Having unlimited access to equipment without the owner nearby fosters lack of respect for teamwork.

So please, please do not allow your dogs unfettered access to agility equipment. It's not a play gym. It's a game for our dogs to play with us, using teamwork and rules. Not something they should be doing by themselves. It's one of the several solid reasons we at CCSC do not allow non-agility students on agility equipment.

Let's talk sex

Xander and Zipper playing

Okay, let's not. At least, not the way that sounded. But I do want to discuss some things about male dogs and female dogs, and I'll be using the correct word for females, which is bitch. (Want to know if someone is deep into dogs? If they are totally blase about throwing around phrases like "oh, she's a lovely little bitch," and "I've got a bitch in the classes" while sitting at a restaurant munching on won tons.)

I was at a 3-day AKC agility trial in Glen Carbon, IL this weekend. I traveled with a good friend, and left the two Doberman girls at home. She has a 5 year old intact male German Shepherd. Xander weighs just short of 80 pounds. And I had Zipper, also intact male, a Min Pin weighing in at a whopping 10 pounds. Let's put it this way. Xander's head is bigger than Zipper's entire body.

Zipper managed to collect two Novice Jumpers legs and one Novice Standard leg. In English, that means that he now is 2/3 of the way to his Novice title in both of those styles of agility. Jumpers is a numbered course where only jumps, weaves, and tunnels are used and Standard is the other common course type used in AKC. It involves everything in Jumpers plus contact obstacles; the dogwalk (thin plank raised 4' off the ground), teeter-totter, aframe, and pause table, where the dog is to sit or down for 5 seconds during the course to show control.

But all that aside, there were two things that struck me over the weekend. And both involved boy-dog stuff.

There are a lot of stories about intact male dogs. They're aggressive. They'll fight other male dogs. They'll go insane if a bitch in season (ready to breed) is anywhere within a 5 mile radius. Basically, they're dangerous and should be neutered at the first possible moment.

But Xander and Zipper? They don't read those stories. Xander, who could easily kill Zipper with a single bite, was exaggeratedly careful. Slowly, he play bowed. He gave teeny-tiny Shepherd kisses which were still big enough to soak Zipper's head and neck. Zipper, meanwhile, buzzed around Xander like a tiny bee on crack, wiggling and squirming in delight, throwing himself onto his back to flail his legs in the air. Not a tooth shown, not a hackle raised, just two intact males having a ball playing together each night at the hotel. So my foremost and best big memory of the weekend was of the two male dogs playing happily together.

The second thing I'll carry away from the weekend is starting to learn how to deal with a male dog when a bitch in season is indeed nearby. Because there was one at the trial, almost certainly being shown even though that's strictly illegal in agility. At the trial site Zipper was very distracted and very, very interested in the floor. He refused to down on the table Friday, too busy sniffing it. Had the same problem Sunday, and he spent a lot of time whining. It was an unmistakable sign. "Girl here! Really, really good smelling girl!" But though I did have more trouble with him than usual, he did manage to work, and even got those qualifying scores I mentioned above. Another myth down the drain, that male dogs can't think at all if there's a bitch in season nearby. They can and do learn to deal with it.

I'm all for neutering any and all dogs who are pets, who are mixes, who are not going to contribute to improving the breed as a whole. I absolutely agree that all adopted and rescued dogs must be altered before placement. But let's not assign blanket stereotypes to un-neutered dogs. Not all intact males are aggressive idiots, and for those that are, I hate to say it, but neutering probably won't fix it. Those of us with intact males DO have an extraordinary obligation in both training and management. We must teach our dogs what is acceptable behavior and what is not. We also must be 100% committed to never, ever allowing our dogs out of our direct control for a single moment. No wandering the neighborhood, ever. Always securely confined within a fence, in a crate, or on a leash. Period.

But please don't make the assumption that if our dogs are intact they are dangerous. Xander and Zipper would laugh at that one. Or maybe not. They'd be too busy playing to bother.

Since it's been requested...

Since Ginger mentioned it, I'll brag a little bit on the Pinhead's performances last weekend at the local ASCA show.

There are three types of agility courses in ASCA agility. Regular (Standard, with the contact equipment such as the aframe and dogwalk) , Jumpers (jumps and tunnels only) and Gamblers which I'll describe another time. I entered Zipper in Regular and Jumpers, which added up to him doing 3 agility runs Saturday and 4 on Sunday. That's a lot of runs for a young, green dog; in contrast, at most AKC trials you have 2 runs per day, one Jumpers and one Standard. AKC does have a new class that's gaining popularity, but not all clubs offer it.

When I started Zipper last fall, I was having a lot of issues with him being distracted. He'd stop, or sniff, or take off around jumps. Once he even left the ring. I think the causes are a combination of stress and uncertainty (sniffing is a classic stress behavior), not being quite sure what I want, and frankly, being an intact male Min Pin who is very visually oriented and sometimes has the attention span of a flea.

So I was especially thrilled with his progress last weekend. He stayed with me. We had some wrong courses, and his Jumpers run Saturday was very distracted. But for the most part he did really well. He ended up earning two titles, his Novice Regular and Novice Jumpers titles. And he got his weave poles in three out of four runs where weaves were present. One of his jumpers runs was especially fast and smooth and I started to get the feel of how we'll be working together as a team long-term. Best of all he managed to retain focus all the way through Sunday afternoon. By 7:00 p.m. Sunday night the little guy was done. I noticed he wasn't in the living room. He'd taken himself to his "big-dog" crate, a dobe sized Varikennel, and put himself to bed. Literally. He'd crawled under the blanket and was out like a light. A big exciting weekend for a very little dog.

Of winning and losing, triumphs and defeats

Zipper with his UKC Agility High In Trial winnings

I'm in the midst of a discussion on the Rally-Obed yahoogroup, and it's brought up some thoughts I want to share about what it means to do dogsport, on newbies and experience, on winning and losing and the effort therein.

This particular discussion is about the A versus the B classes. The A classes, such as Novice A, are for people who have never put an AKC obedience or rally title on a dog. The B classes are for people who have either put a title on a dog or the dog is co-owned by a person who has titled the dog. And at the moment we're getting a lot of cries of "unfair" because sometimes true newbies ended up being slotted up against much more experienced teams.

Let's say you buy a dog from a breeder who does obedience, and you buy on a co-ownership (both your name and the breeder's name are on the registration papers). You've never even owned a dog before and have certainly never trained one. Yet when you do train your dog and enter a show, you will have to enter the "B" classes. As such, you may be competing against people who have showing for years and have put OTChs (Obedience Trial Championships) on their dogs. Heck, the dog you're competing against might *be* an OTCh.

In another situation, a person may have competed extensively in other venues. Let's say they have a UKC UD and an ASCA CDX but have never entered an AKC show. They will get to compete in Novice A, because the AKC doesn't recognize titles from other organizations. So even the Novice A class, meant for those new to showing dogs, may hold some teams that are very experienced.

Some people feel this is unfair. That newbies shouldn't have to compete against these more experienced teams. That it's too hard for them, and that it's demotivating for them to lose. They deserve to not have to struggle so hard to get placements and they can't possibly win against those who have titled other dogs.

My reply to that is bullhockey (well, bull-something else, but this is a family blog).

I think that kind of attitude does a disservice to everyone, but especially those new green teams. It seems to be a general thought today that everyone should win just because they enter. We strive for mediocrity because that's all we need to do. Everybody gets a gift at the kids birthday party just for coming. Why should we work hard to when we can get a title just for showing up? Lord forfend there's any sort of real competition. It's not fair that we have to be in the same ring as those really experienced teams. We'll get beaten for sure.

The truth is any worthy endeavor is one that takes effort and struggle to attain. In any dog sport, (or any sport) what you put into it is what you get out of it. If you don't want to work hard, don't know the rules and don't train your dog, you're probably going to get beaten. Sometimes you will work hard and you'll still get beaten. If you won all the time, then winning would be boring. In order for us to truly appreciate winning, we need to understand that effort must be put forth.

We should never ask others to descend to our level of mediocrity in order for us to succeed. Instead, if we want to succeed, we must rise to a level that makes that a possibility. And that means that we're going to work hard. We're going to fail along the way. We may struggle. That makes success all the sweeter.

In most of dog sport, you really don't have to beat any other team to be successful. Your ability to "win" is tied directly to the amount of work and effort you put into your team. Very few titles (the OTCh is an exception) require you to get a first or second place. Instead, you simply have to meet a minimum score and get a qualifying ribbon. Get three of those under two different judges and you get a title. You've won. If you want a class placement (first through fourth place) on top of that well, then, you have to work for it. Whether or not somebody else has a multi-titled dog and is competing against you is totally immaterial. Any person can place first in any class at any show on any day IF they put the time into making that happen.

If you don't want to work very hard to get that title? That's fine. Just know that you aren't going to get the same score as people who were willing to train. It's not a level playing field. It's never going to be a level playing field. But it doesn't matter. How you do depends entirely on YOU.

Oh and I have seen some Novice A teams get out there and kick butt. Because they worked at it. You can do it too, but if you want to be great you have to be willing to put in the time and miles to get you and your dog there.

Breakthroughs—Cala

Okay, compared to Ginger my month has been really boring. No intact girls, so nobody in season. No 16 dogs in the house, no wallet being stolen (thank goodness!) I have, however, made some nice training progress with both Cala and Zipper. I'll detail Zipper in a different post.

As I described in the blog on fighting fire with fire, Cala can be a very challenging dog to train. I've been following through with the toy game with her, and I'm thrilled that it's having really amazing results. She's listening and following direction. At the Columbia show she was able to handle Rally Excellent well and take the jump twice, both days, without screaming. Her dumb handler (that would be me) blew by a sign on Saturday so no Q there, but she got a 96 and a first place in her Excellent A class on Sunday.

Right now I'm working on refining some skills with Cala. Cala has difficulty with the halt, side-step right, halt. In that exercise the dog is sitting in heel position and the human steps directly to the right one step with their right leg, then brings the left leg over to meet it. The dog should get up and also step directly right (no forward motion). When we started, Cala was coming over to the right with her head and front but mostly leaving her butt where it was, so that she ended up sitting crooked and wide. We have progressed to her coming over with her front end then swinging her back end in to sit mostly straight. That's satisfactory for Rally standards, but I'd really like to see if I can get her to sidepass. What I would like to see is her getting up and moving both her front and rear to the right at the same time in one motion, then sitting down. And recently she's done this a couple of times with a fun leap to the right. So I'm marking that with a click and a reward.

Another problem spot for Cala are straight fronts, especially from heel position. In Rally signs #41 and #42, the dog halts and sits in heel position, then must move to front (sit in front of and facing the handler) without the handler moving. So the dog has to get up, move forward, and swing around to face the handler then sit again. (The other lower-level Rally call-fronts allow the handler to step backwards several steps to help the dog get straight, this one does not.) Cala either gets up then sits right back down or she gets up and sits sort of facing me but really crooked. She loves left (swing) finishes so she tends to sit at about 9:00 or 10:00 when I want her to sit at 12:00. I had been using my left hand, the one nearest her, to signal for the front. Recently I started switching to my right hand. I take the right hand with a treat in it, bring it to just in front of her nose, then tell her to front while simultaneously drawing that hand out in a big clockwise circle then back toward my right side. It's helping tremendously and her fronts are much better. This is a classic luring scenario, but I will be able to drop the lure quickly and just use my hand at a real Rally trial.

In agility, the riot stick game is working beautifully; when we can work. At the end of February Cala jammed a toe when we were training contacts. So she was off of agility for 3 weeks. In her first training session back I did a single jump, the aframe, and she came running back to me with a bloody foot. She'd cut a toe pad on a different toe. Sigh. So it's really just been this week that I've done a bit more agility training in preparation for the ASCA trial this weekend. I'll let you know how we do.

Clicking the heel

It's been awhile since I posted an actual training post. I've already written several on the theory behind the clicker as a tool for training, and writing something about actually applying the theory is long, long overdue.

I'm using the clicker to teach Zipper to heel. Zipper presents some special heeling issues because of his size. I want to teach an attention heel, but having him heel and watch me in the eyes will not work, because he's too small. To look in my face he would have to forge forward out of heel position and also turn sideways. So I need to teach him a different focus point. I am also a trainer who is more interested in attitude than in precision. Zipper will probably only compete in Rally Obedience, where half-point errors are not counted. I want him to think heeling is really fun and exciting and I want him to be somewhat accurate, but my goal is not a 200 score.

To that end, I'm using a technique I found on the Mighty Mite Dog Gear Forum, a news forum addressing issues (including training issues) specific to small dogs. I decided that I wanted Zipper to target my left hand in the heel, and that I would drop my hand down and keep it fairly still to act as said target.

Now Zipper already knows to target my hand with a nose touch. I needed something to help him learn to target on my left that I could fade. At first I tried carrying a toy balled up in my hand, and clicking and dropping it when he was in heel position. It turns out there were problems with this. First, it was difficult to get even a small toy bunched up in my hand, especially with a line attached. And if I didn't have a line attached, when I dropped the toy he'd just run off with it. Training session over. Second, Zipper is extremely toy motivated....sometimes. If he gets at all stressed he will not play with toys, and if he's distracted he also will not play. So toys weren't working. He's always food motivated, but food also had one problem; the frantically boinging Min Pin. I'd walk along and I'd have Mr. Ping Pong Ball. Boing!-Boing!-Boing!-Boing!-Boing! I could not get all four of his feet to stay on the ground long enough for me to click.

Enter the paint stick. It just so happened that when we last painted the dogwalk, we had a couple of those cheap wooden stir sticks left over. I dipped the bottom 2" of each stick in green paint to provide a color/smell contrast. Next, I started to click Zipper for putting his nose on the stick. I only clicked if he nose-touched the painted part. I knew that I would not want him actually touching the stick but rather following it, so the minute he understood that the stick was the target, I went ahead and put it in my left hand and began walking with it.

Wait. Back up. Let me describe that a bit because it's taken some juggling to get all the components right. I put the paint stick in my left hand, pointing down, flat side in front of Zipper. I also put the clicker in my left hand, flat against the paint stick, so that my thumb curls around and can click. I have to squeeze a bit to keep them both in there, but I don't want to tape the clicker to the stick, because I want to be able to slide the stick up over time. In my right hand are treats. When I click, I rapidly sweep my right hand over and treat in position.

At this point I've done three heeling sessions with Zipper, each about 5 minutes. We always start with Mr. Boing-Boing Dog, but by continuing to move forward and clicking when he's following the target with all four feet on the ground I'm already having progress. As of last night, he was moving forward and I was able to bring the stick up so it's no longer exactly in front of his nose but slightly above it. Over time, I will slowly withdraw the stick into my hand, so that my hand then becomes the target.

I also discovered another weakness in our training. Zipper thinks sits and downs are to be done facing me. I don't physically position Zipper (try to push or hold him in position with my hands) so I'm addressing this too with the clicker. At first every time I moved he'd get up. Again I realized a training weak spot--even when I've been working stays (very little so far) I've been doing so with him in front of me. So I worked a bit on me just moving back and forth, clicking when he stayed in position. I also worked on sliding sideways into him. If he accepted the slightest position that removed me from in front, I clicked. In essence, I have indeed taught him to watch my face when sitting and downing, so that's what he wants to do. I need to help him learn he can sit and down facing the same direction I am.

I'll update his progress over time.

The attention heel, what and why?

Ginger teaching Baker to heel in 2005. Photos by Jennifer Riess.

On March 7 and 8 the Columbia MO Kennel Club will hold its annual show at the Boone County Fairgrounds. Traditionally, this show has always had a large Obedience entry, and some of the top Obedience competitors in the Midwest and the U.S. will probably attend.

Some of the most common comments we hear about the top competition obedience teams have to do with what we call the attention heel. "Why do they do that odd thing with their heads?" "Why are they watching you all the time?" Indeed, in almost all top obedience teams, the dog will heel on the handler's left side looking straight up at the handler. They don't look where they're going, the don't look down or out, they look up. Some people call this the "pretzel heel," or just plain weird. To a lot of people it seems stupid. "I wouldn't want my dog to do that, he'd fall in a hole and break a leg!" "My dog is of a breed that's supposed to be alert to his surroundings. No way should he be staring up like that." "Those must be robot dogs."

But there's a real and valid reason for the attention heel, and that's why you see it so often in Obedience. It helps to first understand that Obedience is a sport, and like many sports there are some aspects of it that have only vague connections to real life. In real life, you're not likely to have to run full speed then throw yourself down on your belly or back to slide into a small object on the ground, but if you're on a baseball team you need to learn that skill. Being able to bounce a black and white ball off your head and not only that, get it to go a specific direction is quite useful in soccer. In your living room, not so much.

In Obedience, dogs may not need an attention heel for a walk around the park, and most handlers teach a separate skill called Loose Leash Walking (LLW) for those casual times. Yet even outside the obedience ring an attention heel can be useful, especially when moving through crowded areas.

Which comes to the "why" of the attention heel. The reason why we use the attention heel in competition obedience (and in Rally) is because when the dog is focused entirely on you, the human, it's a lot easier for them to react instantly to turns and speed variations. So their performance is more precise. Obedience is a game of precision. Further, when a dog's attention is focused entirely on you, her focus is NOT on that kid dropping an ice cream cone right outside the ring, or that dog of the breed she irrationally hates, or the birds above or the ground squirrels below. And believe it or not, most dogs really like the attention heel because your attention is also focused 100% on them. It's a two-way communication, a dance of subtlety.

We teach the attention heel in many different ways. The photo above is of Ginger and Baker, taken 3 years ago, and she uses food to teach the attention heel. In the horribly unflattering photo below, I'm using a toy (riot stick) with Viva. I'm holding it on my left shoulder with my right hand. With Zipper, because he's very small, I will not teach him to focus on my face but my hand. I'm doing that by teaching him to target a small stick held in my hand and follow it with his nose (a game he loves so much that at the moment he spends more time boinging up and down than going forward).



So if you come to the fairgrounds in a couple of weeks (and we hope you do), watch the Obedience and look at those top teams. See how the dog and handler move as one, with the dog always in the exact right place. And enjoy watching that attention heel.

—Robin

Fighting Fire with Fire

Cala running with her Riot Stick.

Cala is a National 60-weave Champion and was on NBC in 2006. Cala is the smartest dog I've ever owned. Cala is the most driven dog I've ever known. Cala has an unofficial fan club. At every show I attend at least one person comes up and asks me about her, or points her out as "she's really cool, you need to watch her run," or "That dog is the 60 weave champion."

Cala is the most difficult dog I've ever had to train, and at almost 6, only has one Open Jumpers leg and not a single Excellent Standard leg. I had to stop doing Rally with her after she got her Advanced title. Cala flips very easily from drive and focused to drive and complete meltdown. She stresses UP not down. Instead of slowing down and shutting down, she flips into an overaroused state. Focus is always tenuous at best. She screams. And I'm not saying that as any sort of exaggeration as any who read this knows if they have ever been in the building when I'm trying to train her. She has a shrill, squealing, bark-yodel. It's piercing. It's maddening. It fires up every single dog that hears it. It causes instructors to cover their ears. It drives me bat s**t crazy. Not only does she scream, but when she loses control she is incapable of listening to me. She literally cannot hear me. She goes into hind brain (or as Brenda Aloff says, lizard brain) and begins taking as many jumps as quickly as possible as her way of trying to blow off some of her excess of hectic drive. Since she can't listen, this means that often she just gets out on the agility course and goes nuts, taking everything in sight.

The reason I had to quit doing Rally after Cala got her Advanced title is because Rally Excellent has two jumps. Even though they aren't in sequence, two jumps equals agility. Agility equals screaming. Screaming equals not just an NQ, but also causing the Honor dog to NQ. Not acceptable.

For the past year, things have pretty much gone from bad to worse. Every attempt I've made to try to get some sort of calm control have failed. Trying to do one-jump training escalated her frustration even faster. I tried heeling around the ring, asking for attention. Worked, but didn't translate. I tried calling her back to me between each jump. More screaming frustration. It's not that she doesn't want to please me. It's that she can't figure out how, and she can't find a way to control her overarousal. So she knows that I'm not happy, and that in turn triggers more and more extreme reactions. We are in a Catch 22 situation. And frankly, it's become a dreaded chore to train her. So I train her less and less because it's so difficult for both of us.

Earlier this week I had what might be sort of an "ah-hah" moment. Obviously trying to calm her down was not working. So instead, I decided to rev her up. Cala's favorite toy in the world is her Riot Stick, a length of stuffed rubberized hose with a handle. She goes absolutely crazy for it. It's always been the toy I used when I really wanted her to get excited. It's the toy I used when she was a puppy to introduce weaves and shape contacts. And part of the Riot Stick game has always been to down in order to get the toy.

So I went back to basics. I got two Riot Sticks out, and let her know I had them. And we started training. It was the most eerie thing, because the toy that is the one that gets her the most excited actually calmed her down. It was as if she was saying to me, "I KNOW THIS GAME! In this game I offer you some control and I get my toy!"

I've had two of the most productive practice sessions I've had in the last year this week. Suddenly Cala has her contacts back. She's watching me like a hawk instead of making her own course, because I have the toy. And though she's still noisy, she's not frenzied.

Could this be the answer? Fight fire with fire? Use her highest value toy to actually calm her down? The jury is still out but for the first time in a long time I can't wait to get her into the ring and try.

Of wins, losses, and hard lessons learned

Last weekend was our local UKC agility and obedience trial. UKC trials are fun because they're really relaxed and laid back. Because we hold two trials a day, there's actually a chance of a title in a weekend. And UKC is a really good place for young green dogs and young green handlers.

Such was the case last weekend when we had a young, first-time agility competitor enter with a first-time dog. This team has been taking classes since last summer. They've made good progress and have already overcome a big obstacle; the dog's deep fear of the teeter-totter. All of us who teach are actually really proud of both the young man and his dog, but especially the young man, for sticking to it and continuing to train.

So imagine how happy this kid was when he and his dog qualified on their very first run on the first day. And when he got the blue ribbon he really didn't know what that meant at first. A couple of us explained that he had not only qualified and gotten a leg toward his title but he was also the fastest in his class and so he got a pale blue Qualifying ribbon plus dark blue first place ribbon.

Except he didn't. Unfortunately there was a mixup in scoring and instead of first, he got second place. A red ribbon instead of a blue. And being a teenager, he went from not even knowing what first place meant to anger that his win was taken away.

A couple of hours later, I caught him walking up to his Mom waving the red ribbon and asking where the nearest trash can was. He was, he said, going to throw it away. At which I (being the oh-so-diplomatic person I am) fixed him with a gimlet eye and barked, "you most certainly are NOT going to throw that ribbon away. Do not EVER throw away any ribbon you receive." Poor kid, he got the deer in the headlights look but bravely asked why not. "Because it shows disrespect for the sport and disrespect for your fellow competitors and disrespect for your dog." I stomped off, thoroughly disgruntled.

But then I realized something. We'd helped this young man develop and train his dog, but we really hadn't talked to him about what shows were like or what was expected of him at his first show, much less what he should expect of himself or his dog.

So I caught him at a quiet moment, and me, the Queen of Tact (not), gave him a talk.

"What were your goals when you came here today."

"To do good."

"But what did that mean? Did you have anything beyond that?" A blank look. No. Of course not, because we hadn't taught him how to set real goals and attain them. "Okay," I said. "You came here wanting to do well. And you did really, really well. You qualified your very first time ever in the ring. And it sucks that you had to give the first place ribbon back, but that stuff happens sometimes. That placement was not the most important thing. You will learn that in agility what's really important is the teamwork you have with your dog. She's out there working hard for you. Don't let her down."

In his second run, the kid's dog decided the teeter was scary and refused it. As is typical with dogs, she was feeling some stress. And when dogs are stressed they tend to fail at their weakest point. This teeter was our show teeter, not our training teeter. It's actually far more stable than our training teeter. But it was different, and the dog said no. So now, there was no qualifying run. Big difference from a Q and a second place.

The next morning I pulled the young man aside again. I wanted him, I said, to set two goals for the day. One had to be a goal for his dog. One had to be a goal for himself. And neither goal could have anything to do with qualifying or getting a leg. I let him think about it. But just before his first run I asked him his goals.

"My dog goal is to get her to do the teeter. My goal for myself is to praise her more and support her, so she does the teeter."

Wow. What great goals. In his first run, the dog again refused the teeter and also the dogwalk. But we gave him some tips and he came up with some ideas on his own. And in his last run on Sunday, he and his dog had a super performance. She did both the teeter and the dogwalk. This time as they came across the last jump there was a huge celebration from a young man who had learned a whole lot in just two days. He'd learned how to win. How to lose. How to deal with losing. And how to set some fair goals that changed the definition of what "winning" meant and made it incredibly sweet when it happened.

--Robin

It's all about Want To...

Cala demonstrating "I WANT TO!" on the startline. (Photos by Cindy Noland)

I'm privileged to say that Cindy Noland is a friend of mine. Professional dog sport photographer, accomplished artist and probably the best motivational trainer I've ever seen. She's had a Doberman who was in both the Obedience and Agility Top 20s in the same year, she finished a Schutzhund 3 on a young intact male while he was going for his MACH. I should hate her freaking guts. But she's too darn nice. So alas, I can only sigh with admiring envy.

Cindy wrote a post on a dog list today that I thought was so good it deserved to be shared. So with her permission, here it is. The "her" in this post is the dog.

Agility is NOT about "have to." Agility is about "WANT to." Instead of focusing on telling your dog what not to do, think of ways to convince them to WANT to do it. Instead of trying to tell her something is not acceptable, try to think of a plan that will prevent the unwanted behavior from happening in the first place.

First of all, I would make sure that she totally enjoys doing all of the obstacles. That all you have to do is point her at one and she will run to it as soon as you release her. Make it easy for her to earn the reward and make sure she knows how happy you are with what she did. Happy handler equals good things for dog! You are now conditioning her to your praise, so that it has some value. Praise should always predict reward, so then the praise itself will become rewarding. If she tends to stick with you, sometimes throw the treat and tell her to GO get it.

In my experience, people new to the sport do not spend enough time with the obstacles and making sure the dogs know how to do them and that they thoroughly enjoy doing them. It is natural to want to hurry up and start putting things together, but then this weak foundation will crumble. The handling in between obstacles should just be some effort on your part to point the dog toward the next thing that it really wants to go to. And your dog should also be taught handling maneuvers without equipment, so they can learn what all of your movements, arm signals, and verbal commands mean without being attached to equipment. Again, sometimes reward at your side and sometimes throw the reward and release the dog to get it. And coming to you also needs to be very rewarding, so just handing them a treat is sometimes not enough. Lots of dogs find the control of the handler to be stressful and they avoid it. Watch dogs in the ring, most of them who stress and either shut down or run off do s after the handler tries to change their direction.

So with a lot of foundation practice and repetitions the dog now loves the obstacles, understands your various cues for direction, and also enjoys coming close to you when needed. It should then be easy to start stringing things together. I have found toys easier to work with, the dogs tend not to get so focused on the handler that they cannot return to obstacle focus. And you can also throw them and the dogs can see them easier than a treat and don't continue to sniff for more. The old rule is "toys for action, food for position."

But with either toys or food, they should NOT be used as lures. The dog must be taught to understand that sometimes they must move away from the reward in order to earn it. Try holding the reward in your hand where the dog can see it and ask them to perform an obstacle that they like. Does the dog run to the obstacle, or do they continue to stand there and stare at the reward? If you have paired the two together enough, she should run to the obstacle with the understanding that that is how to earn the reward. This is accomplished simply by consequences. If the dog goes through the shortened tunnel they earn the reward that is still held by you. If they offer to jump up onto the table when you move toward it they can earn the reward still held by you, etc. Move farther away from the obstacle and see if the dog can think about it and do what earns the reward. Then ask for two behaviors in a row before reward is available. Sometimes they do more, sometimes less and now your reward is being put on a variable reinforcement schedule. Also important is that when you want the dog to come to your for reward, you actually call them. Many people just quit what they are doing and when the dog comes to them on their own they give the reward. Then the dog has to guess when the reward is available.

But I cannot stress enough the value of making the obstacles themselves rewarding. I hold my reward, a toy or small ball, in my hand while I run my practices. The dogs know I have it and it is visible. I will tease them with it before asking for a behavior. I pound Fever's ball on the floor to wind her up and then ask for a sit and point her at the obstacle we are going to do. Through repetition she knows to go to the obstacle and not directly to the ball. Inci tries to pummel me into giving up the toy a bit more, but when that is not successful she knows what she needs to do. The toy is both a reward and a distraction in one. But they do not rely on it's presence to be able to perform. It is not used as a lure, therefore it is not part of the cue to do the equipment. I do not NEED to show them the toy in order to get them to do the equipment.

The only cue they need is the sight of the obstacle and my release word. They know just by looking at it what they need to do. And once they do it, my further cues tell them if we are stopping or continuing on to other things. Cues such as whether I am standing still or moving, what direction I am facing, what arm positions I have, and if I am calling them to come to me or not. They WANT to continue on, but they know it is also fun to come to me if that is what I am cueing.

So you see there is an awful lot for a dog to learn before going in the ring to compete. Putting your dog in over it's head is a sure way to build stress. And then expressing displeasure with them only escalates it. So take a step back and look at your training. Make sure you are being fair to your dog and that you have properly taught them everything you expect them to be able to do. Make sure YOU have held up your
end of the teamwork.

Cindy Noland
www.nolanddogart.com
Inci and Fever
In Memory of:
Britta, CDX,MX,MXJ,WAC,BH,CanCD,UKC Ch.,U-AG2
Tagi, ScH3,MX,MXJ,WAC,AD,EAC,UKC Ch.,U-Ag1
Maverick, AmCanUKC Ch,UDT,ROM,CanOTCh
Paradise,CD Aura, UDT, Ajay, CDX, and Magnum, CDX, CanCD

--Robin

It's better than Crack. Don't tell the DEA

I walked into the arena, Zipper tucked into my right elbow. His little feet rested on my hip. I snapped off his leash and handed it to the leash runner then sauntered slowly out toward the first jump. The ring crew was still changing heights from 16" down to 12". Zipper was the first 12" dog. Fine dust hung in the air. The rings had been well wet down at the beginning of the weekend but now, on the third and last day, the surface was drying up and loosening. I had tasted dust all morning. I kept cleaning my glasses off in a vain attempt to see more sharply through the haze.

I was doing my best to appear relaxed, but my knees were trembling a bit. Okay. What's the course again. I mentally went through it one last time. Two big imposing wing jumps straight out. There was a third big heavy wing straight ahead, but it was a trap. Jump three was actually a small, nondescript non-wing jump on a hard left turn from jump 2. A lot of teams were having trouble with the turn to jump 3, with dogs going over the trap jump or circling wide and losing a lot of time. The course then swept away and up, turning right and right again and coming back toward the start before a left turn that went to a long tunnel, then out across the back of the arena to weaves and a final two jumps and out. All this was swirling through my mind. Oh shoot. Wait. I want Zipper to be on my left at the start. I shifted Zipper from my right arm to my left. The ring crew was still fiddling with the last jump. Time was stretching. My stomach jumped and Zipper yawned; a big, jaw-cracking effort, his tongue curling stiffly. He was feeling my nerves and trying to calm both of us.

It looked like they finally had the timer done and I set Zipper gently on the ground, my index finger in his green and navy greek-key patterned collar. It almost glowed against his deep russet coat. I pointed to the first jump with my right hand, my finger trembling just a little. "Look Zip, it's Jump-jump" I whispered.

GO! said the mechanical timer voice. I took a breath and stood up, releasing Zipper and starting forward, my legs feeling like jelly, my left hand gesturing. "Jump!" I said, and he took off.

Over the first jump and I switched to my right hand, turning my shoulders left. He flew in front of me and reading my signal took jump 2 at an angle and headed straight left to jump 3, totally ignoring the trap jump. And suddenly we were both in the zone. My focus narrowed to Zipper's body, stretching and gathering. All sound vanished. The dust, the watching crowd, the judge in the ring all disappeared. I could feel Zipper's thoughts and hear his happy huffs as he hit the ground with each stride. We turned right as one and went up the curve of jumps, then right again. Zipper was running 10 feet ahead. A casual gesture with my right hand and another shoulder turn to the left and he responded immediately, not even head checking as he sliced a wing jump and disappeared briefly from sight behind the wooden palisade, ignoring another trap to fly into the tunnel.

"Good boy!" I told him when he was in the tunnel, and he came out even faster, at a dead run now. Now I just said, "Go!" and he was over the next two jumps. I checked my stride and said "Weave!" Zipper, who still doesn't really understand weave poles, flew past the weaves and went to see what the number in the ground was. I called him back and asked him to weave again. He started, but then ducked out.

"Okay buddy, let's try one more time." This time he did three weaves. We were qualifying. Should I keep trying? No. I came out of the zone enough to remember that I was only allowing myself two tries at the weaves.

"Good try, let's go!" and off we went, flying over the last two jumps.

"Good boy, what a good boy!" Zipper wiggled around my feet, panting happily, tail wagging so fast it was vibrating. I swept him up and grabbed his leash from the pole by the exit. "Let's go get some treats. You are the best boy ever."

****
And that, folks, is why we do it. It's those few magical seconds of time when person and dog move and think as one entity, flying around the ring in perfect sync. It doesn't happen every run. I've had clean runs that felt awful. And I've had runs like yesterday's that were so good I'll remember that high forever. Who cares about the Q. Being in the zone is the Crack of agility.

Capturing, Shaping, Modeling, Luring

Sounds like something a metrosexual would lisp provocatively on America's Next Top Model doesn't it? With Madonna's Vogue as the theme song. Believe it or not, Capturing, Shaping, Modeling and Luring are all dog training terms and describe ways we teach our dogs skills.

Capturing, Luring and Modeling are the easiest skills to learn. Shaping the most difficult but also the best way to really harness the power of the clicker. But what are they?

Luring
Luring is using food as, (duh) a lure. You stick a cookie in front of your dog's nose and use it to get the dog to do something, whether it's come (pull treat toward you) walk forward in heel (hold treat in left hand at nose level and walk), or sit (lift treat up and back so dog naturally wants to sit). Like a fish following a lure, the dog's body follows the dog's nose and the dog's nose is following the treat. Luring is easy to do but also very easy to abuse. It's really easy for the dog to expect that treat to be there and part of the picture. And because the dog is simply following his nose, he's not necessarily really thinking of what you want. He may not even notice he's now in a sit or following you, he's just following his nose. So lures should be very quickly faded into rewards. A lure is used to PRODUCE a behavior. A reward is used AFTER the dog offers the behavior.

Capturing
Capturing is pretty easy too, as long as you keep a clicker and small treats really close and handy. Capturing is when you just happen to catch a dog doing what you want and click for it. So you're sitting around watching TV and you have your clicker and some small treats you just carry in your pocket. Your dog doesn't like to down on command, but you know your dog knows how to down--all dogs sleep sometime! When your dog lays down, you click and pitch him a treat. Capturing is also a really great way to put fun stuff on command. Kathy has taught Kip to "commando crawl" by capturing. He likes to crawl forward on his belly, back legs dragging. She captured it by clicking it when he happened to be doing it. You can capture things like yawning, sneezing, begging—pretty much anything your dog does that you think it really cute.

Shaping
Shaping is more difficult but very powerful. Shaping is rewarding incremental steps to a final behavior. With shaping, you start global and go local. Shaping requires understanding your dog's body language and good timing, because you need to be able to click just at the right moment. Shaping also requires that the dog understands the clicker game, but dogs catch onto the clicker game really fast. The clicker game is that the dog knows that he can offer things and get a click/treat.

You can use shaping to, say, get a dog to pick up and hold a dumbbell. You can first click for the dog looking at the dumbell, then up the ante to having the dog touch it with his nose, then licking it, then taking it in his mouth for a moment, then holding it, then picking it up from the floor. All without pain or trauma, and the dog understands the lesson. Shirley Chong has a great detailed page on clicking the retrieve.

And here's a video of shaping from the Karen Pryor website.

Modeling
Modeling is the option least used by clicker trainers. Modeling uses physical positioning to teach. As an example, pushing a dog into a sit to teach the sit command. I try to avoid modeling if at all possible, because it's the slowest and least effective way to train since the dog is being physically put into position, which requires no brain power on his part and may be either scary or painful. It's always best to get the dog to freely offer a behavior rather than forcing the behavior on the dog.

--Robin

Pay up!

A younger thinner me on the left in about 1984, with Blue and my friend Cheryl Davis. We were teaching a 4H dog class in Callaway County.

Way, way back when I was much younger I trained my first dog, Blue, from a book. (Okay, I know. A dog named Blue. Because he was a blue Doberman. Original, no? I've never been great at naming dogs. We all have failings.)

But I remember the book, and you can still find it today. It was The Koehler Method of Dog Training. Now since that time I've met some people who knew Bill Koehler. And they assure me that he was a genius at reading dogs and that he was a sweet and humane man. I've also heard that when Koehler (pronounced KEE-ler) wrote this book he was angry at someone. I don't know if that's true or not. But I think the Koehler book has done more harm to dogs and the dog training world than any other book written to date, and that's saying something. (The alpha rolling nonsense in the Monks of New Skete book so popular with a certain TV personality is probably in 2nd place).

In the Koehler book there's a discussion right up front about what he felt were namby-pamby cookie pushers. In Koehler's world, dogs never worked for food. They worked because if they didn't they would regret it big time. The verbal praise earned by avoiding corporal punishment was apparently enough. Koehler's method centers around the "obey me OR ELSE" philosophy. Some of the "or else's" described include hanging the dog, hitting it with rubber coated dowel rods, submerging its head in a hole filled with water until the dog was unconscious (apparently to stop digging). The Koehler book haunts us today because people still feel it's perfectly acceptable to badly abuse their dogs in the name of training.

And a lot of people still feel that giving treats to a dog in training is cheating. That if you do so, you are the dreaded cookie-pusher or (gasp) human pez dispenser. Which is deeply weird when you really think about it. Because in our real lives, we give tangible rewards for good behavior all the time.

Let's think of it a bit differently. What if you did your job and your boss was pleased and he came by and said thank you often. But when payday came, he just shrugged and smiled and said, "I'm really pleased with you, but no check, my praise should be enough." Huh? No paycheck? I bet you'd quit trying so hard (if not quit the job entirely), because though praise is nice, most of us work for the money not just out of the goodness of our hearts. Then there are the rewards we dispense to others. When a co-worker does something unexpectedly nice, sometimes we buy them lunch or a small gift. Most of us give our kids allowances. Good grades are sometimes rewarded with cash or presents.

Now, if you quit giving your kid anything but praise for cleaning his room would he stop loving you? Of course not. Would he be as quick to clean the room next time? Well maybe, but adding a cash incentive is more likely to get him to clean his room more often and with less prompting.

So why on earth do we deny our dogs a tangible paycheck? Yes, they like praise. Yes, they do work for love of us. Trust me, if they didn't love us they wouldn't put up with a quarter of the crap we visit upon their heads. I mean, the whole bath thing? And have you ever met a dog that loves getting its anal glands expressed? That's love baby. Using food in training is just a way to give a real reward they understand for a job well done.

Of course like anything else, there are proper ways to use food and ways to abuse it. Food should be a reward not a lure, and food should reward progress. A good instructor can help you figure out when to reward.

As for what kind of food, it needs to be small, soft, smelly, and yummy. It should be something out of the ordinary they don't get every day. No hard crunchy treats. And by small I mean tiny. I give my Dobermans pea sized pieces of frozen Bil Jac and they will turn themselves inside out for them. Other good choices are string cheese (take tiny pieces off), or a rotisserie chicken with bone and skin removed, chopped fine. Hot Dogs can be sliced into thin rounds and microwaved on Medium until leathery. Treats Unleashed has Jurassic Bark and also carries Zuke's Mini Naturals, a perfect size and texture for treats.

So be ready to pay up! Reward your dog with praise and food. You'll progress much more quickly and have a dog that is an enthusiastic worker.

--Robin

Teaching the Teacher

Cala (left) and Viva the day Viva retired from Rally Obedience after completing her Rally Advanced Title with a first place. Cala got her first Rally Advanced leg with a first place.

At CCSC we offer a pretty wide variety of classes. And as I've mentioned before, our instructors vary a bit in approach and training philosophy. All the instructors have a lot of experience actually competing in the sports they teach, and all instructors share a commitment to positive training. But we do differ in how we train certain skills.

Another thing you'll notice if you take many classes at CCSC. We instructors also take classes. You may have an instructor in your class. Perhaps even one that teaches that class in a different session. After all, we are also trying to train our own dogs at the same time we're teaching you how to train yours. And if you look carefully, you may see us take the same class more than once.

As an example, I own three dogs. Viva, at over 10, is retired from competition. I very occasionally bring her into the building and do a bit of heeling or let her run an agility sequence over 8" or 12" jumps because she loves to do it and hates sitting on the couch doing nothing. Viva's daughter, Cala, is almost 6. Though she has several titles she's a real training challenge for me and while you may see her in a Rally class, we train in agility on our own because she's loud and gets very amped up. Cala, by the way, has taken the Jump 1 class at least 4 times because she hates to collect her stride and I keep having to remind her that she can do it. Zipper is my young dog, and has been progressing through classes. He's taken Agility Foundations (twice), Jump 1, Handling and Sequencing (twice).

Now you might think we teachers have enough training experience to "not need" to take classes. But that's not true. Taking classes has many benefits. It helps our dogs learn how to deal with other dogs and distractions. It helps us get valuable outside insight and input into our handling. And taking classes from a friend who may have a different training method or philosophy can also help open us up to new ideas and methods.

So look around next time you're in class. You might see someone beside you who may be teaching you in another session.