Wheeeeeeee.......

The last Wednesday of every month Training Troop puts on Whee Wed trials. It's a little mini agility trial starting at 7 pm and hopefully not finishing super late. Usually there is one "all levels" dog class, like Steeplechase or Team Relay and then there is 1 starter/1 advanced class or 2 masters classes.

Septembers was Starter/Advanced Jumpers and a Steeplechase. I figured with the recent success of Flashing Canines, I might as well see how Spencer is going to handle a indoor trial at Wet Creek. As that is the venue where most of the trials are held around here.

Spencer has been joining Baxter at trials since last Dec. Just getting used to noises and people and dogs etc. Trying to teach him that they're not a bad place to be and even if it is a little scary, nothing bad will happen. We've practiced maybe 2-3 times out in that arena for drop-in but have mostly trained outside. I had no idea how my little guy was going to do.

I was in fact pretty prepared for scared, shut down dog, especially after the parade of bully breeds doing weight pulling filed in and set off all the reactive agility dogs. Fantastic! Loud, echoing, frantic barking dogs, just what Spencer loves. /face palm.

So, we went into the ring for starter jumpers I was pretty much caught with my proverbial pants down. Spencer exploded off of the start line, blew past me down a straight away, missed the tire jump and was already over the next jump after that before my brain kicked into gear. Ok, no tire, fine, whatever. He missed another jump on the straight away to the finish line, but all in all he did fantastic!

He was *just* a little high/frantic, and when one of the ladies timing or scribing said I could move up closer to the start line he had to take off like a bullet to go wiggle at them. But all in all, he was brilliant. Zoomies were directed at the course more or less and he stayed with me. Enthusiasm - check. Fun - check. Handler wasn't a bone head and didn't make him redo things that are her fault not his - check!

Steeplechase was a little slower, but still he did a good job. Not quite as high. He slipped in the loose dirt on his way into the weaves but stuck the entry and didn't pop. He's still a little odd with tunnels - I can't rear cross them near the tunnel mouth or I'm almost guaranteed to have him spin back out and sometimes if I don't support enough he'll spin out anyway - so I got that once. He was also hitting his A-frame contact really high and it isn't quite independent of handler position yet, so more proofing and work (which I knew) on those specific issues is needed. I'm not sure if the jackpot treats at Flashing Canines contributed to the fantastic attitude at Wet Creek, but I'm not discounting it. So those will continue.

For a baby dog I think he did very well. He is SO different to handle than Baxter. That is going to be a steep learning curve! Sadly, I have no video of these runs. I think I'm just going to bring a tripod next time and have it video me.

As for my big guy, Baxter had a weave bobble when he popped out 2 from the end. Then he also had a bar down. Both in Steeplechase. I didn't really fix the weaves and I should have, but he was still overtime. The shocker was the bar though. Baxter doesn't knock bars (unless we're in class and I am talking to him at the wrong time) but otherwise he is fantastic with that. This was a straight away of 5 jumps at full speed. I didn't think that it would be that challenging, but for a dog running flat out (I was ahead by a tiny bit, but he was moving) I can see that it would be hard to have the same control jumping over multiple jumps. So that's something we'll practice a bit too.

No Q's. But it was a very fun Wednesday!

First Trial

Spencer's first agility trial was a success!

Flashing Canines was a awesome trial because it was a little quieter and benching was pretty spread out. I LOVE the venue because of the other fenced baseball diamonds though. It is awesome beyond belief to be able to take your entire group of dogs for a offleash walk/run/game of fetch during the trial within sight of it! It makes pottying after staying in the hotel overnight a cinch and if you happen to have dogs with you not in the trial they don't spend a mind numbing day sitting in a crate with only potty breaks!

My goal was just to get my baby dog out to experience a trial environment, run around the ring and have a good time. Anything else is just a bonus. I was also really trying not care how he did, except that he would have fun and be enthusiastic. I think I succeeded.

We were just in starter jumpers (because it is easy) and gamblers so that I could run him over "strange" contact equipment a few times and then have a party. Mentally I was making a huge effort not to care about qualifying and not to let anything in my mind change my behavior. No pressure on the dog!

Spencer was a little unsure of agility. Watching the videos of our runs I can't really "see" the difference,  but in our first gamblers and jumpers run he was unsure. He stuck with me, but I didn't have my happy little dog from practice. He noticed the ring crew (but didn't bark at them!) and was sniffy with the chute, but I think that was more curiosity than stress behaviors.

Our third run, the second gamblers run was awesome. We hit the dogwalk and the Aframe, and he was with me the way he'll run in practice! It doesn't look faster/drivier/different on video though, which I found odd. It almost feels like he actually needs contact obstacles/weaves/table so that he is confident of what I am asking him to do, jumps/tunnels are not valuable enough and his enthusiasm and speed wanes as we do more of them without a reward - he thinks he is wrong maybe? I do reward mistakes in training with him so hopefully not! He's just so soft.

With Spencer, our pre-run routine still needs to be established. I have to pump him up and then cheerlead through the course. 110% of my attention is on my little guy so that he doesn't have a bad experience and shut down. He is very toy driven/ball obsessive, so I wanted to use a toy to motivate him instead of just food. But it's hard to bring that toy with you to the ring before you run and it's distracting for the other dogs or they focus on it and scare Spencer. He'll tug, but not with all the dogs around the gates at a trial. He jumps into my arms, but he doesn't do the personal play thing yet, there have always been toys or treats involved too, so definitely something to work on.

I wasn't sure what kind of "exit strategy" I wanted to use with Spencer either. Baxter gets a jackpot of treats at the end of his run, but it's kind of a pain to prep them. I wasn't sure I wanted to double that, but I think I will. Spencer was a little surprised the first time he got it, but after that "Where are your cookies? Good boy, lets go get the cookies" got lots of enthusiasm. Then we can play ball or tug, or whatever.

I think the hardest part is wanting for him to be successful. I just don't know if what I am doing is going to enable that. He doesn't have the most confidence and is really soft so I am trying to be proactive and avoid things I know can shake it. No start line stays yet, and any wrong obstacles or incorrectly done ones are my fault, not his. No major obstacle call offs of yelling his name either. If we look silly but have fun, so be it.

Baby dogs are fun, but stressful!

Just about a Year

Or it would have been had I posted this on time! So it's like a year and a month - whatever!!

Baxter started trialing and got his first Q last year on 31-Aug.

I am SO happy with how far he has come and how we've grown as a team. I'm pretty happy with me for sticking with the sport as well and growing as a person/trainer. Granted, Baxter isn't as difficult a starter dog as some people have had, but it's easy to start out with something and then decide that it really isn't for you.

I love it when there are photographers at the trials! I got one of each of the boys @ Medicine Hat! Photographers Album

Aside from guarding the hotel room, he was fantastic at the Flashing Canines trial last weekend. We came home with 2 Q's; his first master standard and his first master snooker. But, he tried in all his runs AND he hit all his weave pole entries and didn't pop out. I also got fast weave poles (we can get single stride weaves at home and are working on transferring that to other venues) in his qualifying master standard run. The things we've been working on are improving!

We had a couple little bobbles here and there, what I'll refer to as "baby dog" (and possibly baby handler) mistakes. I front crossed on the flat to push him onto the dogwalk and instead of going up the dogwalk plank he went beside it in a standard run. He missed a jump because I drifted a little bit laterally away from it in one jumpers. Then we both buggered up a backside of a jump in the other jumpers. But we're getting there. I have a happy dog who wants to work for me in a trial. THAT is what I care about, the rest will come with polishing. I didn't get lost on course either, which I am happy about!

Notice I don't mention either of our gamblers runs though. Those were just sad. First run I tried the mini's on, and he wasn't terribly successful. Not only did he not want to work away for the mini, we also didn't get the super awesome main gamble either. 3 jumps, 2 tunnels, 4 multi directional obstacles. It was like a gift!

So. I changed my plan after some advice. Stop worrying about the mini's. Plan a nice speedy path to wind him up instead of struggling in the first 40 sec which is going to pretty much guarantee me a melt down in the final gamble. Ok. Makes sense. I think we did better in the second gamblers run - except for Mr Excitement jumping a dogwalk contact >< That final gamble was hard though, out to 6 weaves, twice and some jumps, only a handful of dogs even got to the weaves, only one did the gamble correct but over time. We weren't any of those dogs!

So I need to break down distance work to not such a distance I think, and get it solid there. In our distance class we took I usually had to step over the line to get Baxter to read the handling right. If that's what it takes in a trial, that's what it takes. I'd rather step over the line and help him get it right than for my handling to be unclear and teach him not to trust it. That's the plan for now anyway. Gamblers is going to be the hardest thing for us to master, but I knew that right from the beginning when it took forever to even get our first gamblers Q's.

Even though he is doing good in agility, I'm thinking about dropping him into veterans once he turns 5 in January. It still feels like a little bit of a cop-out right now, but if he needs a couple extra seconds to qualify when he's trying I don't think I'm going to stay in specials until he's 7 just to make the a point of doing it "the hard way." I guess I'll see in Jan. We're in Steeplechase this Wed and I'm curious to see if he will make time or if he'll still be over.

Motivation

The dogs and I spent the weekend in Medicine Hat for the last outdoor trial of the season put on by Flashing Canines. It was a great trial and has given me lots of blog fodder! Before I start on the good stuff tho ...

...Irritation is motivation

I think I am sufficiently motivated enough after this past weekend to put a stop to barking at noises.

They look so cute and innocent ...

Rewind a few months. I went to get Spencer measured at a trial, just to practice and get used to it. It went badly, he was terrified and actually growled at the judge - not quite the way I wanted things to go. So we worked on that really hard. I made a little PVC wicket and he got "measured" and "petted" on the back and neck by the wicket every couple of days while he worked for his meals. This weekend he was great for measuring. Although I'm sure it helps that they had thin metal wickets and a female judge instead of huge PVC ones and a male judge.

I'm talking about this why? Because this weekend was the first time I've stayed in a hotel and I was pretty apprehensive about taking all 3 dogs with me. When they're together pack mentality is quite apparent, if one dog reacts to something even if the others individually are fine all 3 turn into little lunatics. Penny is very vocal while Spencer is really high strung, so I usually don't have both Chihuahuas with me - especially in new situations.

I guess it wasn't THAT bad (then again, I wasn't the people in the room next to mine, so who knows?) The 3 hour car ride had the boys pretty out of sorts and Baxter was a bit stressed by being in a strange place. I'm glad I came up the night before instead of making the drive the morning of.

The hotel put us in the very last room in the hall, the one right beside the door to the stairwell that also has a outside door. Instead of having a nice little handle you press it was one of those doors with the bar across it. You know, the ones with the bar you hammer on and smash into the door to open it. It's quite noisy. You can hear it from in the room ...

I had hoped that all the camping and staying in my parents trailer with the dogs would lend itself to a easy hotel stay but between the room location and being in a strange place, none of us got much sleep that night. I even crated and covered the smaller ones together in hopes it would keep them quieter. Didn't quite work.

Saturday night went better maybe because they were falling asleep on their feet from the day at the trail, but again, when people started moving and thunking and bashing around on Sunday morning starting at 5:30 the dogs would get a bark or two in before they would shush.

Ah well. Something to work on. 

Toys. Fading rewards and Building ring behaviours.

We had a great time today spending most of the day out at Wet Noses. Spencer and I are starting to click as a team in the face of distraction, which is good, because he's entered in his first trial in 2 weeks!

It will likely be the last outdoor trial of the season and may be a *little* bit early to begin to trial Spencer. However, I want him to have a good experience at his first couple of trials and outdoors is easier for him. Less weird echos, not so crowded. No dogs that attack the front of their crate when you walk by benched right by the entrance to the arena. Outdoors makes things easier when you're a soft, fragile little dog!

Spencer is also comfortable enough (at Wet Noses at least) to full out play tug with me. The kind of toy obsessive tug that I get at home when my little guy isn't worried about his environment.

What I'm working on right now is fading out the toy being on my person or at least visibly on my person. When we run courses or when we work drills, I usually am holding his toy. So he KNOWS it's there. He doesn't track(stare) the toy as he works, which was a nice side effect of training weaves by 2x2's, but he's anticipating earning it. When he can't see it, he's not as sure about working.

Baxter didn't do this, but then he was training for much longer and I primarily used treats with Baxter, only using his cherished ball to teach that burst of speed at the end through the finish line. Treats build value in a behavior, but toys build drive for it. With Baxter I've had to work on re-building his toy drive due to the focus on food rewards. With Spencer I am working on keeping both toy drive and motivation for food intact during training. Not focusing on the "easy" one to the exclusion of the other.

We've done a lot of small handling drills and double box work so he's used to frequent rewards to create enthusiasm and drive for the behaviors. So I'm lengthening the sequences we run before he earns his toy. We're not up to running a full course without a reward yet. If we're not there by the trial, that's fine, I'll just do partial courses and then have a party with him.

I'm also juicing up nose touches as a rewarding behavior. They're already pretty rewarding, but now I randomly jackpot them as well. Why? So in the event my soft little dog shuts down on a agility course, I can ask for a hugely reinforcing, easy behavior that he loves to do.

Yes, it will get us (me) faults for touching the dog, but it can be my "toy" on the course until we can get off of it to get his reward. It will also enable me to positively influence his frame of mind to get one more obstacle done with focus and enthusiasm so we can get outta there and not reward shut down or other stress behaviors by just leaving. As the truism reads, plan for the worst and hope for the best! It's also just plain fun =D

Just passing by

Where'd it go?

Tongues