Today was for shaping! I spent three sessions working on shaping a back up with the little miss. Pure free shaping, so I sat on the couch and clicked for any backward motion and used placement of reinforcement to help me out. OhLa had a hard time with this, her breakfast dish was sitting on the couch next to me. She was a wee bit obsessed with it! She never touched it, she had her nose resting right on the side of the bowl once, but never went for it. This is good, and I don't really mind that our shaping session wasn't entirely successful as her learning to work with the distraction of a food bowl right next to her is important stuff! We did manage to get some understanding of what the activity is, but definitely not a "back up" worthy of a cue just yet.
She had her second building blocks class tonight, and tonight's class was all about shaping! Great stuff, managed to get her two front feet on an overturned bowl, two front feet in the bowl, and then one of her back feet on the bowl. This morning sessions really helped, she is just starting to click in her mind that her back feet move independently of the front and that she can do something with them! Our homework this week is to teach a trick. Not sure what that's going to be yet! I might cheat and use "back up" as our trick, since we are already working on it and it hasn't been introduced in the class yet. That or I teach her something completely ridiculous!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
We have Haw! Oh boy do we ever have Haw!
Picture this: Ohla comes out to the yard for her training turn. She is dancing around trying to get at the treat bag which I put on the fence. I get out my handful of treats. The wobble board is leaning up against the fence. I reach for it, and so does Ohla. Oh yes, she not only reached for it, she jumped up and pulled it out of my hands and down to the ground with her paws and leapt on it! I can confidently say we have the full Yee Haw! Good grief, it was more like, Yo B*#ch, give me my board!!
She also did one jump up to 22" today. Still having trouble transferring from hand to hand she is so obsessive over the food. Interestingly, the side she is less keen to do is the one that makes her turn left into me to get the food. The cookies are the same in the left hand, she just wants the right that much more.
I dropped the jump back down to 16" and had her go over and come to me for the toy as well. I am very pleased that she is just as interested in playing tug with me as she is to get the cookies, and is making nice tight turns to come back and get the toy.
Next on the Haw list is the teeter. This is unbelievable, never have I had a dog do this in all the dogs I've trained from the beginning. A shout out to her mom: has she ever done plank work? All I did was walk over to the teeter thinking I'd let her play the bang game with it. When I walked over she jumped up on it and started heading to the end! Luckily I was able to put my foot on it and keep it from tipping. WOW is all I can say. So I changed my training plan in the moment and put a jump standard underneath the tipping end of the teeter to hold it up and let her run the plank to the end, where she received a pile of cookies and then I let her jump off. We did that three times, she happily ran the plank all three times. The third go she really let her rip and ran right to the end with her front toes hanging off the end, exactly what I want to see. I can't believe it, I've never had a dog so raring to go over the teeter like that. Now I really have to work her sit stay so she can sit at the end while I get ready to hold the teeter so she can do some teeter surfing. I seriously have to get on teaching her to back up so she learns her rear end awareness now, yikes!
She also did one jump up to 22" today. Still having trouble transferring from hand to hand she is so obsessive over the food. Interestingly, the side she is less keen to do is the one that makes her turn left into me to get the food. The cookies are the same in the left hand, she just wants the right that much more.
I dropped the jump back down to 16" and had her go over and come to me for the toy as well. I am very pleased that she is just as interested in playing tug with me as she is to get the cookies, and is making nice tight turns to come back and get the toy.
Next on the Haw list is the teeter. This is unbelievable, never have I had a dog do this in all the dogs I've trained from the beginning. A shout out to her mom: has she ever done plank work? All I did was walk over to the teeter thinking I'd let her play the bang game with it. When I walked over she jumped up on it and started heading to the end! Luckily I was able to put my foot on it and keep it from tipping. WOW is all I can say. So I changed my training plan in the moment and put a jump standard underneath the tipping end of the teeter to hold it up and let her run the plank to the end, where she received a pile of cookies and then I let her jump off. We did that three times, she happily ran the plank all three times. The third go she really let her rip and ran right to the end with her front toes hanging off the end, exactly what I want to see. I can't believe it, I've never had a dog so raring to go over the teeter like that. Now I really have to work her sit stay so she can sit at the end while I get ready to hold the teeter so she can do some teeter surfing. I seriously have to get on teaching her to back up so she learns her rear end awareness now, yikes!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Crate game epiphany!
It was a rainy day today so we hung out inside, did some shopping, etc. etc. So today was a good day for crate games!
OhLa is now sitting at the back of her crate or downing when I go to open the door. I don't really care which one, so long as she chooses one and doesn't do a halfer ( sometimes she tries to cheat by doing a half down, which is OhLa speak for I'm ready to bolt. Not okay there girlie!). I can reach in and put the leash on without her standing up or leaning forward, I can stand up and I can even tug on the leash and she stays. She gets it, at last! I tug on the leash and she leans back, good girl! She releases like a rocket on her release cue too, perfect!
Today's great success though is not about the sit, the down, or even the leash (as good a feat as that one is), it's all about TURNS today.
In agility, a dog needs to learn to naturally turn into their owner. Take a jump, turn in and come back to handler, do a tunnel and turn into handler etc. This way the dog stays on course and you use the natural draw of the handler to maintain a connection with the dog. Surprisingly enough, dogs need to be taught this behaviour. Every dog, like every person is right or left handed. They prefer to turn one way over the other. In OhLa's case, she is a right turner. Every time she goes into her kennel she turns to the right. As a handler I know (thanks to people smarter than myself) that I need to train her muscles and her brain to work equally well turning in either direction. (Remember the good old days of "off side"? yah well, there's no such thing, just a dog and handler that have not learned to work on their less desirable side. We want to prevent this, and teach OhLa to turn into her handler, no matter where she is. What better place than the crate! I send her in, give her a little poke on her left side and she should turn into me since I am on the left of her crate and the left side of her crate door is open. Yeah well, not so much! I must have poked her twenty times, she was really insistent on the right hand turn! She finally got it and she received her entire breakfast as a reward. Session two I only had to poke her about five times before she caught on again, lots of rewards for doing it right! Session three I only had to poke her twice. And at supper tonight? She did it ALL BY HERSELF, smart girl! Hooray! So tomorrow we'll do some more left hand turns and then I'll open the right side of the crate door, stand on the right, and see what we get! Lucky for me the way her crate is positioned, the left hand side of the door will be open unless I move the crate away from the wall. This is good, as it will pattern her heavily to the left, her weaker side every time she goes into her kennel.
Today she is busy bringing me every sock she can find in the house (some of which came out of the clean laundry basket thank you very much!). She loves to show me her "prizes" which is very sweet; plus we get to practice bringing it to my hand, to which I of course remark on how lovely this particular sock is and return it to her, but only if she shows me some nice self control and takes it when given to her. Fun games!
OhLa is now sitting at the back of her crate or downing when I go to open the door. I don't really care which one, so long as she chooses one and doesn't do a halfer ( sometimes she tries to cheat by doing a half down, which is OhLa speak for I'm ready to bolt. Not okay there girlie!). I can reach in and put the leash on without her standing up or leaning forward, I can stand up and I can even tug on the leash and she stays. She gets it, at last! I tug on the leash and she leans back, good girl! She releases like a rocket on her release cue too, perfect!
Today's great success though is not about the sit, the down, or even the leash (as good a feat as that one is), it's all about TURNS today.
In agility, a dog needs to learn to naturally turn into their owner. Take a jump, turn in and come back to handler, do a tunnel and turn into handler etc. This way the dog stays on course and you use the natural draw of the handler to maintain a connection with the dog. Surprisingly enough, dogs need to be taught this behaviour. Every dog, like every person is right or left handed. They prefer to turn one way over the other. In OhLa's case, she is a right turner. Every time she goes into her kennel she turns to the right. As a handler I know (thanks to people smarter than myself) that I need to train her muscles and her brain to work equally well turning in either direction. (Remember the good old days of "off side"? yah well, there's no such thing, just a dog and handler that have not learned to work on their less desirable side. We want to prevent this, and teach OhLa to turn into her handler, no matter where she is. What better place than the crate! I send her in, give her a little poke on her left side and she should turn into me since I am on the left of her crate and the left side of her crate door is open. Yeah well, not so much! I must have poked her twenty times, she was really insistent on the right hand turn! She finally got it and she received her entire breakfast as a reward. Session two I only had to poke her about five times before she caught on again, lots of rewards for doing it right! Session three I only had to poke her twice. And at supper tonight? She did it ALL BY HERSELF, smart girl! Hooray! So tomorrow we'll do some more left hand turns and then I'll open the right side of the crate door, stand on the right, and see what we get! Lucky for me the way her crate is positioned, the left hand side of the door will be open unless I move the crate away from the wall. This is good, as it will pattern her heavily to the left, her weaker side every time she goes into her kennel.
Today she is busy bringing me every sock she can find in the house (some of which came out of the clean laundry basket thank you very much!). She loves to show me her "prizes" which is very sweet; plus we get to practice bringing it to my hand, to which I of course remark on how lovely this particular sock is and return it to her, but only if she shows me some nice self control and takes it when given to her. Fun games!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Wobble board Yee, but not quite Haw!
April 23
Session 1 Wobble board. OhLa had an epiphany on the board today, all her feet on, going back and forth. She figured out that when the board tips, the rewards arrive! All I need now is to see her little tail give it's happy wag while she's on there and we can start moving on to some teeter games too. She was pretty proud of herself today! (And I was proud of her smart girl!)
Session 2: Differentiating Sit and down
Now that she has been getting her downs just on the verbal cue "flat" it was time to mix it up a little. This afternoons session was all about getting her to listen to what I was saying. Mixing up sit and flat in random order. The first few times she just defaulted to the flat, she did it enough times that I helped her out with the sit hand cue along with the verbal a couple times. Aha her brain said! This is a work in progress.
Session 3: shaping the bottom of the a-frame. I thought I'd get going on the down contact behaviour and shape her to get on the bottom. Not so smart on my part, her shaping skills aren't there yet for one thing, and for another I haven't done any rear end awareness or back up with her, two skills that are really helpful when shaping the down contact. Whoops. I ended up putting her bum up there and giving her cookies on the bottom with her head in the two on two off position so all wasn't lost of course, but note to self I need to quit rushing things. I am impatient (and so is OhLa methinks!) so what can we say!
Until tomorrow, licks and wags from the Pest (this is her new nickname, she is currently jabbing her head under my arm trying to get me to DO something!)
Session 1 Wobble board. OhLa had an epiphany on the board today, all her feet on, going back and forth. She figured out that when the board tips, the rewards arrive! All I need now is to see her little tail give it's happy wag while she's on there and we can start moving on to some teeter games too. She was pretty proud of herself today! (And I was proud of her smart girl!)
Session 2: Differentiating Sit and down
Now that she has been getting her downs just on the verbal cue "flat" it was time to mix it up a little. This afternoons session was all about getting her to listen to what I was saying. Mixing up sit and flat in random order. The first few times she just defaulted to the flat, she did it enough times that I helped her out with the sit hand cue along with the verbal a couple times. Aha her brain said! This is a work in progress.
Session 3: shaping the bottom of the a-frame. I thought I'd get going on the down contact behaviour and shape her to get on the bottom. Not so smart on my part, her shaping skills aren't there yet for one thing, and for another I haven't done any rear end awareness or back up with her, two skills that are really helpful when shaping the down contact. Whoops. I ended up putting her bum up there and giving her cookies on the bottom with her head in the two on two off position so all wasn't lost of course, but note to self I need to quit rushing things. I am impatient (and so is OhLa methinks!) so what can we say!
Until tomorrow, licks and wags from the Pest (this is her new nickname, she is currently jabbing her head under my arm trying to get me to DO something!)
Playing Catch up
The last week has been crazy, so I am just now going to post all the happenings of the last week. Yee Haw, here we go!
April 14th 2010
OhLa arrives at the PG airport. I picked her up with no incident, and she popped out of her kennel here at home happy as can be. She whipped around the yard like a wild thing sniffing everything in sight. What a pretty girl! :)
She was introduced outdoors to Mollie my husky (she is the snarky bag of my crew, the princess, and the reigning champion of this is mine and this is mine and this is mine too), Marty my old man Border Collie and Cai my 7 year old BC. A little posturing, she is standing on her tippy toes, hackles up and clearly uncomfortable with meet and greet. But all is well, they get off the deck, pee on each others pee and generally ignore each other.
Training session 1: OhLa's first meal at my house is used to introduce the clicker. Click feed click feed click feed etc. She does well with the clicker no issues with sound, though she is molesting my hand something fierce. Note to self, teach no mugging!
April 15th
Training Session 1: Name recognition. Even though OhLa already knows her name, I work on name recognition so she correlates my voice saying her name with click and reward. This is important, as I will need her to respond immediately and with happiness on the agility field. We also work on hand targets this session. She gets to touch, my hand but needs work on speed and a harder push with a closed mouth. Each time she targets she is offering a slightly different behaviour.
Session 2: No mugging. I started out with the cookies in my hand but she really struggled with this, molested me like crazy! This may be from her show training (which I don't really want to muck up for her mom) so I put the pile of cookies on the floor and we worked it that way. It took her a while, but she finally laid down, backed off and got a cookie. Once she figured out the game we were off to the races. Of course I pushed it and tried to stand up and she swiped half the pile. Two points to OhLa! Session two also included working on the sit. I want a nice snappy sit on a verbal only. She tends to want to stand more than anything else and seems to be responding more the the hand signal of sit than a verbal cue. Note to self, work on verbal cues.
Session 3: No mugging. This session I put the cookies on the floor and OhLa put herself in a down. It seems down is going to be default behaviour for self control exercises. This session I was able to mess with the pile of kibbles a little, picking them up, dropping them etc. without her moving. Also worked on me starting to stand up a little. Also her understanding her new release cue (which is OKAY said in a high voice).
Worked on down, it seems she needs a hand signal to do a down or I don't know what her word is for down. No worries, I want to train her into a fast accordion down for the table and would have introduced a new cue for this behaviour anyway. So this session I introduced her new "super fast down cue" which will be the word "flat" along with the hand signal. She is only rewarded for the faster downs. In between downs I run around and get her pumped up a little and excited before saying the word and giving the hand signal.
Tug. Woo hoo! I used a toy with a long handle and sheepskin to entice her to grab it, and grab it she did! After the first few tries of me ripping it out of her mouth she grabbed it and held on, no way was she letting me have it again! We had a good little session, then I tried to get the toy back. Ha! She needs to learn a release cue after a rousing game of tug. She had her paws all over my arms trying to grab that toy and not let me have it. I see some more self control coming her way!
Sit/Stay. Introduced sit with rewards for me moving around her while she sat. She is not keen on sitting and not coming with me so this will be an important work in progress.
April 16th
Session 1: No mugging. I stood up all the way and she beat me to the pile! Brat! Score another one for OhLa! She is definitely getting the concept though and is really starting to connect the word okay with her cue to release.
Session 2: fast downs. Worked outside on the flat cue. The downs are faster but she is still needing the hand signal to get them quickly, she is not listening to verbal cues. Work in progress!
Session 3: Shaping. Indoors we did a pure shaping exercise. She does a lot of waiting for me to show her or lure her into what i want her to do. To be successful in her training (at least in the ways I like to do things) I need to her to be more confident with experimenting with things. This session I went for the slightest of offerings. She was nodding her head a little so I shaped that into her putting her head down inbetween her paws. She experimented a little, I know she figured out that an action got her a cookie, but I am not convinced that she really understood. I need to do more free shaping with her in the future and build on this stuff.
April 17th
Rest Day! Today she got to be just a dog. This didn't work too well in my favour as she was a little ramped up. Cai made the mistake of going in her kennel to check it out and the two of them got into a scrap INSIDE the kennel. Luckily no damage done, neither of them are serious, just crabby.
April 18th
Session 1: crate games. Now that she is beginning to understand the no mugging exercises it is time to start on crate games. One of her worst habits is her enjoyment over shoving her way through the crate door when you go to open it. Yikes! First of all this is just pushy on her part, and secondly, in a vehicle if she does that and I don't have a handle on her she could get killed. Plus our crate games (I follow Susan Garretts Crate games DVD, an excellent investment!) lead into a lot of the foundational skills for agility. So we worked on me touching the latch means she gets a cookie in the back of the crate. I was able to work up to opening the door with her in a down in the kennel (I'd like a sit at the back but she defaults to a down at this point, i'm not going to worry about that too much, I'll just reward more heavily when I get the sit instead) without her bolting. We also worked on using the release word to come out of the crate, and rewards for going straight back in the kennel again.
Session2: all about tugging! She needed to work of some steam, and she needs to learn to get it and give it with me. I introduced get it and started the one two three game (another of Susan's foundation games). Still needs lots of work on "thank you" or spitting out the toy. She is really liking this whole tugging business! Maybe a little too much as now she is running at me and grabbing the toy from my hands trying to steal it.
Session 3: wobble board. Her first introduction to a piece of equipment. The wobble board is a square board that moves around. It helps teach body awareness, cause and effect (if I do this, then it moves and I get a reward) and generally helps them get used to movement under the feet for the teeter later on. She was none too happy about this thing! She got two front feet on but really wanted to do anything else but get on there for the cookie.
April 19th
Session 1: wobble board (this one will be the start of all our exercises for a while so she gets on it when she is the most excited). She was better today, putting two feet on willingly, now way those back ones are going on though!
One jump. She was introduced to the jump at 10" with me sitting next to the standard. All she had to do was hop back and forth for a cookie. She did pretty well, but her obsession over my cookie hand is hindering her performance. She needs to learn to leave that hand alone and discover that both hands have cookies.
Fast downs: getting better, starting to respond to the verbal.
Hand targets: still a little weak, but she definitely knows she has to touch the hand and will move to get it.
Session 2: two toys of equal value retrieve. I pulled out two of exactly the same toy to work on her retrieve. She loves to go get the toy, and she equally loves to run past me with it flaunting it! I want to encourage returning the toy to my hand (interestingly in the house she likes to bring me socks to my hand very nicely, but toys are just a little too fun to return I think).
First class!
OhLa went to her first group class tonight, Building blocks for performance. Worked on crate games, sit stay, tug and run with toy without grabbing at it, and had an introduction to the table (jump up there and play tug with me while you're up there. She did great! I expected her to be way more distracted. I manipulated her environment a little for success (had her drag the leash and made sure she was in a more quiet corner) but for her first time in the training center and her first class with me she did remarkable well. Smart girl!
April 20th
Crate games galore. Trying to get her to sit still while I put the leash on her. I must have shut the door on her 30 times before she finally figured out that me putting my hand in the crate was not an automatic release. Sheesh! Too bad for her I am more stubborn than she is! In the end I was able to get the leash on her and even pull on it and not have her move out of her sit.
Sit/Stay (still can only get about two steps away, but it is improving)
Wobble board. She has four feet on! She does the wobble board for breakfast and is now getting on willingly and even making it move (though she is not yeehaw about it yet). We are not moving on to teeter games until she is yeehaw about the wobble board!
April 21/22
Poor baby didn't get a whole lot. I had life get in the way a little so she has been practicing her crate games and her life skills but not so much agility! On to more things this weekend!
April 14th 2010
OhLa arrives at the PG airport. I picked her up with no incident, and she popped out of her kennel here at home happy as can be. She whipped around the yard like a wild thing sniffing everything in sight. What a pretty girl! :)
She was introduced outdoors to Mollie my husky (she is the snarky bag of my crew, the princess, and the reigning champion of this is mine and this is mine and this is mine too), Marty my old man Border Collie and Cai my 7 year old BC. A little posturing, she is standing on her tippy toes, hackles up and clearly uncomfortable with meet and greet. But all is well, they get off the deck, pee on each others pee and generally ignore each other.
Training session 1: OhLa's first meal at my house is used to introduce the clicker. Click feed click feed click feed etc. She does well with the clicker no issues with sound, though she is molesting my hand something fierce. Note to self, teach no mugging!
April 15th
Training Session 1: Name recognition. Even though OhLa already knows her name, I work on name recognition so she correlates my voice saying her name with click and reward. This is important, as I will need her to respond immediately and with happiness on the agility field. We also work on hand targets this session. She gets to touch, my hand but needs work on speed and a harder push with a closed mouth. Each time she targets she is offering a slightly different behaviour.
Session 2: No mugging. I started out with the cookies in my hand but she really struggled with this, molested me like crazy! This may be from her show training (which I don't really want to muck up for her mom) so I put the pile of cookies on the floor and we worked it that way. It took her a while, but she finally laid down, backed off and got a cookie. Once she figured out the game we were off to the races. Of course I pushed it and tried to stand up and she swiped half the pile. Two points to OhLa! Session two also included working on the sit. I want a nice snappy sit on a verbal only. She tends to want to stand more than anything else and seems to be responding more the the hand signal of sit than a verbal cue. Note to self, work on verbal cues.
Session 3: No mugging. This session I put the cookies on the floor and OhLa put herself in a down. It seems down is going to be default behaviour for self control exercises. This session I was able to mess with the pile of kibbles a little, picking them up, dropping them etc. without her moving. Also worked on me starting to stand up a little. Also her understanding her new release cue (which is OKAY said in a high voice).
Worked on down, it seems she needs a hand signal to do a down or I don't know what her word is for down. No worries, I want to train her into a fast accordion down for the table and would have introduced a new cue for this behaviour anyway. So this session I introduced her new "super fast down cue" which will be the word "flat" along with the hand signal. She is only rewarded for the faster downs. In between downs I run around and get her pumped up a little and excited before saying the word and giving the hand signal.
Tug. Woo hoo! I used a toy with a long handle and sheepskin to entice her to grab it, and grab it she did! After the first few tries of me ripping it out of her mouth she grabbed it and held on, no way was she letting me have it again! We had a good little session, then I tried to get the toy back. Ha! She needs to learn a release cue after a rousing game of tug. She had her paws all over my arms trying to grab that toy and not let me have it. I see some more self control coming her way!
Sit/Stay. Introduced sit with rewards for me moving around her while she sat. She is not keen on sitting and not coming with me so this will be an important work in progress.
April 16th
Session 1: No mugging. I stood up all the way and she beat me to the pile! Brat! Score another one for OhLa! She is definitely getting the concept though and is really starting to connect the word okay with her cue to release.
Session 2: fast downs. Worked outside on the flat cue. The downs are faster but she is still needing the hand signal to get them quickly, she is not listening to verbal cues. Work in progress!
Session 3: Shaping. Indoors we did a pure shaping exercise. She does a lot of waiting for me to show her or lure her into what i want her to do. To be successful in her training (at least in the ways I like to do things) I need to her to be more confident with experimenting with things. This session I went for the slightest of offerings. She was nodding her head a little so I shaped that into her putting her head down inbetween her paws. She experimented a little, I know she figured out that an action got her a cookie, but I am not convinced that she really understood. I need to do more free shaping with her in the future and build on this stuff.
April 17th
Rest Day! Today she got to be just a dog. This didn't work too well in my favour as she was a little ramped up. Cai made the mistake of going in her kennel to check it out and the two of them got into a scrap INSIDE the kennel. Luckily no damage done, neither of them are serious, just crabby.
April 18th
Session 1: crate games. Now that she is beginning to understand the no mugging exercises it is time to start on crate games. One of her worst habits is her enjoyment over shoving her way through the crate door when you go to open it. Yikes! First of all this is just pushy on her part, and secondly, in a vehicle if she does that and I don't have a handle on her she could get killed. Plus our crate games (I follow Susan Garretts Crate games DVD, an excellent investment!) lead into a lot of the foundational skills for agility. So we worked on me touching the latch means she gets a cookie in the back of the crate. I was able to work up to opening the door with her in a down in the kennel (I'd like a sit at the back but she defaults to a down at this point, i'm not going to worry about that too much, I'll just reward more heavily when I get the sit instead) without her bolting. We also worked on using the release word to come out of the crate, and rewards for going straight back in the kennel again.
Session2: all about tugging! She needed to work of some steam, and she needs to learn to get it and give it with me. I introduced get it and started the one two three game (another of Susan's foundation games). Still needs lots of work on "thank you" or spitting out the toy. She is really liking this whole tugging business! Maybe a little too much as now she is running at me and grabbing the toy from my hands trying to steal it.
Session 3: wobble board. Her first introduction to a piece of equipment. The wobble board is a square board that moves around. It helps teach body awareness, cause and effect (if I do this, then it moves and I get a reward) and generally helps them get used to movement under the feet for the teeter later on. She was none too happy about this thing! She got two front feet on but really wanted to do anything else but get on there for the cookie.
April 19th
Session 1: wobble board (this one will be the start of all our exercises for a while so she gets on it when she is the most excited). She was better today, putting two feet on willingly, now way those back ones are going on though!
One jump. She was introduced to the jump at 10" with me sitting next to the standard. All she had to do was hop back and forth for a cookie. She did pretty well, but her obsession over my cookie hand is hindering her performance. She needs to learn to leave that hand alone and discover that both hands have cookies.
Fast downs: getting better, starting to respond to the verbal.
Hand targets: still a little weak, but she definitely knows she has to touch the hand and will move to get it.
Session 2: two toys of equal value retrieve. I pulled out two of exactly the same toy to work on her retrieve. She loves to go get the toy, and she equally loves to run past me with it flaunting it! I want to encourage returning the toy to my hand (interestingly in the house she likes to bring me socks to my hand very nicely, but toys are just a little too fun to return I think).
First class!
OhLa went to her first group class tonight, Building blocks for performance. Worked on crate games, sit stay, tug and run with toy without grabbing at it, and had an introduction to the table (jump up there and play tug with me while you're up there. She did great! I expected her to be way more distracted. I manipulated her environment a little for success (had her drag the leash and made sure she was in a more quiet corner) but for her first time in the training center and her first class with me she did remarkable well. Smart girl!
April 20th
Crate games galore. Trying to get her to sit still while I put the leash on her. I must have shut the door on her 30 times before she finally figured out that me putting my hand in the crate was not an automatic release. Sheesh! Too bad for her I am more stubborn than she is! In the end I was able to get the leash on her and even pull on it and not have her move out of her sit.
Sit/Stay (still can only get about two steps away, but it is improving)
Wobble board. She has four feet on! She does the wobble board for breakfast and is now getting on willingly and even making it move (though she is not yeehaw about it yet). We are not moving on to teeter games until she is yeehaw about the wobble board!
April 21/22
Poor baby didn't get a whole lot. I had life get in the way a little so she has been practicing her crate games and her life skills but not so much agility! On to more things this weekend!
From the Beginning!
Meet OhLaLa! This pretty girl is a super spunky one year old German Shorthaired Pointer. Already successful in the show ring and the hunting field, OhLa is embarking on a quest to take over the agility field! Her training diary will be a catologue of her foundational skills as she learns them, good and bad, success and failure (on my part I am sure!). The first few weeks will be writtend diary only, but soon you will be seeing video of her skills in her daily diary.
Wish us Luck!
Wish us Luck!
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