Yoshi Training Diary - August 2005

By Ellen Clary
(reverse date order)

 Feedback is welcome:

Wed Aug 31
Recap
Here is what Yoshi knows, or sort of knows so far.

Everyday commands
- He comes to his name and knows his name
- Let's Go - come along with me
- Here - come to me (not formal)
- Wait - pause a moment, or wait here (not a formal stay)
- Sit (he's not real clear on this one - go figure)
- Down (hand motioning to floor)
- Close - walk along on the left side
- Side - walk along on the right side
- Hush - stop barking (other sounds ok)
 (aka: Hey, Obsess Quietly)
- Leave It - stop obsessing on what you're locked on to
- Watch (point to eye near temple) - look at me, he usually sits
- Touch - touch his nose to my hand
- Hup patting chair or lap - Jump up (he has springs in his feet so be prepared)
- Hup when kneeling and with hand patting chest - he'll jump in your arms (be really prepared :)
- Crate - go to your crate
- OK - his release word

Obedience commands
- Come - come and sit in front of me
- Front - sit in front of me
- Heel - walk along on my left side looking at me.
- By Me - (hand patting left side of left leg) - sit beside me on the left
 I use a Touch with my hand behind me to get him set up for By Me.
- Stay - don't move  (unlike Wait where he can move.)
- Stand - I position him by putting my hand underneath him which you can do in Novice, and then I tell him Stay.  He's afraid of feet so I stay with him while the instructor comes up.

Agility commands
- Left, Right (with hand motioning)
- Go (continue forward - arm pointed forward)
- Out (arm pushing outward) - move laterally
- Over - (jump)
- Table
- Tire
- Plank (teeter - needed a non-T word)
- Climb
- Weave
- Target - Go stand on a mousepad food target (he will expect a click and treat for this)

Silly commands
- Through - go between my legs (just introduced)
- Get It - fetch the ball (he uses mini balls - best inside)
- Bring It - bring back the ball and put it in my hand
- Take (doesn't really know this yet)
- Give - let me have what's in your mouth

Notes:
He eats in his crate.  If you tell him crate when you have his food bowl in hand he will run to his crate.

On walks, he wears his Gentle Leader and his 6' cotton woven leash.  I have him stop and sit at corners and usually don't cross unless there are no cars around.  (Obviously busy streets are an exception to this.)
In class, he wears his Gentle Leader and a leather leash.

If he starts barking at a dog, I tell him Leave It (pull on the Gentle Leader if necessary), back up till we're about 50-100' from the other dog and then ask him to watch and treat him when he truely focuses on me (i.e. not just a brief glance).  I then ask him to do other easy things like sit,  & down.  After the dog passes by I'll sometimes have us follow the dog as a game.  If the dog is friendly and the owner willing I'll have him meet the dog.  Explain that he is friendly, but afraid.

In class, this is tougher as there's no where to go, but if he breaks his sit or down stay to bark ("Intruder!") at an incoming Open class dog ask him to Leave It and then sit and watch with his back to the other dogs.  I think what I'm going to do when I get back is start clicking and treating him when another dog comes in assuming I can get him to shut up.  (I.e. replace one behavior with another.  "Oh look! There's a dog." Click.

Unlike Cali, he's great about ignoring food on the street.

Sun Aug 28
Eek.  I accidentally overwrote this diary with his main page.  Fortunately I had just recently made a back up so I only have 10 days to recreate and much of that I posted to a couple of local lists that have archives.  But one's heart still skips a beat especially since I had gone for a couple of months without backing it up or breaking it up into monthly files or making local copies - let's hear it for backups!  (And now I'm going to break it up into months.)

[later] Knock on the door and it was a kid selling coupons for the local football team.  I had Yoshi by the collar and he started to growl and I looked at him and noticed that he wasn't looking at the kid but past him.  Then a neighbor a couple of doors down went by and the dog across the street started to bark so then Yoshi did as well and he would not stop and I couldn't get his attention at all.  Then the very same neighbor came back carrying his dog (who must have escaped).  Yoshi then proceeded to have a melt down which didn't stop until they were out of sight.  Yeesh.  I bought what the kid was selling. :) 

I can get his attention by grabbing his nose but he struggles with me.  I think when he's at that intensity he's not going to mellow out and the only solution would be to get a further distance away (not real possible in this case - maybe a crate would help.

Sat Aug 27
Squirrel obsessing day.  He has been out at least 5 times this morning until I said enough and wouldn't let him out anymore.  Wish I could bottle this I'd make a mint.

Working on reteaching "sit" as he doesn't seem to know the word by itself.  He knows "down" by itself, but "sit" seems to be more body position dependant (like he's better when he's in front of me.)

Went on a walk later and he was fine though we didn't see any dogs.

Fri Aug 26
Took him to work.  So since it's only 2.5 miles to work, I decided to walk him there.  He got about 1.5 miles before starting to drag noticably (it was warm).  I tried calling Terri and Mark to see if anyone was around to bail us out but couldn't find anyone so I carried him for part of the way and then let him walk some more and managed to get there in this alternating fashion.

What I found really interesting is that he was totally fine with all the goings on.  Went through lots of people, by cars, through a construction site, past food on the ground (corgi card is in question there), - no problem.  The difference is that we didn't see any dogs, and he wasn't on his own territory.

At work when he was in my office behind a baby gate, he barked at Agnis (tall guy with a beard), so I took him out of the office and had Agnis give him a couple of break stick pieces.  Then Yoshi didn't want to leave Agnis at all (followed him down the hall even) and when we saw Agnis later, Yoshi went right up to him.

I'm of two minds of this space/crate guarding behavior.  One take is to not give them anything to defend, the other is to make them feel more comfortale and safe so they won't feel the need to defend it.  Don't know.

Wed Aug 24
Class today.
Small class - only 2 dogs.  Rosie Yoshi and one of the Portuguese Water Dogs (named Derby).  He did fine except of course for the sits and downs where he was very much class proofer of the other dogs as twice when an Open class dog came in he broke his stay stood up and barked.  The good thing is that he didn't go anywhere.  The bad thing is that it appears to be getting worse.  I think what I might do next week is stay beside him and click and treat him when a dog comes in.

From an email post:
Yoshi is excelling at providing 
proofing material for his competition obedience class. :)

He was doing fairly well until the sits and downs that the Novice class 
does with the incoming Open class.  Dogs just waltzing in are a huge 
bugaboo for him and the reason that he'll be in that class for months.  
Twice during the stay he broke (but fortunately didn't go anywhere), and 
barked at a new arrival.  All the other dogs kept their stays.  Good 
(other) dogs.  He's sort of starting to get that the other dogs don't 
mind nearly as much as he does though he still thinks he's doing a 
public service and I need to convince him otherwise.  Fortunately the 
instructor has had a corgi before and knows what a challenge they can 
be, so he's not in danger of being kicked out (especially because he 
does great for the other parts of class.)
Sat Aug 20
Easy day.  He asked to work again at noon. So we did sit, down, left, right, through, by me, heel, and front.  Then went inside and did a little with the around the back finish (which, understandably, befuddles him some.)

He doesn't appear to know the word "sit," but instead more relys on the signal and my body position, so will need to step back and work on it in an isolated manner.  He's fantastic about sitting at stops when heeling.

[Much later.]  Went on a walk without incident (didn't see any dogs).  Near home, ran a little and he seemed fine running along with me.

He still stares at me.  Hooray.

Fri Aug 19
Yoshi channels Cali.
Last night Yoshi was STARING at me.  I realized that he wasn't staring at me, but at the bread (I was having brusetta). He was actually asking to work.  (Well he was actually asking for a handout, but he'd settle for working for it.) Thrilled, I had him do a few things so I could reward him with bits of the crust.  He was so happy that he could do something to earn it.  This morning he did the same thing while I was having toast (carb junkie - that's me), so we did a little more work (remember these are short 5 minute sessions) and he got some.  At noon (I often go home at lunch), I got a couple of magic breadsticks out and did some heeling, along with close (left side no attention necessary) and side (same thing only on the right) worked a little more on through (walk between my legs), sit, down, right, left (he's not as good about left).  Part of the way through I could hear a squirrel in the trees and Terri said it was the same one he had been obsessing on earlier.  He chose to work with me instead and continue to earn breadstick pieces.  Wow.  So it does happen once in a while.  I'm writing this down just in case it never happens again. :)

[evening]
Tonight is Oakland DTC's once a month Rally class.  Patricia and I will be going.  I haven't had that much experience with Rally so we'll see how I do (he will be fine unless a strange dog walks in.)

[afterwards]
Yoshi Does Rally! (Really.)
With only a few isolated meltdowns, he was successful in his rally class.  And during his run he was able to concentrate on me (and of course the treats) and not stress too much about the other dogs (though I did have him meet a Boston that he's met before and a Golden).  He did stress about the two German Shepherds there and one of the Basenji's (the less friendly one that he hasn't met).  Fortunately in Rally you can keep talking to your dog so if he was actually in a runthrough and saw a dog I would at least have a chance of getting his attention back.  (Maybe I should try that strategy during any CGC test.)

The rally course had a round the back Finish which I haven't taught him yet, but will (it was an advanced course).

The instructor Barbara is quite good and may be worth going to her drop in obedience runthroughs on Monday.  I'm thinking it would be good to get her ideas on Stand for Exam and walking behind him (not sure if Rally ever does this).  Barbara has gotten an OTCH on a Scotty which is no small feat.  She also likes corgi's, even the adolescent twit type.

He's getting more settled and a touch more confident.

Thur Aug 18
Chaos lessons!
Yoshi and I watched some of the filming of a 30's movie at Santa Clara and Court (just around the corner).  Met Tessie the lab and saw some other dogs which he woofed at, but I was able to distract him.  Sort of working up a routine for him to do per Garrill's suggestion.  sit-down-release-left-right-sit and maybe through (go between my legs).  The only problem with left and right is that he sees the other dog ("through" would be the same problem).  We actually don't have to get much distance now.  Maybe 20-30 additional feet.  At least if I have the magic breadsticks.

Wed Aug 17
Class at Oakland DTC.  He's getting better, only wigged out a couple of times.  Met the little white dog (named Muffy, of course) that he's reacted to a couple of times, and now he seems ok with her.  He actually did a 3+ minute sit with all the dogs in Novice and Open present which is more than Cali ever did.  He seems to respond to doggy peer pressure.  If all the dogs are behaving, he is more inclined to behave.  (The corollary is that if another dog barks in the distance he often barks.) Though his getting a lot better coincides with my getting out the breadsticks. Though you could tell that he was stressed about it as he was panting the entire time (and it was not hot).

Sun Aug 14
Took him to the Countywide Agility AKC trial.  In general he did quite well, but still at odd moments would bark and lunge at a dog that he thought was too close.  I'm starting to get better about recognizing the signs that will set him off.  It's a dog (normally on leash) walking by with in 30-50 feet who may or may not be looking at him.  And it's often when we've stopped, so he has a moment to look around.  The exception to this is on walks where he's moving, but at the trial I deliberately moved him around a lot amongst various dogs and he was ok.  Though it took a lot out of him as he's really beat.  Hope it's just that and not that he's sick.

In my quest to introduce him to every breed of dog I can find, today he met a Golden, a Pug (though he's met Pugs before), a Dashound, a Spaniel, several Min Pins, a Sheltie puppy and others.  Debbie suggested that I keep track to see if I can see patterns.

Sat Aug 13
Cooper came over and they had a grand time trying out the newly extended runway (I had moved the fence to give them more running room on the side of the house.)

Thur Aug 11
Yesterday at Oakland DTC class he wigged out about 2 Basenjis that were there.  I recognized these handlers from when I was going regularly with Cali (was that really 8 years ago?  That's amazing as there are a lot of familiar faces there.)  I asked if he could meet one of them since once he's met a dog he's usually fine.  Well even though things went ok, I forgot to account for the fact that Basenji's are very undog like, which just confuses things.  They did the usual nose sniff and then the Basenji started to nibble on Yoshi's nose which fortunately just puzzled Yoshi and he didn't react.  I pulled him back and let them try again and the same thing happened, so I gave up.  Basenjis, even very well trained Basenjis, are just plain odd dogs.

He's been to class twice and he's improving, though when he reacts it seems stronger, but that might just be because he's having these good moments.

His stay is already getting better than Cali's ever was, and his heeling (we worked on about turns and he did very well) and recall are good.  We did a little of the stand for examination and I stayed with him and let Hazel the instructor walk up.  At first he was wondering what she was doing (naturally) and then he settled down - good boy. 

I am going to have to figure out how to get him to let me walk behind him while he's on a stay.  He's reactive enough that if I take a step towards his rear, he leaps up.  Yesterday and today I tried just holding his collar and I carefully walked around him.  He had some hesitation but let me.  Maybe that's a good approach, just show him what I want him to do.  He seems to be more at ease when he understands what's expected of him.

Wed Aug 10
Obedience class at Oakland Dog Training Club.  Should be fun.

Tues Aug 9
Heh, heh, I've had one herding lesson, and already it's giving me experiences well outside the normal scope of average urban human experience.

I had a routine appointment with my neurologist today.  (That's another thing that's outside the usual human experience, but not if you have MS).  Doctors being doctors, he looked at the nice bruise on my arm and immediately asked "What's that?"  "Oh that.  That, you see, is from a sheep horn." Having never heard that one before he responded (smiling): "Really?" (or some equivalent).  "Yes, really, I have it on tape.  We had a herding lesson yesterday, and a sheep with horns gave me a fortunately glancing blow after trying to butt my dog."  Looking at the bruise again.  "Good thing it was glancing." 

And good thing he trusts me, so I'm not being interrogated about potential domestic abuse.  "Yeah, I get beaten with a sheep horn on a regular basis."  Yeah right.

[later]
Went to the dog park and Yoshi played for a while with Cathy's Jessie and also Oliver and did some fabulous fence running with one of the smaller dogs.  I then put him on leash while still in the park and he got to learn about not chasing dogs while on leash.  Then we went outside the park on leash and watched other on leash dogs come and go.  He initially was barking at them but settled down.  This may be a really good exercise for him.  I usually do the leash exercises first and use the park as a reward but I wanted to chat with Cathy.

Mon Aug 8
Feedback about Sunday's herding adventure is that a lot of dogs need multiple exposures.  This parallels Patricia's experience as the first time Rosie say sheep she was similar to Yoshi.  I'll have him in the instinct test in October and Mark and Patricia are going to see if they can locate some duck herding instruction closer to home.  I would be more comfortable with him duck herding as then I know that he wouldn't get hurt (unless he mistaked an agressive goose for a duck - then there could be some fur missing from his little bunny butt.)

I asked our instructor how do you tell if the dogs were going to hurt the ducks and she said that she had never seen a dog get aggressive with ducks.  I'm hearing differently from other folks.  Some say that "duck dinner" close calls do happen and you have to initially watch a dog for that.  I don't know where Yoshi would fall on that scale.

I am so mixed about this as I don't want to deprive him of a basic desire yet it wouldn't bother me a bit if he didn't want to do it.  Though I do think duck herding (if he didn't try to hurt the ducks) would be highly entertaining.

Back to agility...
Ok I really need to figure out this issue about not wanting to run along with me doing obstacle sequences.  It occurred to me yesterday that if I can successfully teach a dog to so something as unnatural as weavepoles or heeling with attention, then I should be able to figure this out.

I think his obedience classes will show him that paying attention to me is a worthwhile endeavor.  Maybe that will just carry over.  The trick is that he's fine in my small backyard but if I put him in a more distracting environment then he'll do a jump and then run towards the distraction.  I'm wondering if the small Power Paws field would be good to put him on as there are less distractions than at Sharon's.  Lori Abbott's field is also a possibility though Pwr Paws would be a better choice even though it's further to go.

At home, I should make up a more serious jump chute (like make another cavaletti so there are 3 jumps) and have an ex-pen. temporary fencing or other equivalent on each side.  Then do it from every angle and with me moving and standing.  Then find a eay to turn the jumps into a 1/2 C or so (maybe bendable fencing is best.)  Maybe even work up a serpentine, and possibly a tunnel.

Sun Aug 7
Cooper, Rosie and Yoshi go a herdin'
And life will never be the same.  Not.  Pretty much nothing went as we expected it to.  We expected Rosie to be pretty good, Yoshi to be amazing or at least over the top, and Cooper to be well Cooper.  What we got was Rosie was amazing, Cooper showed promise (as long as the evil instructor with the stick isn't there), and Yoshi preferred to jeer from the sidelines (imagine him at a football game, or pro wrestling match and you pretty much have it.  Perhaps I'll get him a shirt with Budweiser or Miller on it - a friend suggested he join the Blackhole - which is a name for the diehard Raider faithful (there's nothing quite like Raiders fans. :)

In all fairness, these weren't really school sheep as the instructor had just had her docile school sheep killed by a loose pit bull (who is no longer with us.)  These sheep noticed the word "Wuss" stamped on Yoshi and Cooper's forehead and stood their ground.   Though they treated Miss Rosie with proper respect.  One tried to butt Yoshi and did connect with me (a glancing blow - not serious).  Before his turn, Yoshi had been barking his head off and trying to yank my arm out of its socket.  Then once in there suddenly he decided this was not for him (I think he'd rather watch it on TV).  After viewing the tape, you can see glimmers of interest, but as soon as a sheep gave him a hairy eyeball, he was outta there.  Later we put him in with goats which got a little interest. So then she showed him ducks and that got a lot of interest.

So we decided that what gets him attention is motion, and if a sheep isn't moving then who cares.  We have some hilarious video of me following the sheep around carrying Yoshi and he was perfectly content with that.  We also have other video of him following me around as I'm walking after the sheep.  Very much "You go, I'm right there with you.  I support you completely, but you first.  You do such a great job."  To his credit he did not leave.  Cooper, who has some initial success, did leave once and tried multiple times.  Yoshi would instead hang around the edges of the arena, pretending to be interested in something on the ground, but kept a careful watch on the goings on.

I think if I do any herding with him it will be ducks.  Fortunately ducks should be easier to find in our urban environment.  We had gone out to Patterson and that's 1:15 or so which is not a very practical distance.  However I'm glad we did it as I got an idea on how his motion obsessiveness would play out against his softness.  Maybe she should have had the sheep on a leash.

The instructor took pains to reassure us that one time on sheep is not enough to really tell anything.  I'm not really disappointed at all as I had been feeling guilty about not herding with him but clearly it's not exactly what he had in mind.  I'm not entirely sure I want to train his caution out of him as right now he has just saved me a few thousand dollars. :)

Though we all will check out duck herding.  And we still will do the October instinct test where they definitely will have school sheep.

We'll edit the video down and put some samples on the web site.

[later]
He seemed to want to do a little so since I had the standard weavepoles (no guides) set up to show them to Mark, I had him do them and he did fine.

Sat Aug 6
Mark and Cooper came over and Cooper and Yoshi had a grand time playing.

Fri Aug 5
Did a little more weavepole work.  This is the first time since I started using the guides that I've seen him miss some.  I helped him through and he seems back on track.  Now I have to decide whether to go back a step or leave things as they are or throw caution out and just put on regular poles.  Prudence would suggest go back a step but he's starting to understand so I may try moving forward to see what effect that has.


Thur Aug 4
He wanted to do somthing for a bread stick, so I took off the hose barbs from the weave guides and he did them flawlessly a couple of times.  The only thing left on the poles are the T joints.  And he's weaving faster now.  There is hope and it appears that this is a workable method to teach weaves.

Took him to the dog park, but we combined walking around the outside of the park on leash, once we got to the gate we hung around watching dogs on leash come and go until he settled down (which actually didn't take very long.)  Because there was a pit bull type who was looking at him like he would make a good lunch, we went into the small dog park on leash.

While on leash I tried to get him to chew on the bone that I'd brought but he really wasn't interested.  So we watched the other dogs until it looked like there would a good match playmate wise (i.e. not breakable, and one's that like to play somewhat rough), so as a reward I let him off.  He had a grand time.  Racing around some with the small dogs but mostly racing up and down the fence yelling at a Golden playing with a frisbee.  The Golden's owner came closer so that he could run along with the Golden along the fence.  He's happily exhausted now, and he had a good lesson too.

Wed Aug 3
His first Novice Obedience class.  Oh boy this should be fun.  I did this class with Cali for months, so I'll likely do the same with him, hope it works out.

[afterwards]
An Unlikely Niche?
He loves the Novice Obedience class.  Who'd of thought?  A dog as fast as he is really likes heeling (and the treats).  He worried about the other dogs a little but when he realized that they were not after him at all (as these dogs are much better behaved than the dogs in Beginner obedience) he was fine until the dogs from the Open class held afterward started appearing which got him alarm barking. (Intruders!)  This made for an interesting Recall as it was right towards the recent arrivals so I only went out a few feet.  Unlike the agility class he was in, he was able to pay attention and work the entire time (45 min).  We did heeling,  about turn footwork (the human's), figure 8 heeling, stand for exam (vaguely since I just had introduced him to the concept and given his caution about people with shoes walking towards him),  recalls, and after the open dogs arrived, sits and downs.  He's already better at the sit and down than Cali ever was though I only was about 10 feet from him.

Not bad for a dog that was only introduced to heeling with attention 10 days ago on July 22 - (clickers work wonders!) (though he's done plenty of heeling without attention).  Good thing he likes it, as this is where we'll be for a while.

What's amazing is that after we got home I took him out to pee and at the time I was eating a piece of Afghan bread,  He loves bread so much that he actually asked to work.  I didn't want to do more obedience with him so instead I got the weave poles out and he very enthusiastically did them four times before I decided to stop.  What's interesting to me is that initially I had just 3 poles out so I could take a photo of a regular sized weave guide (i.e. one that hadn't been cut up).  I let him do that one and then mistakenly let him turn around and do it in reverse forgetting that with a weave guide on 3 poles it effectively becomes one way as the going other direction the proper entrance is blocked by the guide.  He automatically took the correct entrance though poor guy ran right into the guide - hope he didn't think he was wrong.  When I got six poles out he did them fine so he doesn't seem to be too confused.

Someone on the Performance Corgi's list suggested that during the day we could use a reflection instead of a laser pointer.  That seems like a great idea - will try it.

Tues Aug 2
Book club tonight so may not have much time to work with him.
This morning I fed him in the living room and worked on walking around him (sock feet - no shoes).  At first he was not letting me walk behind him, but instead pivoting (made for a fun dance), but I took a step further away, then he let me walk around him and then was allowing me to get closer.

[later]
Went dog stalking around my house and followed one dog around a block or so but Yoshi never really settled down enough to get close.

We then went over to the local school and worked on heeling.  He has the idea of heeling with attention, but understandably has trouble maintaining attention for more than a few seconds (can't say I blame him), when I ask him to "watch" he looks up again.  Given that we're more likely going to compete in Rally than Obedience this is fine and he'll improve over time anyway.

I've decided that the sit beside me in heel position is going to be called "by me."

Also I need to talk with the herding instructor about whether there's any reason to stay with the convoluted and confusing (for me) directionals "come by" and "away to me."  Personally, I like "clock[wise]" and "counter."

Oakland DTC's Beginning obedience instructor Elizabeth Soares (as opposed to the Novice level instructor Hazel)  and I have been trading voicemail about whether to have Yoshi in the Beginner  2 obedience class again.  She had told me that there are some very reactive dogs in the Beginner 2 class and I had decided that we should instead go into Novice dropin where the dogs are much more solid.  She just left me a message saying that she thought it would be a good idea so that he doesn't associate the training facility with scary dogs (even though the owners are good), though that when he's doing better, the Beginner class would be good for proofing.

Mon Aug 1 (time flies)
from a Performance Corgi's post:
Some while back, I discovered that Yoshi was completely riveted by the 
red dot of a laser pointer.  His attention was so focused that I didn't 
know what to do with it as he wouldn't pay attention to anything else 
(despite all appearances, he really must be part Border Collie it 
seems).  Some time has passed and now I'm casting about for things that 
drive him and I'm hoping that now that he's grown up a little (ha, ha, 
ha.) that there might be a way to get him thinking that the magic red 
dot comes from me.

So I've been trying various things that folks have recommended in the 
past.  Mainly always getting the red dot to trace back to me.  I make 
this show of having it go back to my hand but he would follow it back to 
almost my hand and then start looking around for it instead of looking 
at my hand.  Ok so maybe I'm slow, but it took me a little while to 
realize that his vision can't distinguish between the red dot and the 
tan of my hand.  I had grey sweats on and he could see it go up my leg, 
but as soon as I reached for it (as if to put it away) he'd lose it.  
Maybe I'll have it appear to go into my pocket as he knows that good 
things come from my pocket.

Suggestions welcome.  Oh and if anyone knows of a pointer that's visible 
in outdoor daylight let me know.

Ellen Clary
and Yoshi the motion obsessed, alleged Pem

[later]
Decided to go leashed dog stalking so that we could work on his weird issues with leashed dogs.  Most dogs if they have issues with leashes, it involves them being on a leash.  In Yoshi's case it doesn't seem to matter.  I've seen him break off from enthusiastic off-leash play to run 200 feet to go bark at 2 Rotties on leash (with me in hot pursuit - fortunately I was acquainted with their owner.)

I went to a large park so we'd have lots of space in case we needed it.  The one miscalculation I made is that it's the same park where the dog park is located.  That dog park is so successful that there were almost no on-leash dogs.  I found one, and that dog wasn't moving fast enough to make following at a distance reasonable (without really looking like stalkers)

So we moved closer to the dog park which I feared was going to be too stimulating but it turned out ok.  We walked around the outside of the park on the other side of the fence and then we hung around the entrance watching the leashed dogs go by.  He was very barky at first and then surprisingly settled down.  We watched for a bit longer and then I took him into the small dog park (the one that he's usually too rambunctious for), with the idea that we'd stay on leash and chew a bone, but there was a corgi there who wanted to play so I took him off leash as a reward and let him play.  Not long afterward he got one of the big dogs to run the chainlink fence that separates the two parks and he once again awed the park with his speed (The fence is about 100 yards - long enough that they can really haul).  I hope we can apply that to agility someday, but I have to be a lot more confident that he isn't going to charge out of the ring after a dog on leash that he doesn't know (dogs he has met, even once, he's fine around.)

Hopefully we'll make a habit of this.  It works out well as the off-leash time is a reward as opposed to an expectation.


Go to:

2005
Yoshi Training Diary - Jul 2005
Yoshi Training Diary - Jun 2005
Yoshi Training Diary - May 2005
Yoshi Training Diary - Apr 2005
Yoshi Training Diary - Mar 2005
Yoshi Training Diary - Feb 2005
Yoshi Training Diary - Jan  2005

2004
Yoshi Training Diary - Dec 2004
Yoshi Training Diary - Nov 2004
Yoshi Training Diary - Oct 2004
Yoshi Training Diary - Sep 2004
Yoshi Training Diary - Aug 2004
Yoshi Training Diary - July 2004
Yoshi Training Diary - Jun 2004
Yoshi Training Diary - May 2004
Yoshi Training Diary - Apr 2004

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