Attitude for training

I think I’ve said this before, but an UNstressed dog can be trained. A STRESSED dog, not so much. Today at club run throughs The Princess was ON! She barked in the ring. She bounced. She FORGED! She Crabbed! I’ll take all of that since she was happy and unstressed. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I left her in an xpen when I first got there (while I helped in the ring), and then jumped right into the ring? Or some of the loud stressful (correcting) people were not there? Or there were fewer people there? Who knows, but with attitude like that, we can actually work on the training.

I didn’t even have food on me, or give her any in the ring, although we did break and play tug with her squeekyskunk between exercises.

Things to work on – going out on the first command for the retrieves, and quicker drops.

Days like this are rewarding to ME, which means we’ll keep trying.

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At a run through

The other day I went to a club run through for obedience.  I try to get to these regularly, and I know the more I go, the better off we will be.  Over all, The Princess was pretty good.  Better than she’s been in some areas in the past, and maybe a little worse in the stays.

My warm up routine:

1. Came into the building with her and went down to an empty area (not the run through ring) and did a little basic training on heeling, drop on recall, and retrieve.
   1. Her heeling was pretty good, although she did know I had food on me.
   2. For the drop, I’ve started asking her to drop on a target.  At the moment for that she’s at least stopping and dipping her head at the target, and I add the “down” cue and she goes down.  It seems to be keeping her comfortable dropping at that distance from me.
   3. The retrieve was good except for  not always going out on the first cue.
2. Put her in a crate and let her chill out while I helped in the ring
3. One dog before I was to go in the ring, I brought her out and started trying to classically condition a positive association with just entering the ring and setting up.  This entails getting near the ring, marking and rewarding. Then getting near the ring, setting up, marking and rewarding.  Then stepping into the ring, marking and rewarding. Then stepping in the ring, setting up, marking and rewarding.  I also started asking her to leap up and nose touch my hand after the set up and then marking and rewarding.  She did stay very positive during this.

Our run really wasn’t bad.  I did not lure her in the ring, and only a few times had to remind her to stay with me on the heeling. Her figure 8 was actually quite nice.   At the drop, she did stop at the target, but I said “down” twice before she went down.  I probably needed to be more patient there.   I used both a verbal and a visual signal for the flat retrieve because I really wanted to be sure she was successful.  She dropped the dumbbell as she came in, but that usually is  not a problem for her.  Plus I believe I gave her verbal encouragement as she was coming in and that is likely to mean “you are done” to her.  On the retrieve over the jump, my throw was not great and the dumbbell ended up almost at the ring gaits, right in front of a bunch of folks who were watching.  She went out nicely and just as she bent to pick it up, a dog outside the ring gave a HUGE bark.  I was so pleased because she picked it up anyway and came back quickly.  Again she dropped the dumbbell as she got in, but I was really rewarding her at that  point, because a bark like that in her face is hard for her!  Her broad jump was great for the stage we are at – I’m tossing the food as she goes over the jump to encourage motivation and drive.

Then we had the group stays.  I thought about this for a couple of days before we went.  I do truly believe I missed steps in the stays, so I decided I’d work on just duration that day.  Not distance, and hopefully minimal distractions.  So, although we do Open work for the rest of the run through, for the stays I kept her on lead and I stayed only about five feet in front of her.  First we had a 4 minuted sit stay.  For the first minute I don’t think she even knew she was supposed to be staying, she sniffed, she stood up, she turned around.  Finally she seemed to realize we were  “doing something”.  I went even more back to basics and played a bit with the 300 peck method for building duration. 1-onethousand treat, 1-onethousand 2-onethousand treat etc etc.  This worked pretty well for the duration of the sit stay.

For the down stay I planned to do the same thing.  It started out pretty well.  Then she started to get stressed – even whining which is odd for her. I honestly didn’t know what caused it.  We finished the down without too much trouble though.  Then the group did another 3 minute sit stay.  I tried to do even more rewarding for just sitting, but she got more stressed. She lived through it (and so did I!) but clearly wasn’t happy.  Hindsight – shouldn’t have kept working on it. . . remember she doesn’t learn when she’s stressed.

We went for a short off lead walk after we finished.  She immediately both peed AND pooped.  Hmm, maybe the stress was that she needed to go out?  She has never whined when she’s been stressed before, so maybe that was the indication that she was in discomfort.  I had not taken her out before the stays.  I should have.

As an aside, I’m amazed at how many people train stays.  All they seem to do is correct, they never reward, except at the very end of the stay, after the release.  One person’s dog got up from the down stay once while I was treating. I put the dog back down (with just a point and a command).  The person came back in and corrected the dog while it was down.  I was aghast.  I’d like to have other people reward The Princess’s stays, but I’m not sure who in the group I would trust to do it.

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Darn planes!

The other day I went to a club training session.  You know the type, where you can just train in a ring for a bit with the commotion of other people and dogs around.

The Princess started out nicely, she had some very nice attention while we worked on heel position.  I was feeling pretty good.  We worked some on the retrieve and drop on recall as well.

Then I hung out for a few minutes waiting to go into the agility ring so we could work on weaves, and there was a NOISE.  Overhead planes flying relatively low.  And I lost her.

She tried to climb up me (a sure sign of noise stress for her), her tail went down, her eyes got glassy.

And my turn came up for the agility ring.

Mistake #1 – thinking that working on weaves, even “positively” was a good idea.

Mistake #2 – thinking she would bounce back in a minute, since the plane was gone.

Mistake #3 – not quitting when I should have.

Training Rule #2 – learning can NOT occur when a dog is this afraid.

Maybe *I* didn’t think there is anything to be afraid of.   But I should have remembered training rule #1 – the dog decides.

I don’t know if I will ever figure out how to deal with this stress of hers…

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