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!