This made me rethink the effect of consequences.  Dogs view everything in black and white, but I know very few trainers that are that consistent.  The decision to heel in the dog’s mind is go, stop, sit.  Sounds simple, but what about when you start working on precision, turns, or if your attention wanders while working….then you start giving inconsistent signals to the dog, and they start giving inconsistent results.   I had a “tune up” with my trainer (ie a private lesson) and we had both lowered our standards and expectations with this dog, and it was showing, so when we re-evaluated his performance we both realized that he could do better….of course she knew it, but was waiting for me to committ to doing the handler’s part of the work to achieve this.  Bottom line, it is important to track your progress, either with notes, journal entries, or the occasional blog, otherwise you can repeat mistakes without realizing it, get into a rut, or even just underestimate your dog’s performance.  Every dog has a different potiential, and adjusting your goals is important, but not challenging your dog’s abilities is basically wasting the potential of your dog.  Every dog has a different potiential, and adjusting your goals is important, but not challenging your dog’s abilities is basically wasting the potential of your dog.  Training without consequences is begging your dog to do something that is optional in the dog’s mind.  Having said that, the consequence does not have to be harsh, but it does have to be clear, or it simply results in confusion on the part of the dog.  A favored saying of my trainer is any correction that does not eliminate the behavior only intensifies the behavior.  At first glance, many take this to mean that a correction should be a strong physical response to stop an undesired behavior, but this is not correct.  It means reading the dog’s behavior, and gauging the response to provide an adequate check on the behavior so that it stops.  It may be something small, or it may take something forceful, but it is important to understand what the dog actually needs.  Corrections may be both positive and negative, and a good mixture of both actually provides a very strong training response in most dogs.  But some days I wonder who is training whom???  But then I realize, of course Keebler is training me!

  Did I mention that it took me 3 1/2 years to teach this dog to heel??  Walking with a 20 lb lead weight glued to your leg is not conducive to being able to move in the ring, which is how Bill decided that he should heel.  Heeling by braille took on a whole new meaning.  .  . 

But I have to say, that training Bill has made me a person with a great deal of patience.  He is not a dog that you can say a harsh word to, as he melts.  He is not motivated by food, toys, or pretty much anything except his crate and going for a ride in his crate in the car.  But with an extreme amount of dedication, persistence and good humor from the judges, Bill finished his CD this past weekend, and did it in very memorable style, to become :     CH. To-Jo’s Funny Money CD, BN, RN or Billy to those who love him.  As those that I train with are firmly convinced that none of us would actually live long enough to train him to CDX level, I get to officially stop here, so as of this past weekend Billy is retired.

Our signal exercises continue to progress,  but the verbal stand is only at about 50 percent of the time.  I find that this is a challenging request to make of the dog.  But if you have it, it makes life so much easier, so we will master this.  We are gaining a small amount of distance with this, and I know that this will not continue to progress so quickly, but I find that of all the exercises, I am probably the most consistent in training this, thus we are seeing the most progress.  

Articles continue to be very slow, but again I am not training this activity with the same enthusiasm that I am with the others, so I am not seeing the progression that I would like.  I find that I really enjoy teaching the inductive retrieve.  At this point we are working on a motivational touch to direct the retrieve.  I plan to work this a little more actively this week and hope to see some progression.  Taking it slow and making it a game definitely has merit, as I have seen all the bad ways to train articles and unfortunately managed to do all the mistakes when training Mattie.  I have seen the drive that this method can provide, and I have to make myself stop being so formal with Keebler.  I know that this will pay off in the end.

Our directed retrieve has been good in part.  We are getting a small Mark with the glove in the air, but the retrieve is not consistent.  I hope to get better coordinated with this as well.

We are seeing progress in the touch to the stanchion, but the look straight is really hampered both by the hair in the eyes and the lack of working this consistently.  It takes a little more work to get every thing in place and tends to fall by the wayside.

One of the take homes of class was be honest with yourself about your expectations of your dogs progress and the amount of training that you are putting in.  If you are not putting in the time, then you are probably not going to see amazing progress.  This is a class that is basically independant study, but we all realize that Life happens, so not every dog is going to be at the same place.

This is one of the most amazing aspects of this group.  We tend to break out and discuss the progress of the dogs between each exercise as we are resting them.  It is also our time to discuss our understandings of why we are training the way we do.  I find it a very enlightening discussion because we have such a depth of experience.

The next set of exercises were part of the motivational retrieve for metal articles.  All of the puppies have the concept and no adversion to picking up a metal article, but most are not at a point to work retrieving at a distance.  This is an ongoing process, that we are taking very slow, to make sure that we have solid retrieves, as well as minimal stress on the articles. 

We continued working on Go-outs with the dogs continuing to touch and mark.  I was amazed that Keebler has a touch to the stantion, as well as starting to mark for looking straight.  We are still right on the stantion, but will begin to move it back this next week. 

The new exercise that we started was the Mark for the glove pick up.  This involves holding the dog with the right hand on the collar, tossing the glove close with a high ark, and sending with the word mark.  As the dog begins to look at the glove and track it’s movement, the send comes later, to allow the dog to track the glove, hold the position and then go to retrieve.  (It comes as no surprise that Keebler does not quite have retrieving down)  Going out to get the glove yes, but not coming back with it. I am amazed to see him get excited over retrieving  the glove and in fact he has been actually playing with the glove as we get to it.  I am amazed to see how much time and effort I am already spending in teaching this dog the fundamentals.  But it is in short increments with alot of play, and alot of breaks. 

Still the foundations that we are teaching will provide a  fantastic basis for the future work ethic of this puppy.

Today we worked Signals, and the concept of hand and voice for stand from a down, sit from a down, and of course stand to a down.  The emphasis was on ensuring that the dog did not move forward, and that all the motion was a backward movement.  The rational for teaching a dog to not move forward from the pressure of distance and judge were also stressed.  Training these to be default behaviors will encourage a more reliable and consistent performance in the ring (or so we hope).

Articles  were also started today, with metal retrieves, of which all the dogs were already good with, hiding and find it games introduced.  Keebler has a great fondness for stealing silverware, so his retrieving was not so good, and he kept insisting that picking up the article on the end was the best way for carrying it….(not).   Building drive and enjoyment to help them work thru the stress of sent work and finding the correct article is the basis of this exercise.   

The most enjoyable exercise was working on Go-Outs for directed jumping. 
What an abstract concept of teaching a dog to look straight, run straight until they are stopped.  (ok that is the theory).   However, using food as a motivator, building in that drive and focus on a stanchion, despite whatever else is going on is the key.  The interesting feature of how we are training is that we are teaching focus on the stanchion and touch of the stanchion as 2 different exercises.  Tapping the stanchion to maintain focus is a key to maintaining attention initially.  Using food that has a high value is also important. 

I hope to continue working this class in both theory and in practice as I hope it will improve my skill as a handler and trainer.    We still are having jumping issues, but life continues on.

actually this post is a pre post, as I have to share a sad secret about my puppy that has exelled at everything I have tried with him, except one small limiting factor….
HE CAN’T JUMP

Unbelieveable as it may be, as he has springs on his legs, bounces all day long, and just gets great verticle lift especially if you are trying to stack him, and he wants to move, but

HE CAN’T JUMP

We have tried low jumps… he climbs over them and gets stuck midway…..
each foot carefully lifted, and placed over the barrier, but no jump.

We tried wide jumps, he stopped in the middle.

We tried throwing food, he did not see it….
We tried calling him over, he stopped at the jump and waited for me to come back to him
I tried walking him over……he climbed it with each foot carefully placed, and then walked over to the food that we had thrown prior to that, and ate it.

Keebler and Mattie

Needless to say we have a long road ahead of us. I am hoping that with alot of therapy, I might recover from the shame of having a dog that can’t jump…perhaps I can start a support group jumpers annonoumous comes to mind, but then I thought that I might get either horribly depressed people or agility addicts, I am afraid I am a minority. Keep your fingers crossed that we find a solution to this problem!

Maxx need ssome mor efocus and I am loooking for additional activities to do with him.

At what age to you all start focusing on walking properly o n lead? we have been beggingt he question since I normally just pick him up when he tugs or if I have itme and space I run the other way a little to get him to follow.

The way this dog leaps intot he air to ge twhatever he want s- I am thinking i need to start him in disc dog

Brother to Macy and Sybil, he is also CH Masquerade Alice Acres Madness CD RAE NAP – for his AKC titles.

 He also is a UKC CH and UWP (United Weight Puller), NADSR (North American Dog Sports and Registry) WP1 (pulled at least 20 times his weight) and a Weight Pull CH, has several CPE agility titles, AHBA herding HCTs, TDI therapy dog, pulls as a lead dog with teams for dryland carting/dog sledding, and backpacks. He is a sweet dog with a great work ethic!