Life with Dogs: Constant Invitations to be a Better Person

It was 35 degrees yesterday in the late afternoon and I was so happy that it was warm enough to do some outside obedience training — a reminder about adaptability and perspective.

Having an UP dog when training/playing/competing is not the same thing as having a dog who is just plain wild and crazy. My girls are easy to live with, and have on/off buttons (so to speak).

First up was Sparkle — she was SO happy to be training!

Down Signal — cookie — Sit Signal — go chase the stuffed moose.

We played Go Out Games, which is the same — and different — as saying I trained Go Outs.

It is the same because yes, I was training Go Outs.

But it is different because to say we reflects my collaborative approach to dog training, and playing games speaks of my commitment to attitude and fun.

And then it was Claire’s turn and the volume on the bouncing and attitude somehow got even higher, which did not seem possible; Sparkle is a hard act to follow.

Claire is a novice dog and at almost three years old, has spent literally years on her heeling skills, which are such an important foundation for all of obedience showing.

It is easy to lose attitude when training heeling, which is why it must be playing at heeling. If the difference doesn’t resonate, that is an invitation to change your mental channel about dog training.

Daisy — happy to tear up the agility course, and content to hang out quietly and happily in the house.

But what I was really planning to share this morning is something related to my ongoing series.

When my dog — an experienced one or a novice one — doesn’t meet my expectation for a behavior, there are really just two choices: I can blame the dog or I can take responsibility.

If I blame the dog, the correction lands on the dog.

If I take responsibility, I change something.

Training dogs reminds me on a daily basis to pay attention to my own role in relationships, the challenges associated with communicating clear expectations, and the value of assuming good intentions.

How would you be different if Blame was not part of your Game? If you understood unmet expectations as simply a lack of understanding — or that your expectations are not actually realistic?

What would change in relationships — with humans and dogs — if differences or unmet expectations simply made us curious — and not defensive or angry?

Huh. Interesting stuff.

Key Components of Training

I love dog training because — and I know I have said this before but it remains true — it is a creative endeavor requiring intelligence and a consideration of what constitutes ethical behavior.

Well, that is not exactly true because not everyone trains in creative, intelligent, and ethical ways — but it is true for me, and that is why I really quite love training dogs.

Sparkle is training for Utility (an advanced obedience class). Things are going really well — she has almost all the pieces, and we have even started to put some of them together.

But go outs have been perplexing. This exercise requires she run out to a designated spot and turn/sit to face me on cue.

I use a target to train it — like a treat or a toy — and this has worked well with my other dogs, but it was not working for Sparkle. The trouble is that she is FAST — so she would race out, grab the whatever, and barrel herself back; the sit cue didn’t really register.

Of course, I trained sit at distance separate from the “race out” part and it is fine. I do the go outs with a sit from short distance (1 - 2 feet) and it is fine. It is when we add in distance — which tends to up that sparkling drive and energy — that things don’t go as planned.

Here is where things get interesting (to me).

Whether she should or should not register the sit cue and do it (because I said so!) is irrelevant to me.

This matters. A lot.

When people think, “she knows this and should do it” they tend towards adding a negative and/or corrective consequence.

My ethical framework doesn’t permit that kind of thinking/behavior when training for performance events.

Instead, I am perplexed and puzzle things out (hence, training as requiring intelligence, creativity, and ethical behavior).

It occurred to me that my training for the directed retrieve was also a race to a treat (in a bowl), and then a fast race back — why would Sparkle think the go out was different?

Huh.

This is another reason not to get all mean and snarky with a dog who is not meeting our expectations — because likely they are! Just maybe not the expectations we expected, if that makes sense.

I decided I needed to change up the picture a bit.

In addition to shaping, I used a lure to move her in the space from a short distance.

I used panel jump “bars” to create a bit of a physical barrier, and shaped the behavior (with a clicker and treats) of getting in the space — and then turning to face me and then to sit.

This is not a perfect sit because she should be straight but when shaping, you take baby steps towards perfection — not expect it instantly. Were you perfect the first time you did something?

I will now start adding distance to it — in very small increments. She will master the behavior AND retain her pizzazz because both matter to me.

After all, her name IS Sparkle.

Easy Daisy: A Draft Training Update

You may recall that I am engaged in an experiment of sorts to see if I can have Daisy ready to pass the Novice Draft Test in sixty days; the original post is HERE. We now have only 35 days before the test; this is a summary of the progress and plan.

Daisy is not “heeling” but is walking well on a loose leash by my side — and that is good enough for a draft test, which only requires that the dog : “…walk under control within arm's length of the handler at all times… on either side, in front, or behind the handler …”

The other component of that Basic Control part of a test is a Recall and as I indicated in the last post, I train the “wait” and the “come” as separate exercises; this is also going well.

Training a dog that I have not raised from birth is always interesting. Daisy is wicked smart and biddable to the extreme — a great combination. But so many things I take for granted are not in her toolkit because she was raised with different expectations.

For example, she did not know “down” and she understood “stay” to mean wait a few seconds before self-releasing. My others dogs understand — from the time they are puppies — “sit” and “down” and they also also understand those things are never self-releasing — even absent the “stay” cue.

On the other hand, Daisy has much better “house” manners than some dogs who shall remain unnamed.

Sparkle — practically perfect.

And so Daisy has not only had to be trained but she has also had to “unlearn” things — luckily she lives to work and please.

Daisy literally runs into things because she is SO focused.

As you can see from the photo above, Daisy is now pulling the competition cart. Last night was a typical “getting used to things” session. We practiced Basic Control and then did the entire straight driveway, which is almost 1/2 mile round trip.

Doing the driveway is so valuable, even though it is just a straight down and back. The cart bumps and rattles, and Daisy gets used to the “feel” of things without layering other needed skills. We enter and exit through a gate — this requires Daisy to stay while I open and close said gate.

Since we have done the driveway more than once, I have added additional skill training to it. We do stops — always a sit and always rewarded. I practice “slow” on the slight incline part, and “back” — one step only — on the slight decline part. I do slight serpentines to practice turn behavior. And at the end of the driveway I use the road to do two big circles that are heavily rewarded before we head back towards home.

Training a dog should always include breaking behaviors down and training components rather than expecting big clumps. And this requires a constant assessment of the Least Trainable Units of a given behavior, and whether the dog can handle a bit more or we need to slow things down. When a dog cannot successfully perform, we know to dial back.

Further, desired behavior needs to be noticed and rewarded — I think the noticing part is where most people need work. We tend to notice when the dog does something we do not appreciate — that is the opposite of what needs to happen to both maintain attitude and be successful. More on that soon…

Daisy is turning well to the left. Her right turns are supported in order to avoid a tendency to curl up in the cart instead of using her whole body to make the turn. This support comes in various ways — sometimes she needs my hand on her hip to gently push her rear to move along with the front as she turns. Sometimes — if the turn is wide enough — I can use a food lure to move her whole body.

Her stops are quick. Her backing is not yet independent but she is catching on. She is slowing on cue — yay! She is staying well for one minute and we are building time easily.

In other words, Daisy has a solid foundational set of skills. They are not as smooth as an experienced dog, but that is to be expected. She remain unfazed by the cart — that is key to being able to even consider a draft title in sixty days. I would say she is on track to be able to achieve the goal.

The things I will now focus on are as follows:

• Daisy needs to practice Basic Control in other places. Therefore, in the next week we will go to two new places to train.

• We need to begin to tighten up the turns; we can do this in our training yard by setting up cones.

• It is time to introduce the Narrows — I will set that up as well.

• She needs an independent back; this can be worked separately from the cart in order to get more chances to practice during the day.

There is one thing that is looming as a Disrupter to this Sixty Day Challenge: Daisy is also due in season within the next month. That, unfortunately, is not something amenable to training.