Yoshi and Trek
Training Diary
By Ellen Clary
(reverse date order)
Feedback
is welcome: 
For
the human's blog see: The Non-Dog Blog
Non-Dog Blog Table of Contents
Fri Sep 5
Agility practice. I started later as the terrier owners Carol and
Vina wanted to rent the field at 6:15, so we started just after 7:15.
I think Trek heard me say that Yoshi is the most talented agility dog
in the house and so today she made it clear that she wanted that to
change. Yoshi was distracted and a little freaky by the darkness
and the night sounds so we only did a little agility and spent a fair
bit of time just walking around the field on leash. Him being
spooky makes me uncomfortable when he's off leash as he has proven his
bad judgment before.
Trek's jump sequencing is getting much better. She will drive
ahead more. Her 12 pole weaves are way better (her on my left is
perfect, her on my right is great and I only have to encourage her to
stay in them on the 10th pole, and even though Sharon had the noisy,
scary teeter out I lowered it and she was able to do it for the most
part (though still would jump off the first time, for a few times.)
In October, there are the first two of the local(ish) 2009 USDAA
qualifying season trials. Trek isn't ready yet, but she's close
and could be ready in a month so I'm going to enter her. (These are a
Haute Dawgs and CAT trials).
[that night]
Trek wanted to do something so I took her into the living room got a
nylon string guitar out that Terri leaves out and just started quietly
playing it and occasionally throwing treats on the floor. While
she wasn't happy about it she keep coming back for goodies. For a
CU dog I wouldn't ever take such big steps but she'll likely be ok as
she's not over threshold. I think we'll just keep it at this
level and do little 5 minute guitar sessions here and there. I
can play the guitar quieter than the piano (particularly a nylon
stringed one) so that's a good level to work on.
Wed Sep 3
Dog walks.
Trek saw two kids. Yoshi saw several dogs with mixed
results. We had deliberately walked over to the school where a
lot of people walk their dogs. Dogs walking away, dogs 1/2 a
block away are ok. I pushed it a bit by having him watch a large
black lab approach and we had a major power struggle there. He
did finally chill out when it was clear that the lab was very much
under control, but he was plainly not happy and reactive to a dog he's
seen before and tolerated before. Annoyed at him, I had him walk
parallel to the dog for a while and he was ok with that.
Go to crate work when door knocks. With Tues experience of him
being so weird about visitors, I've changed my mind on the using mats
instead of crates. I worked each dog separately. With Yoshi
I could knock on something close to the crate and get him to go in the
crate. Further away, he would want to run to the door but would
reorient to me when I said his name and then I could get him to go in
his crate. The doorbell was more intense but I could still get
his attention. I think he's wise to the fact that no one is at
the door.
Trek was similar but would even stay in her crate (she volunteered
this) when I knocked on something, though the doorbell was too much and
she came bursting out but could be redirected back in. Then we
started to work on musical instruments again.
Post to CU_Dogs_SF on vibration sensitivity:
Fortunately since Trek is not a CU dog (though, like most dogs,
benefits from the techniques of breaking challenges down into very
small steps) her fears are not so entrenched and after an usually short
period of time she decides the rewards offered are worth facing her
fears. She goes through the whole process of having something be scary
and then start to reconsider her options once she realizes that treats
are in the offing very quickly. I've seen her go from finding
something so scary she doesn't want to be anywhere near it, to the very
next day being relatively fine with it.
Yesterday I couldn't touch the uke, in fact she looked nearly betrayed
that I could make buzzing sounds with my mouth (a la "How could
you?!") Today I could make all the buzzing sounds I wanted as long as
I rewarded her. Then I got the uke again. She was again leery so I
left in on the sofa and when she would come look at it she got a
treat. I could even play a note or two on it if it was on the sofa,
but on the floor was too much. So I went and got a violin that has no
strings (thus can't make any accidental noise) and set that down on the
floor she was able to do nose touches with that. With a CU dog I would
stop there, but I knew she is very resilient and every time I told her
to Take A Break she wouldn't (which is a great way to gage how a
session is going).
So I got the uke back out and put it on the floor. She cautiously
approached and you could see her grappling with her fear. I didn't
tell her to do anything. She touched it. Yes/treat. She started
bugging me for food so I told her to "touch" it and she did. We did
that a few more times, and I told her to Take A Break. She laid down
beside it and woofed at me wanting to start again. I had her do a
couple more touches. Then I let her eat while I put a hand on the
uke. She stiffened, but card carrying Corgi she is, she stayed with
the food. I played a note on the uke and she kept eating. Then we
went to note/yes/eat, note/yes/eat, note/yes/eat, 2 notes/yes/jackpot
and quit.
She's not completely over it, but likely will be able to work through it.
What's funny is how she doesn't really generalize. I will probably
have to do this with every stringed instrument in the house (no harp
fortunately, but a guitar, mandolin, uke, brac, and, what started this,
piano - I don't play all those but it really doesn't matter as all you
need to do is play notes on them for training purposes).
I stopped playing guitar due to an old hand injury that has since healed. I should consider going back to it a little.
Tue Sep 2
Someone, who Yoshi has seen before, came by to see Terri and Yoshi was
being a complete barky/growly twit. Fortunately I had him on the
sofa so I just held onto him and then covered him eyes. He
groused about that but settled down reluctantly. Then he could
look at the visitor and be relatively ok.
Mon Sep 1
I actually had to work today so today was just another workday, but we got some training in.
Walked both dogs. By the way each dog gets walked a brisk mile
separately (a good Corgi distance - they can go much further but this
is what's manageable for me and still keeps them in shape) - I checked
it with my GPS which I often use as an overpriced odometer (fear not,
it was used as a real GPS yesterday when I was hiking out near Tahoe.)
Trek's walk was uneventful, Yoshi saw two teeny dogs while we were
crossing a street and wanted to do the usual bark/lunge/flail like a
caught fish on the end of the Gentle Leader routine. I got him
across the street and we played a litle LATADFO (Look At That And Don't
Freak Out) but it was brief.
[later] Did crate and mat work with both dogs in the Living Room.
I may be having more success with the mats now so I started having them
on the mats and knocking on something wooden. They both did well
not reacting. Then I did what I've been trying to teach all this
time with the crate. Knock on something and say "mat" and they go
to their mats. Each dog did very well at this, so I just left the
mats down instead of taking them up.
Trek noise sensitivity. I should have seen this coming, but I
play recorded music all the time so I didn't realize that she has a
lesser case of fear of stringed musical instruments that the Beardie
who was at one of the CU Workshops has. We were just finishing up
mat work and I played the piano like I did on Yoshi's You Tube
video. She got off the mat looking stressed and tried to leave
the room. Surprised, I started treating her for just being around
the piano, and then hitting a few notes. Even that was too
much. So it became one note/one treat and even then she didn't
want to come over and it got worse and worse.
Call me slow, but the minute I stopped and walked away from the piano
she went over there to clean the crumbs off the floor. You might
think that she knew it was safe since I wasn't at the piano, and that
was certainly part of it, but what she was telling me was that she
needed a break. I sat back down and told her to Take a
Break. She sniffed around further away and then came back to
me. I played one note and gave her a treat. She wanted to
leave, so I told her again to TAB. Same routine. Another
round of that and she stopped leaving. I was just about done
anyway so we did 3 more note/treats and ended it there.
I've known about her noise sensitivity for a while, but while she
struggles with it initially she usually works through it so I've been a
bit lazy about it. I guess I need to play the piano more.
Sun Aug 31
Gone hikin' up Ralston Peak near Tahoe. See the Non-Dog Blog if you're
curious about how I torture myself, and how I'm trying to convince
myself to find something else to obsess on (entry not written just yet.)
Sat Aug 30
Dog Walks.
Yoshi saw 3 dogs (2 and 1), and one small child. The dog
encounters were perfect (small child was too - even with her touching
him and immediately excitedly exclaiming "It's like touching a blanket"
- he has a plush coat). Each time I saw the dog(s) in time and
was able to set up. The first encounter was a GSD and a smaller
dog. We were near an intersection so I went a house width down
the side street (think Victorian house suburbia distances - 100' or so)
and watched the dogs go by on the other side of the street that we were
on. The next time the dog (medium sized black and white but too
fluffy for a BC) was just across the street and that was tougher, but
he still was able to eat. This is right up against his threshold,
but I think he was able to learn. In both cases, I kneel down
with my hand in his collar, so I can control his head and so he has
contact with me so he knows I'm not worried, and have food in the other
hand. This time I was out of cream cheese, so I just had a couple
slices of Natural Balance which worked well. The only downside
(besides the smelly hands) is that even though Yoshi has a very soft
mouth, I do get chewed on a bit when he's stress eating.
Fri Aug 29
No class tonight, but we're renting the field at 6:30. Should be fun to
work Yoshi. I make a sign to hang on the fence that says to
please let the person in the field know before entering.
[later]
No one else showed up so there were no other dogs around, just Sharon's
husband Phil out working with didn't bother either dog. We spent
the hour trading off. Work one dog a little (while the other
watched from a crate) then switch.
Yoshi did great and tells me he wants to do agility as a correspondence
course. He wasn't really scanning that much. While his
right foot is stil a little tender from tearing it at herding I did
have him do the obstacles at half speed. He was perfect.
jumps, weaves, teeter (Sharon has a new one - hurray!), Dogwalk,
A-Frame, Tire, Tunnels, Table, (the Chute wasn't out). He's got
it, apparently I was able to successfully teach him all of him
obstacles and it stuck. He's still further along than Trek is who
still tries to skip the 10th weave pole and is leery of the teeter
(though she'll do this one). What he would need now is to work
more on course maneuvers like cross behinds, serpentines and working
away and, recalls in any situation. Part of the time we just
played a little small tennis ball fetch on the field, just so he
could have more good associations with the field. If only If only
If only. But he needs to be way, way better around other dogs
first. Maybe we should have CU agility courses/competition where
there is a set course that you set up, run, and have someone time and
we all record our times
Trek is still working on popping the 10th Weave pole (only when she's
on my right which is new, so I'm wondering if there's something visual
with the background relative to the position of the poles or something
I'm doing. It helps if I signal her to come in my direction at
the 10th pole (since she's on the other side of the poles when she's on
my right), but I don't like her having to be dependent on my
position. When the lawn is grown I'll put the poles back out and
work on them daily. She still wants to jump off the Teeter, but
with some coaxing will do this new Teeter (which is way quieter).
We got it going with me on one side and then we had to go through the
same thing with me on the other side. With the Table, she is
great on the down but is weird on sit. She'll sit up and then
plop back down. We have a Table at home so that will be easy to
work on. Her driving forward over a Jump so I can cross behind is
improving I don't have to throw the toy each time now though I do need
to do it right at the beginning so she gets the idea. The Broad
Jump is where she needs the most improvement as she's happily bouncing
on it like a human Steeplechase jump. I can turn one board up on
its side which works, but as soon as I put it back she bounces on
it. The only way to get her to jump over it was to get a good run
at it and throw a toy. She doesn't see the broad jump enough so
we'll have to work more on it. Tunnels, and A-Frame are
good. The Dogwalk she's initially hesitant on it until she
figures out it's not a teeter then was ok.
Wed Aug 27
Yoshi Walk. He had a bit of a melt down when a Newfie and another
dog appeared around the corner. I should have just walked away,
but decided to pick him up and cross the street. He thrashed to
get down leaving some impressive dog nail scratches on my forearm
Once he got across the street and the dogs had passed he settled down
a little and we then followed them as that sort of behavior from him doesn't
make the dogs go away. He did finally offer LAT on the dogs and
he started responding to "leave it" so then we set off in another
direction. Still keyed up, he barked at a walking family. I
explained that he thought they had a dog (he was acting that way) and fortunately they believed
it since one parent observed that it was dog walking time though they
wisely told their kids not to look at Yoshi. After about 1/2 mile
he started to settle down and we could even observe and play LAT on
some smaller dogs across the street and be ok.
He has more meltdowns on his walks, but the exercise settles him down
so it's a mostly positive tradeoff. The huge amount of exercise
he gets at herding is probably a fundamental reason he's more relaxed
there. While he has a 2-3 week break from herding since Joyce is
out of town, maybe we'll do more walks at Briones Park where the sight
lines are good.
Trek's walk was without incident. she still gives me blank looks
when I say "sit." "By me" (left side sit) works great though
I reserved the agility field for this Friday and next. This will
be cool as I can work with Yoshi then also. Have to remember to bring a
crate though there are some there already. Maybe I should bring
an expen to be a second fence with a note that says please call out to
person in the field first before entering in case someone opens the
field gate.
Tues Aug 26
We were watching Hillary Clinton speak at the Democratic National
Convention (Wow she was amazing - Michelle Obama too), and Terri leaned
over to Yoshi who was lazing on the sofa and asked him if he was going
to vote democrat. I said "Unfortunately, I think he is the
resident Right Wing Asshole." Though we will keep up our
education efforts. :)
Mon Aug 25
Trek just leapped again over the temporary fencing into the growing
lawn area for the 20th time this week or so. It's like 16" and
she did it from a stand still. Ok little one you're jumping 12"
at least part of the time. Especially since she had excellent
form jumping over the lawn fencing unlike her more spastic style.
We'll practice at 12" during the next two weeks while Rachelle is
gone. (We'll just during the usual class time and rent the field.)
Sun Aug 24
Yoshi Herding.
During his first run once of his booties came off and I dumbly let him
continue and he ripped a right foot pad again. He is slow down
some and is more under control (well slightly). Barbara is going
to send me the link to some other booties that she uses. She says
they're called Mutt Links but I'm not finding any relevant matches on
that. She also uses some really nice ones from Cabella but I
think they're too large and they have a solid food that he trips over.
The advantage of injuring himself is that he got to socialize with
people and dogs for the rest of the afternoon and he did great and I
was very pleased. Sometimes a dog (even one that he knew) would
approach from a distance and he'd tense up to react, but I covered his
eyes and after some ceremonial struggle, he would relax I get
this relaxation faster than I do with cream cheese which has me
wondering which would be more effective (I wasn't using cream cheese at
herding as he is at his most relaxed there.) It's cool to feel
him physcially relax when I cover his eyes, but I wonder if there a why
to build on that. Maybe let him see the dog sooner don't
know. It's also tricky as I'm not always there to cover his eyes,
but the same could be said of cream cheese. The difference is
that at herding I'm just buying time till he recognizes the dog or
realizes that the dog is no threat (and that other dogs don't care -
though that never seems to stop him - Trek and I can be completely
sacked out and continue to while he is pulling a fire alarm and we're
not responding - he like just thinks we're deaf and blind or something.
Sat Aug 23
Trek Eye Dr.
Her eye is holding steady at a 6 in her tears test. Dr Friedman
thinks that she can stay on the Cyclosporine and she doesn't think the
Tacrolimus is adding any benefit. She did suggest that we start
giving her Omega 3 and 6 with a meal, and that we should give her
artificial treats ointment 3x/day - use a kind with no
preservatives. I had explained that the Soothe XP didn't seem to
help as much as artificial tears.
Yoshi Dog Park Walk.
Been a little while since we did a dog park walk. While he did
occasionally go over threshold when a dog approached, he is so much
better. We could walk closer to the fence and even let him greet
dogs through the fence. After one round of walking on the
outside, we stood near the gate and watched some dogs come and
go. Then, because he seemed ready, I took him on leash into the
small dog park. He did very well, even tolerated some dogs being
pushy and rude and when a scuffle broke out near by he was happy to
reorient to me as we walked away (probably because I was telling him to
- but I'll take it.) People in the park were happy to greet him
even when I explained that he was on leash because he could be snitty
to other dogs. I have to careful in that park as they're
not so good at watching their dogs, and the dogs are not always that
solid, but it's a good place to start.
It's funny that when in a crowd of dogs on leash he's pretty good
unless another dog gets grouchy or uncomfortable (he makes poor choices
off leash but will mostly listen to me when he's on leash - and he's
small and doesn't really have a choice anyway). It's the dogs
entering/appearing that's the issue. So one thing we can work on
inside the small dog park is rewarding him when a new dog enters.
A dog did enter when we were in there but I walked him away and
rewarded him so he never really had a chance to react though he did see
the new dog fairly soon after that and didn't react.
Fri Aug 22
Worked more on the knocking behavior. Trek is getting
it. Yoshi wants to jump on the sofa to look out to see who it is
(I had the shade open - which was probably making it too hard as the
window is such a powerful draw for him). We worked on "crate" a
lot and he sort of gets it, but it's so against him internal primary
directive of guard the house that it's going to be tough for him.
Maybe if I reward him with pizza crust or something else of high value
- I was using rollover which is high value but he gets it a lot and
pizza crust is even higher value.
Trek Agility Yoshi Dog Watching.
First of all since I was going to have Yoshi around dogs he's reacted
to before, I made a failsafe secondary attachment that goes from the
leash to his collar in case the Gentle Leader was somehow to fail or he
was to slip out of it (which has never happened). It's just a
small loop of cord tied together with a mountaineering knot called a
Fisherman's Knot with a small snap attached and threaded through the
leash snap.
Both did pretty well. Yoshi had a bit of a meltdown when a big
black dog approached (the handler's car was nearby and we were jammed
into a corner and couldn't get further away. What's funny though
is that, while he wants to lunge and bark, if I can get the cream
cheese in his face he can't help himself but to lick it (such a Corgi)
- and the food does calm him some (it's a primary reinforcer).
The idea is that a truly stressed dog doesn't eat, but I'm not so sure
about Corgis. :)
Trek is getting better about sequencing, doing serpentines, and driving
forward over a jump so I can cross behind though still mostly needs a
thrown tug n treat (which for her is mostly a fetch n treat.)
Little stinker jumped off a dog walk during a walk through (I had let
her wander up on it.) I think she thought it was a teeter. I took
her over it a couple of times and while she was initially hesitant, she
was then ok. We didn't work on the teeter today and I think I'm
going to have to see if I can borrow Elf's again or buy one or rent the
field a lot. There is no class for two weeks, but we can rent the
field during class time and that's what we'll do. She's getting
fairly reliable about 12 weave poles. Tries to skip once in a
while but can do it the second time. Still has trouble getting
weave pole entrance when approaching from the side opposite from the
pole entrance (where she has to go around a pole first - hard to
explain). Then I had her doing that and was crossing behind her
which didn't seem to bother her that much.
Thu Aug 21
The dogs are still losing their minds when there's a knock at
the door so we need to work intensively on getting the new behavior I
want into place. The behavior I want is that when there's a knock
at the door, they can optionally bark but then should run to their
living room crates. So basically what needs to happen is that the
knocking becomes a cue for charging into their crates.
So first I made sure the "crate" cue is working. Trek yes, Yoshi
not so much with distractions. Then I need to add the knock
cue. To change a cue the order is New Cue-Old Cue (N-O is the
neumonic). Then standing near the crate knock on wood and say
"crate." This proved to be too difficult with both dogs so I
eventually had only one dog out at a time. With Trek I could be
10-15 feet away and knock and she'd go to her crate. With Terri
knocking on the actual door it was harder but eventually she was
sucessful. The doorbell is harder but she would do the routing of
run to the door, recall to her name and go crate.
Wed Aug 20
Yoshi walk. Right off the bat we had a dog appear from his
(the dog's) house just a short ways down the street. Fortunately
I saw them emerging and was able to retreat up a neighbor's walkway and
get out the cream cheese. Yoshi did bark once before I was able
to get the cream cheese at him, but it wasn't a firm alarm pulling type
bark. The owner of the dog (a lab) said she'd give us a break and
cross the street. I said that this was good for him, but they had
already crossed.
Just as soon as they went by two more dogs went by also across the
street. More gurgling and eating of cream cheese. He's
holding it together but I'm not sure how to progress with this. I
have to remind myself that he's lightyears better than he was and that
while progress seems slow, he is gradually improving.
Saw two children who were great with him. I talked to mom for a
while and Yoshi was terrific around the kids. (I had explained
that he was a bit afraid of kids. What's great is that when I say
that, it instantly turns into a lesson for the parents to teach their
kids how to be calmer around a frightened animal and not make sudden
movements as the calmer they can be, the less likely they will get
bitten - not by Yoshi who has never bitten a person, but by some other
dog.)
Tue Aug 19
Yoshi walk - saw two different dogs from about 100' (no real
issue they were headed in the opposite direction - that's nice) and one
screaming child (apparently she was in a huff as they didn't get i-c-e
on park street - maybe she meant ice cream). While one of the
parents and I talked I was feeding him cream cheese and he seemed
blissfully unaware of the tantrum. Mom joked that he was in the
"zone:" the cream cheese zone.
Mon Aug 18
So it's clear that Yoshi needs more work on his mat and the
Relaxation Protocol. I also want his Go Crate to be stronger, so
we worked on both at lunch in the Living Room much to Trek's chagrin.
Poor guy he's so fixed on the afternoon nap routine that I had to drag him out of his crate.
Put the mat down, he immediately went on it and lied down - yes/treat (y/t).
Started out easy by just walking around some with the occasional y/t
Then got out a set of dog tags and rattle that - no reaction y/t
Touched the door - fine - y/t
Unlatched the lock. Initially he was fine and then Trek, the cute
little instigator in the next room who needs this as much as he does,
started barking so Yoshi jumps up and leaps on the sofa barking and
staring out the window (his view is mostly blocked but not completely)
looking for intruders. I ponder whether to call him back but I
decided to wait to see if he would recover on his own. I sat on
the arm of the sofa and didn't say anything. Fairly soon he
stopped and reengaged and jumped off the sofa (good boy). I had
him go back to the mat. Tried the latch again and he (and
apparently Trek) was fine. Closed the latch and y/t. Walked
around (y/t), rattled the dog tags (y/t), undid the latch again and
opened and closed the door (y/t). Repeated but opened the door
and walked out (y/t). Repeated, walked out said "Hi there"
(y/t). Repeated, walked out said "Hi There, Come on in." (hope no
one was watching) y/t.
Then we worked on "Go Mat" (I had already introduced the mat cue
previously) where he goes over to the mat and lies down (y/t - several
reps)
Then on to: "Go Crate" and also wait in the crate (no cue), then
knocking on something and Go Crate (y/t). He can do that from 10
feet, but further away he want to go to the front door. i can
knock on the coffee table, but not a taller further away desk.
Sun Aug 17
A successful CU Workshop weekend.
A post of mine to CU_Dogs_SF
I'd love to hear other's thoughts on the August CU Continued Workshop.
Despite our rather leisurely pace, we were able to cover the most material that we're ever done.
- Box work
- Mat work
- (something I'm forgetting - LAT perhaps)
- There's a Dog in Your Face (always an excellent game)
- The Car Crash game (sans dogs), Kienan put up to four people into the pattern just to make us all dizzy
- and some great Parallel Walking
My only wish is that we need to manufacture ways to create Sudden
Environmental Changes (SECs) - something like having a dog suddenly
appearing in the doorway and then say "Wow there's a big scary dog in
the doorway, have some cheese." - this continues to be Yoshi's bugaboo
in both workshops (and he was just mostly watching in the Intro).
Oh and the Aug Intro Workshop has been sent invitations and I expect
those interested will trickle in in the next few days, and hopefully
they will comment on how it was for them (so far all I've heard is the
anticipated: "Oh my brain is full!"
Some of them are already here - feel free to post about your experience.
The Aug Intro Workshop probably had the largest variation in behavior
during the Evaluation period when they were let loose in the box with
no feedback from the handler. Apropos of precisely nothing, a couple
of the dogs worked themselves up into a thorough frenzy, but in both
cases as soon as they were given something to do, they settled down.
Fascinating.
Ellen and Yoshi
He did pretty well though he had some lunges and suddenly
appearing dogs, but not if I saw them first and could either cover his
eyes or feed him something. Near the end when they were doing
massage work on mats, he retreated into his crate (I had the mat and
the crate surrounded by an expen and I was in there as well and that
was fine - it was nice to see him doing some self regulating..
Fri Aug 15
So his mornng while Trek and I were relaxing i bed, Mr always
hypervigilent Yoshi, starts a barking fit. I call him back to me
and decide to start massaging him to see if I can get him to
relax. I would start to relax and then start to bark and want to
do his race around him circles thing. This time I held onto him
and kept massaging him and the same thing would happen. He would
start to relax (it's pretty much a primary reinforcer for him and many
dogs), and then hear something and tense, bark and try to jump
away. We did this for 5 or 6 cycles and the I finally put im in
is crate and he settled down.
Later on I had him out and he started to bark, but was looking
at me. I had him come to me and jump in my lap and he instantly
settled down. So since I've reinforce
him coming and jumping on my lap its a pretty easy guess that he
doesn't find my restraining him and making him relax to be an adversive
experience at all (some dogs it very well may). My lap is
safe. Maybe I should use that when someone is at the door but
that's way more stimulation than just noise outside I think we
should continue to work on Go Crate for visitors.
Thu Aug 14
I swear I've done some dog training here and there inbetween spreading
grass seed and crawling under the house to string irrigation
wiring (which is done - hooray). Yesterday I had both dogs on mats in the Living Room and
I was able to wander around some and even undo the latch to the front
door and then eventually open the door and shut it. The one
that's the most prone to not being able to resist barking is actually
Trek so she needs this as much as Yoshi. In fact I wonder if I
should get her further along with it so she can be an example.
Cue interim music...
Dig Dig Dig Rake Rake Rake.
Been taking the dogs for walks and they do laps around the fenced off
grass area. Terri noticed that while Trek is fast, Yoshi has this
incredible afterburner effect. I ruefully tell her the difference
is that while Trek can get into an agility nationals (maybe even
place), Yoshi could win (sigh).
Yoshi has actually been doing well on his walks but for some reason we don't see many dogs.
Wed Aug 6
Halfway done on the irrigation system - that's an overstatement - I've dug half of the trenches. The dogs have taken to
sacking out on the piles of dirt. They're going to lose those
piles and trenches soon but there will be a whole nuther set soon.
Because I've been so occupied with the backyard project, they haven't
been getting as much attention so I'm having to come up with ways to be
more effecient. For the past week I've been walking Trek on a
flexi to let her race up and down the sidewalk while we walked.
This doesn't help her loose leash walking, but I'm not sure I care at
this point. I just want her to get more exercise as she's 2
pounds heavier than I want her to be. At street corners I still
have her sit, and we walk across on a short leash. For Yoshi whose
weight is correct, we just played indoor fetch and he loved that.
I did make sure that Trek was ok with a flexi case on the kitchen floor
following her (as if I'd dropped it). After some puzzlement, she
was ok and would stop to check in with me. Yosoh as expected,
does not pass this test at all ("AAAAAAAAA there's a plastic thing
chasing me! Run away! Run away!) and if I were to use it
with him again then I'd have to find a way to tie it to my wrist (I've
been lucky so far, but i'm no longer taking chances). I've seen
dogs run more than a block (with their owners in pursuit) trying to get
away from a flexi case that an owner had dropped.
Sun Aug 3
Yoshi is already back to tearing around the yard with Trek and not looking like he's drugged.
I think this is the level that I want him at so he can learn and I
think training is what I should rely on for further behavior
improvements. Before he was so stressed that it was difficult for
him to learn so this Clomicalm dose is helping him with that.
I worked most of the day installing an irrigation system, so they go to
spend a large part of the day with me in the yard. It was fun
having them with me even if they make the job longer by knocking dirt
back into the trenches I dug for the pipe.
Sat Aug 2
After thinking about it I took Yoshi back to 1/2 tablets of Clomicalm (20mg). I
didn't see any further improvement at 1 mg (and he looked drugged) but I can tell that 1/2 helps
him. I think for simplicity I'm going to keep it at 1/2 each meal
and see how it goes.
I'll post this to CU_Dogs_SF
CU Practice at Washington Park
Sophie and Ivy and Yoshi and I with Cathy and Abby appearing for a little while.
Ivy and Yoshi have different issues, but were able to get some work accomplished.
We worked on Parallel Walking (about 25' apart) and Arcing Approaches
(something that isn't strictly CU, but is oh so CU and very important
in my eyes.) We also commandeered a park bench and we did a
version of There's a Dog in Your Face. Then Cathy and Abby
happened by (a semi-coincidence as she was there anyway and saw my car)
so we gave Yoshi a break and let Cathy and her non-reactive dog Jesse
work with Sophie and Ivy. The dog's did relatively well.
There was one incident where a family with some very happy children
were walking by and I just so happened to be walking Yoshi very close
to Ivy and she lunged at him and he was surprised and was cursing back
at her. We walked away and were able to slowly reset. Yoshi
seemed to recover fine. Sophie thought that Ivy was a little
stressed, but though she was staring at Yoshi she would still play Look
At That with Sophie. By then we decided that both dogs had done
enough work so we ended it there and Sophie and Ivy continued on to do
dog greetings through the Dog Park fence (another handy use of the
park.) Yoshi is fine (his meds really help him to bounce back
very well) and currently passed out on the floor of my house and we can
let Sophie tell us how Ivy greeting dogs through the fence went.
Thank you both for a very productive session.
Fri Aug 1
Trek: Splash Dogs
From a CU_Dogs_SF post:
I took Trek to Splashdogs practice at noon (at the Somoma County
Fairgrounds) to check it out and see how she'd do.
She is a water fiend, but is hesitant to swim off the exit ramp (did it
once out of 4 or 5 sessions and she had multiple attempts each
session.) Clearly she needs more time swimming which is surprisingly
hard to find around here. I live on a silly island for heaven's sake,
but they don't like dog's on the beach which is so totally unfair (can't
they have just a little sand?). But Trek has gone after birds before so
I can't whine too much. So we'll have to go looking for boat ramps,
ways through the rocks, and lakes instead.
As far as the atmosphere - it is a fair that's going at nearly full
force even on a Friday. There is a ride that is very close to the dock
that has a rotating platform that looms high in the air and gives some
of the dogs pause. Non-reactive Trek didn't notice, but Yoshi would have
thought that the aliens that haunt him were invading. (Ok, that's a
touch over-stated - I do not think he's schizophrenic and slightly
paranoid alarmist that his is, has a good grasp of reality), but he
still would have objected and I decided that it wasn't an environment
he'd enjoy, and not an ideal one to learn a new skill.
Wendy assures me that the weekend is going to be much much busier so if
you have a CU dog that you want get some Spashdogs practice with, if you
can get there today or Monday it would be better.
We got to see Splashstar Renagade jump an amazing 20+ feet apparently
he is nearly qualified for the National.
If you do go to practice or compete. First find where gate 5 is (you
can leave stuff just inside the gate if you like. Then go park, and
then walk back to that gate with your dog. You will not have to pay to
get into the fair, though you have to stay in the splash dogs area.
The place looks so different it took me quite a while to realize that I
was standing in a place that I've spent a fair bit of time in as Bay
Team often has trials there.
The Splash Dogs site is:
http://www.splashdogs.com/ and if you watch the
photos rotating on the banner you'll see a cute photo of Wendy and Ren
doing a high 5.
Took Yoshi and Trek over to Agility Class.
With Yoshi I had him at a
far distance and just played LAT as he hasn't been back there since he
started on his meds. He did great though I was right beside him
armed with cream cheese. He would occasionally grumble but still
would eat and didn't lunge though I didn't give him a chance to.
It's been a week at the higher dosage so any side effects should have
passed but Rachelle and I noticed that he did seem drugged, so I think
I'm going to drop it down - maybe 1/2 a tab in the AM and a whole one
in the evening (or vv). He is less tense but still pays
hyperattention to his environment, and still will alarm bark (which is
fine). I haven't really given him a chance to lunge so I don't
know it that has been affected by the increase.
I need to check what the half-life is so I know if it stays in his body a long time or not.
Checked the main site:
http://www.clomicalm.novartis.us/product_label/en/index.shtml
It says 2-9 hours, so pretty short 1/2 life.
Trek Agility
I have to remember to always tell Trek "out" when doing wing jumps as
at slow speeds or at turns she's likely to follow me instead.
Generally she did well though treats that the beginning class leaves at
still very much a distraction for her. I still need to throw the
toy for rear crosses and I'd like her to be more drivey though when she
does get drivey she gets zoomy so I don't push too hard yet. I
also have to remember that when I outstretch my hands it can confuse
her some as we do a lot of hand targetting. I can indicate with
my hands low but really don't have to wave them around much as she's a
small dog after all and stops to wonder what the heck I'm talking
about. Less is more.
Wed Jul 30
Just wrote this to Dr. Sophia Yin - put here so I have a copy of it:
Greetings Dr Yin,
You are probably the most well known vet behaviorist in the SF Bay Area.
I'm writing as I was wondering if you or your students have heard of
the book Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt? Control Unleashed
is a set of exercises based on Dr. Karen Overall's Relaxation Protocol
and are designed to help a dog build confidence and deal with stress
and reactivity (more info at http://controlunleashed.net/book.html)
We have been having Control Unleashed workshops in Redwood City at
Jump'n Java Agility. Our instructor is Kienan Brown who is
McDevitt's former assistant and who resides in Southern California.
I am the organizer (along with Jump'n Java's owner Anne Kajava), and I
would like to comp an audit spot for either you or one of your students
for our Aug 17th Intro to Control Unleashed workshop as I think it's
important information for you and your staff to have.
Please let me know if you're interested. If that day doesn't
work, we will be having them quarterly in the future though the dates
have not been set.
More information on our workshops may be found at: http://frap.org/ControlUnleashed
Thanks very much,
Ellen Clary
Clary Canine Consultants
Noon: took Yoshi on a
walk. No dogs (that he saw) but lots of stroller. I think
noontime is prime time for people to walk their strollers. He's
less jumpy about the squeeze tube dispenser but prefers that I present
it a few inches from his face and he then goes to lick it. If a
dog was approaching I would have him by the collar so I could shove it
in his face if I needed to.
For a little while, I've been using one of the soft braided leashes
instead of one of the leather ones. They're long enough that I
can take the loop and put it over my bicep, then the leash is
nicely out of the way or I can hold it without having to hold gobs and
gobs of it. It also makes a nice fail-safe so I'm not so worried
about dropping the leash by mistake. It is even a poor person's
hands free leash then.
I weighed both dogs. Yoshi the worry-wart, despite the ton of
cream cheese he gets, is the usual 22 pounds but Trek is a startling 25
pounds (sans cream cheese). Now that I take a look at her I can
see that she's carrying about 2 pounds more than I want her to.
So her food is being cut down to 1/3 c per meal (down from 1/2
c). her food is Innova EVO and is pretty highly caloric, so i'm
not surprised that she needs this reduction. She's pretty food
sensitive and doing well on it so i'm not interested in changing to a
less caloric food. I'm running more these days so I could take
her running over at Harbor Bay.
Tue Jul 29
At noon I was a
little concerned about him as he laid down in the yard
and didn't want to move. I wasn't sure if the clomicalm dose was
too high but later in the day he recovered fine - so I'll just have to
keep an eye on him. Might have been: relaxed dog lying in the sun
syndrome something he's not taken much interest in so perhaps this is a
good thing.
Yoshi walk (Trek later) 3 sightings. 4 dogs total.
I'm realizing that even though leashed walks are fraught with SECs the
dogs are under more control than at the dog park so if he's not
surprised then it actually might be easier for him.
In Alameda, there's this wide street called Central Ave. that used to
have a streetcar that went down the middle of it. The streetcars
are gone, but it's a lovely wide tree lines street. (A promenade
of sorts.) When we're walking on it we can see for quite a
distance which really helps me to get time to set up. (We can
still be surprised by a dog on a side street but that wasn't an issue
this time as in all cases I saw the dog ahead of time.) Each time
I saw a dog 1/2 block away we were able to move down a side street the
length of the long side of a house (~120-150'') and I kneeled down and
took his collar in my hand, gave him some cream cheese then stopped
until he say the dog, and depending on his demeanor I either shoved
more cream cheese (like if he's about to react) at him or, if he's sort
of with me, said "Look at That." "Yes!" And then
cheese. Watching a dog grousing while eating cream cheese is
pretty funny (he gurgles). He held it together and didn't have
any meltdowns even though he wanted to.
He was having a moment of being afraid of the squeeze tube as an air
pocket made a funny noise, but he appears to be mostly over it.
Trek's walk went without incident though she's pulling more, and we worked on that some and will do more.
Finally joined APDT. They asked for a business name, so I gave them the one I'd been toying with for a couple of months:
Clary Canine Consultants
Description: Consulting on behavioral and training issues. Positive methods emphasized.
I left "consultants" plural so I would have more flexibility and so
Trek could be on "staff." i like consultants as I'm not presently
interested in having classes, but more occasionally spend time with a
person with a dog who dealing with a difficult behavioral or training
problem. Plus I don't want a second income. (Well I wouldn't mind
one but I don't want to deal with the extra tax paperwork.) So
for now we just work out trades.
Mon Jul 28
Yoshi noon walk, followed 2 dogs around the school. Park of the
time we were across the street and nearly parallel but we fell behind
so we just followed. He was fine until we got too close and
barked and we backed off. But he had been in site of them for
most of the way around the block.
Sun Jul 27
Trek and I popped into the Marin Humane Society's Control Unleashed
workshop. Seemed to be going well and Kienan was happy. Saw
some familiar faces and it's entirely possible that there will be
demand for more Control Unleashed instruction in the future there.
Anne may be able to rehome her Saturday classes to an outside location.
If that happens, then CU Continued could become an all day thing and
Kienan is lobbying for a 2 day workshop as she says you can really see
the dogs' improvement on the second day. My concern with that is
that there are a lot of people who have had the intro and want more
Continued. It seems like maybe we should have a weekend of just
Continued before started a new series.
Then on our way back I took Trek to Point Isabel to play in the water
some. While I love Point Isabel the places to play in the water
aren't very safe so I have to watch her pretty carefully (always going
down to the water with her.) and some while ago the shoreline (the safe
part) became a shorebird refuge so they frown on dogs being there and
given Treks predatory bent towards birds I can't claim that she'd leave
them alone.
Met up with Debbie and her CU GSD Keefer and we had a nice visit.
Keefer's one of those dogs who's great off leash (and was having a fine time there), but terrible on leash
(which is more typical, odd duck Yoshi is the reverse).
There was a "trainer" there who was probably in her late 30's or early
40's who was doing a training session that involved an alpha roll on a
client's frightened PWD. I was seriously incensed about it and especially peeved that
she was (a) being paid for it and (b) using a training method just
about as old as she was. If it wouldn't
have been a horrible breach of etiquette (she was with a client foolish
enough to pay her for her time) I would have suggested she consider
updating her training methods by a couple of decades I stared for a little while in hope that
I could talk to the PWD's owner (who was a younger woman) but there
wasn't an opportunity so we moved on and my revenge is to write about
it here. What I've not sure about how to respond is the trainer has bully breeds
and would likely claim that's the only method that would work.
This would no doubt make CU Trainer Kienan laugh as she has Pitbulls
and a Doberman.
I at least wish I had a card or a flyer to give out either with my own
training contact info (though that would look like poaching) or Oakland Dog Training Club's, or the
info for Control Unleashed. I wish I had taken the trainer's
picture as they were standing on public property so it would be fair
game (may have to obscure her face). I so wanted to make a
comment about it being time to update your 17 year old training methods
(Monks of New Skete published the Alpha Roll in 1991 and not long after
said they regretted publishing it.)
The problem is that those methods do work on a percentage of dogs, so a
trainer will always have a dog they can point to to say it works, and
they get to skip over all the times they've been bitten or had to give
up on a dog. Because more positive-based methods take longer the
more violence/heavy-adversive-based trainers like to point out that
positive methods "don't work" or that we're just bribing them.
Well our methods may take longer, but we have a better relationship with
our dogs.
Took Yoshi on a walk. He
can tolerate a dog at 2+ houses distance esp with peanut butter.
He can not tolerate the distance of one house (more like the distance
of 1/2 a house twice over since the approaching dog was around the
corner particularly when a dog surprises him.) When he's
reacting, I don't reward him as I don't want to get the timing
wrong. Kienan will just squirt something edible in the dog's
mouth just to get them otherwise occupied, but I don't want to risk it.
Sat Jul 26
Training session with Glenda and Ripley. Ripley is a Sheltie that
is afraid of wheeled things like bikes and noisy skateboards, and
children and bouncing balls. He came over so we could work on the
bike since I have a mountain bike that I can ride real slow and I can
put the seat way down so I can easily sit on it with my feet on the
ground.
First I wanted to see if the look of the cyclists was an issue so we
brought Ripley in my house and he did nose touches with the helmet and
would even nose touch the helmet when it was on my head and when I had
sunglasses on. So we went out side and he still would nose touch
the helmet. Then I got the bike (which was outside already) and
walked the bike 30-40' away. When I put a foot on the pedal (bike
stationary) he started stress panting and looking over his shoulder for
an escape route, but I could walk beside the bike and he was ok.
I could even walk the bike fast and he was ok but astride the bike he
would stress. He needed a break so we went inside.
Once inside I realized that we could break things down further (CU and
Counter Conditioning is all about breaking things down into tiny steps
a dog can handle.) Ripley was better inside where there was fewer
things happening. I could put the bike beside the table or a wall
and sit on top of it or even have the seat all the way down so I was
standing on the floor. I still looked like a human but had this
other thing along with me. Then Glenda got the inspiration to try
his herding commands on the bike (she also had him doing nose touches
on it.) Suddenly Ripley had a job. He started circling the
bike. We even took it outside and he was able to circle the bike
even with it moving a little. I couldn't get as far as actually
riding the bike, but he's way further than he was and Glenda is going
to get with her nephew who has a bike.
Fri Jul 25
Trek eye test. The tears level in her eye dropped to 8 from 10
last time. We're going to keep just giving Cyclosporine until her
next appt in 3 weeks. If it drops again then we'll add the
Tacrolimus back in.
Yoshi watching Lori Drouin's Utility class. He did great though
he spent most of the time eating in his crate. I was able to
switch over to a kong at times, but I still had to be there.
There was a (very sweet and steady) puppy there and while he worried
about the puppy, he was able to cope though at times I had to shove the
cream cheese right in his face to keep him from grousing. We did
take breaks from time to time by leaving the building, but inside the
building it's tough to move around (though we did some). Lori's
suggesting out next step might be an expen where I can be in there with
him and maybe doing some basic sit/down work with him as well - the
crate can be in there as well.
His booties came in - they're like clown shoes: too wide and stiff
enough that I don't see him getting used to it. I'll order the
less stiff set and see if I can get them to work and return these.
Vet says now that it's been 4 weeks, we can increase his Clomicalm to a whole pill each meal (20 mg 2x day)
Thu Jul 24
Yoshi and I at Washington Park. He did ok but we seem to have
reached a plateau and I'm not sure how to proceed.
Post to CU_Dogs and CU_Dogs_SF
So for quite some time Yoshi and I have been working on Counter
Conditioning and basically trying to win the war with squeeze cream
cheese. I can manage him pretty well, but when a dog approaches
even
from 100' away, I still have to jump in front of him with cream cheese
at the ready. I'm wondering what our next step is - what do we do
now?
How do we improve? We don't seem to be able to shrink the
distance
that an unknown dog can be around us until they are past
Leslie (and others - like Katheryn) thinks that I may be missing or
skipping a step in Classcal Conditioning and Desensitization. She
suggested I have someone else watch us. Fortunately I have Kienan
coming Aug 16,17 so I'll talk to her then. Katheryn says to
emphasize
taking breaks and I've been noticing his behavior gets better when we
take breaks.
I need to pay even more attention to the order of stimulus (dog
approaching) and results (cream cheese appears)
Tue Jul 22
I ordered Yoshi's booties.
Mon Jul 21
Gear for Dogs says the "Rugged" ones would be the best choice, so once
I measure his paws I'll order them.
Results from the CPE Trial are in.
Jackpot
Regular/Veteran - Jackpot Round 1 - Level 1
Judge: David Garrison Dogs Entered: 12
Opening Time: 8" & 12": 30 Gamble Time: 8" & 12": 17 Total Time: 8" & 12": 47
Armband Call-Name Breed ID # Owner Time Points Q / NQ Place
8161 Trek Welsh Corgi (Pembroke) 03558-03 Ellen Clary 42.22 37 Q 1
Sun Jul 20
Yoshi Herding
I forgot his booties and decided to try it without them.
Poor guy shredded both large pads on his front feet. He'll be ok,
but he's tip toeing around for now. Someone had some bandage wrap
and we tried that with duct tape and he was able to work a little more
doing penning. I had put him on a long line so he couldn't
run. He did well at this but it's a shame to wait till he's
hurting to do low speed, up close work
I'm not sure his booties would have prevented it entirely so I think
it's time to get some very sturdy ones.
Ultra Paws looks good:
Either this one ("Rugged"):
http://www.gearfordogs.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=303R
or this one ("Durable"):
http://www.gearfordogs.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=303D
I'm not sure which one (and they're expensive enough to make me
hesitate ordering both) so I wrote and asked:
Greetings,
During the summer in Calif. the ground is very dry and abrasive and
herding dogs around here have a lot of trouble ripping their pads when
they have to suddenly change direction.
I'd like to get some Ultra Paws for my super fast Corgi who tears his
feet up on a regular basis but I'm not sure which to choose as while it
sounds like he sound have the most rugged boot I still need him to have
a lot of dexterity.
Could you help me choose which would be best?
The we stopped by the Bayteam agility trial so I could pick up a ribbon
from yesterday and do some dog watching (armed with cream
cheese). He did well at this but he asked to go home so we didn't
stay long at all or get very close.
Sat Jul 19
Trek CPE Agility
(Will fill in)
She did ok, but needs to be taken off the AKC fast track, as
she's still occasionally doing ring tours and sometimes stopping to
sniff or find goodies. So she's going to be a CPE dog for a
while. We could also do NADAC but CPE is more fun for us as more
of my friends are there.
There are a whole bunch of CPE trials coming up but Terri and I have
decided to get married at the end of Sept and we're going to have a
small ceremony in the back yard, and the back yard looks exactly like
you'd expect it if two speedy Corgis raced around it on a regular basis
- in other words it's a bit of grass and a huge amount of sand and dirt
with some resilant plants around on the edges. So I really need
to spend the next two months putting the yard back together.
She'll continue training, but I think trialing is going to wait till
October.
Fri Jul 18
Teeter fear
Wed Jul 16
From a CU_Dogs_SF post I made:
Subject: Finding that threshold
Cathy (with Storm a Flat Coat), at the last workshop brought up a good
topic for further discussion that we didn't have time in the workshop to
fully flush out.
The question is: What if you dog doesn't seem to have a threshold? What
if the sight of a dog at any distance makes your dog react?
While Emma Parsons talks about dealing with "zero threshold dogs" (I
should have a reference but I don't have one at hand - check
http://www.clickertraining.com), I find they're pretty rare and that you
have to sometimes go to large lengths (sorry for the pun) to find a
distance a dog is comfortable with. But if you can find it, then that's
a place to start and to build on.
Cathy brought up the example of a distance of across a wide street
(Cathy correct me if I get the details wrong). Given that you are in
the South Bay I know that's pretty wide, but it's my experience that
even that wide is not enough.. With Yoshi, I had to start with very
large parks. Washington Park in Alameda (where we often are) features a
fenced dog park inside a large park. I can get 200-300 feet away from
the dog park fence which is fantastic, though in Yoshi's case I only had
to start at 150'. Once you have found a distance, know that you've done
the hard part and now all it takes is patience and time and a lot of
treats. You will get really good at judging distances that your dog
is comfortable with.
We were able to gradually shrink down the distance to the fence. Our
progress was delayed due to my impatience (shrinking the distance too
fast and causing a reaction). Only recently have we been able to go
back to walking on the sidewalks. I find that an ordinary "walk" is one
of the most challenging things we do and it's only been possible to do
it now with a squeeze tube treat of some sort, some well practiced
scanning for dogs on my part, being good at changing the direction
you're going, planning escape routes, and appearing calm even when
you're stressed. Who knew that just walking the dog would take so much
effort, but it's very rewarding when it works.
Ellen
Went on a walk in the evening
with Yoshi. (Armed with cream cheese). Again, with anything
unusual occurring we would stop and eat. About half way through
our walk I spied a dog standing on his driveway with his owner.
Yoshi hadn't seen him and was just about past when he saw the dog and
startled and barked once, but did not lose his mind. I got the
cream cheese in his face (calmly saying "Let's move along" and he
immediately started licking and didn't pay any further attention to the
dog. The rest of the walk was without dogs though more than once
baby stroller appeared which are fortunately not issues for him (but he
was rewarded for being calm around them anyway.)
Tue Jul 15
|
|
Whipped
Cream Cheese
|
Trek offers
to try it out
|
I have a new secret weapon. Instead of peanut butter, I'm trying
whipped cream cheese, as peanut butter was getting to rich for Yoshi in
the quantities that he eats it. Today is his first day with it
and we'll see how he does.
noon: Yoshi inaugural cream cheese walk, he seems fairly relaxed.
We don't see any dogs but there was plenty of rewardable chaos and more
than one rewardable dog barking from their yard/house. I've
noticed that if you have a dog barking at you, no matter how intensely,
if you stop and reward your dog, the barking dog shuts up. So
much for intruder alarm barking, we're sitting right there having a
treat session and the alarmist dog has shut up.
evening: He did so well at noon I think he's ready to try a cream
cheese dog park walk.
He did fantastic. After 5 CU workshops, I think I'm finally
learning to respect my dog's thresholds, and to incorporate reorienting
into the process.
When we got there a parking spot right at the gate was available.
It was perfect. We sat in the passenger seat and ate cream cheese while
watching dog park TV. The big dogs were only about 25'
away. Every time he tensed and stopped eating, I put the tube in
front of him and he immediately started licking again.
After about 5-10 minutes I decide he's had enough and we start out on a
modified dog park walk. This time instead of starting at the
small dog park side, we start on the large dog park side, and didn't
get trapped in between the street sidewalk (which sometimes has a
leashed dog walking on it) and the fence - the site of his last
meltdown. I have resolved not to push him so we stay 50' away
from the fence and anytime he sees a dog he gets more cheese.
He's certainly more relaxed and scanning/stressing less.
Since we were further away from the fence, he seemed interested in
walking along one of the walk ways instead so we followed the path over
to the beach area and walked along the beach pathway (dog's can't go on
the beach which is a serious bummer). Part of the way down I
notice that there's a leashed dog following us and I pick up the pace
so they don't catch us as we can't move laterally because of a
temporary fence. Yoshi notices the dog but doesn't react,
The fenced area finally stops so we can then turn right to go back to
the park. I get some space between us an the other dog and we
stop to eat cheese and Yoshi is ok even though he knows the other dog
is passing by.
We head back to the park and instead of walking in the narrow section
by the little dog park we just reverse our steps. As we're
walking along, a JRT walks by about 75' away with his people in
tow. We stop to eat cheese while they walk by, and reposition
some as a pit bull in the park has wandered up to the fence (hence
about 50' away). Yoshi keeps eating and doesn't react at all.
Just as we're coming up to the turn for the parking lot, a loud
altercation starts in the park, but it's mostly a human yelling NOOOO!
at another dog who has jumped her toy poodle. I was pretty
rattled myself and had to work hard to not communicate my
distress. Yoshi didn't react at all. (The poodle was
ok.)
This whole experience is bringing it all home to me. Even though
he's very doggy (well not so much now that he has Trek in his life), he
really doesn't give a hoot about being in the dog park and in fact he
finds it very stressful as he feel obligated to police every dog.
He's so much happier now that he's doing real herding and not herding
dogs that don't want to be herded anyway. At first I thought he
wanted to greet every dog but it seems like it's more to size up every
dog and to bully them if he could. Now that he's not obligated to
interact with every dog he may be relaxing around them some. Hard
to tell as he gets heavily rewarded for being calm and there's always
the Clomicalm too.
Of course now as I write this, he's barking at invading boogy men
(boogy people? bogies?), but I can call him off and he'll come to me.
Also took Trek on a neighborhood walk. She's offering heeling and
not dragging me around as much.
Sun Jul 13
Intro to CU
Yoshi was so good last night that we gave him the day off and Trek went
instead.
It was a very successful workshop. I took more time in making
sure everyone got time in the box and that seemed to work well.
Trek got to demonstrate her excellent Whiplash Turn, and some Look At
That which is a game I just taught her.
Afterwards I was inspired to work with Yoshi on his reorienting at
doorways and that along with some whiplash turn practice and give me a
break went great.
Sat Jul 12
CU Continued
It's all a blur, but I remember he did well. I'll write more as
it comes back to me.
It's coming back. Trooper and he did There's a Dog in Your Face
where separated by a ring gate we had the dogs on opposite side and one
moved around and the other was stationary getting rewarded for not
reacting. We were both very happy with the result. They
also did some parallel walking and Yoshi wasn't worried about Trooper
but he was concerned about Ozzie and Rex who were at the end of one of
the paths where he had to turn around and head in the other
direction. Kienan says that I need to increase reinforcement at
that point as that was a criteria change.
Thu Jul 10
Went and picked up "The Corg" license plate today from the DMV.
It's been almost 4 months, but I was just happy to get the plates
finally so I wasn't complaining but the DMV employee I picked it up
from smiled and said: "Took long enough huh?" I asked what the
hold up was. She laughed and said "They [Folsom State Prison]
were on lock down and not making plates." That's great. My
pseudo bad-ass plate was delayed by the real bad-asses. Take your
time boys. I'm not about to rush you. And don't deliver it
either please.
Took Yoshi on a walk. We didn't see any dogs but he seemed a bit
more relaxed - had his mouth open and was listening to me.
However after the sun went down he was reacting a lot to sounds from
outside. One time when he was really spooked, I held his collar
tight and massaged him and repeatedly soothingly told him to
relax. He would start to relax and hear something and react
stronger. I didn't let go of him and he finally chilled out a
little.
Mon Jul 7
The Dog Trainer Demographic
Just for fun I asked You Tube for the demographics on who's watching my
videos. It's classic dog trainer. Well over 90% women and
the majority in the 45-55 age range (an age range I've only just barely
crossed into.) With the predictable smattering of children
looking for video of cute doggies.
The most popular video by far? The World's Shortest Agility Career
That's what I get for the smart ass name.
Sun Jul 6
Yoshi Herding
Well Clomicalm certainly isn't having an adverse effect on his herding
drive. He's still possessed.
Still herding at 110 mph. Though he certainly herds and this time
we didn't have the onesy, twosy herding like we did last time.
He had his booties on his front feet, but actually tore a back pad.
After we did a portion of an AHBA Junior course (which I have on tape
and need to edit), I think took the now hobbling dog into work on some
low speed penning. We successfully did one pen, and then it
occurred to me that we could work in the sheep pen without the
sheep. As expected, without the sheep he was able to stop, sit,
and stay as I waslked on. We di this all the way across the pen
and back. I spoke to Joyce about it, and she said that we need to
find a way to teach him self control around motion. Like have him
stay at my side and I roll a ball or something.
Sat Jul 5
Finished Trek's Fourth of July video - here's the announcement:
Greetings Control Unleashed folks and fans.
I hope you all survived your Fourth of July with your wits, dogs and
house intact.
Here's a short video of Trek relaxing to a fireworks display on TV from
that evening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAPKl13qWLI
Yoshi was actually in the room for a while, but got bored and left.
Let's here it for a semi-peaceful Fourth for us.
Yes that old TV still works though its only job these days is to show a
picture as the stereo does the sound and the VCR does the tuning. The
dogs have requested a high resolution flat screen upgrade and an Animal
Planet subscription. So far their request has been denied. :)
And since it one of Fred Hansen's video's of dealing with an aggressive
Corgi (Mix) matched Trek's video I decided to comment:
Let's see how long it lasts:
While you do get nice results, I
personally prefer more positive reinforcement methods instead of the
adversive of using an electronic collar. It's more fun too.
This dog would have probably had excellent results with Control
Unleashed. http://www.controlunleashed.net
I have no financial affiliation with them.
Took Yoshi on a walk with him on
his Gentle Leader, and me armed with squeeze peanut butter.
He barked at a dog right in the driveway but I wasn't prepared so just
held him by his collar till the dog was passed.
Then halfway through our walk I noticed a GSD coming at us from way
down the block. Perfect. Yoshi hadn't seen the dog yet so
we had plenty of time to cross the relatively wide residential street
and set up. I kneeled down in front of him and took his collar
and started feeding him peanut butter. When the dog got into
hearing and visual range he immediately stiffened and crained his head
to look, but because I had him by the collar I could easily manuever
the peanut butter in front of him and he started to lick it
again. He'd try to react (by now he could see the dog), and
I'd say (a very neutral) "nope" and something like "here ya go" and
mainline the peanut butter. Despite his obvious stress, at no
point did he refuse to eat for more than1/2 a second (such a Corgi),
and at no point did he get a chance to lunge and bark It was
pretty funny. "A DOG!! [peanut butter appears under nose] "A
D-...Oh look peanut butter." Lick Lick Lick. "BUT THERE'S A
D-... Oh look peanut butter. Well if you insist." Lick Lick
Lick (repeat at least 2 more times). Strangely entertaining
I must say.
Fri Jul 4
From a CU_Dogs post of mine:
Solutions for tolerating the 4th.
Now it should be said that
personal fireworks are illegal here which dampens them down a lot
though there is still plenty and the public displays increase.
One thing I can absolutely say I've done right over the years is to
leave the radio on during the day when we're gone. And we're not
talking light jazz or classical, but rock (something with a beat), with
a local radio station that doesn't have screaming DJs (KFOG).
This helped the adjustment of both dogs to city life as they're both
from the relative boonies, and it made them less reactive to booming
sounds - at least recorded versions. In fact, recorded music is
such a part of their lives now that it functions as a Conditioned
Relaxer.
Earlier in the evening I put them both in the living room crates and I
watched reruns of the Amazing Race which has just enough recorded chaos
to cover up the outside booming (the living room speakers also have a
subwoofer which also helps cover booming).
One thing I found really telling is that I had them outside to pee and
they were barking at the fireworks, but when I took them back inside,
Yoshi decided to hang in the back bedroom with KFOG and Trek joined me
out in the living room where I had a fireworks display with booming and
From thmusic on the TV and she actually fell asleep to it. I made
a little video of it though I don't know if it is going to turn out.
Now that things have died down some we've all retreated to the back
area and have KFOG on.
Yoshi is on his Clomicalm, but not a benzo or herbal supplement, and
Trek is on nothing. Phew.
Thu Jul 3
Left a message with Park Centre asking about a dosage increase.
Spoke to Dr. Wydner later. she'd like to see him at this dosage
for 4 weeks (it's only been a week) before considering increasing it
just to give it enough time to come up to full effect. It's
certainly not hurting him and he is a little better on it.
Later I had a conversation with Leslie McDevitt who mentioned that in
the case of Panic, benzos like Xanax do well as the dog can still work
and learn without tipping over into panic or being knocked out.
So I left another message to Park Centre saying I'd like to contemplate
adding benzo at the end of the 4 weeks, if he's still panicking.
Wed Jul 2
Took Yoshi to Washington Park to see if he's different after a week of
Clomicalm. The result was that he is calmer but if a situation
puts him in a panic (we got cornered by a walking dog and I just had to
hand onto him by the collar while he had a melt down) he still very
much is in a panic. So he needs more time on the med and likely
an (expected) dosage increase.
Poor guy - it's so sad to watch him lose it. I just wish
there was a way to let him know that a dog walking by is ok. I've
never anxiety/panic up close in a human or a dog.
The cool thing was that he was able to recover and do another loop
around the outside of the park (and even enjoy it)
I uploaded Yoshi's most recent herding video from June 1st that Diane
was nice enough to tape for me.
Demonstrating possibly the most inefficient herding style possible:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s3xgQuHTKcw
We figure that he'll slow down when he's around 12 or so. :)
Tue Jul 1
Took Yoshi on a noontime walk and then again in the evening. Still
didn't see any dogs but plenty of other things. I was pretty
surprised not to see any dogs in the evening, but figure the
cosmos are giving him a break so I didn't push anything. I'm
thinking tomorrow would be a good time to take him over to Washington
Park. A dog barked at him from behind a fence and he barked
back. Once. Cool.
Also took Trek out. I've been getting sick of her pulling on her
martingale collar so I put her on the Gentle Leader which I'm not sure
she's ever had on before. No pulling and she didn't freak out
about the GL either (she got a lot of cheez-whiz out of the deal which
seemed to help. I do need to find a longer 1/4" lead as the 3'
one I have I nearly step on her and the 1/2" 4' ones seem a little
heavy for a GL.
Mon Jun 30
Took Yoshi on another noontime walk, but didn't see any dogs.
Plenty of other stimuli like baby carriages and other oddities, but
he's not very reactive to those - though I still gave him plenty of
peanut butter for watching them.
Walked Trek later. She's not showing any ill effects from sailing
off the teeter.
Sun Jun 29
It was so smokey in Dixon yesterday that I decided not to put Trek and
I through it again especially since the novice dogs run last during the
heat of the afternoon. I've learned that she now understands
obstacle sequencing and was perfect on her lead outs. The weave
poles where I set her up correctly were fine and I mucked her up on the
other set. And I've finally learned to say "tunnel" once and run
right at it, as opposed to blathering on and her stopping to look at me
wondering what I meant.
Our next trial is Bayteam's CPE and we'll just be doing Saturday of
that one (I don't feel a compelling need to hurry on CPE and then Yoshi
gets a day of herding.)
Sat Jun 28
Trek Agility. Sheltie Trial in Dixon.
She did well in Jumpers With Weaves and ran clean until the very last
jump which was a double and dropped a foot and the last bar. I
probably didn' t help by my saying yes right when I thought she'd
cleared it. Not to mention I don't think she's ever been over an
AKC double.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=e-pSpl6X8Ho
And then we have Air Trek's version of the Standard Course where she
took flight right off the teeter. She's done this once before and
if it continues we'll have to work on it more diligently.
Probably have to add another signal beside the other cue that I use for
the teeter ("plank"), something on the order of "plank, STOP" the stop
said right before the yellow. This would be the Jim Basic teeter
that I've never taught as I never had a dog gonzo enough to bother
teaching it to. (Plus it seems hard on their shoulders).
http://youtube.com/watch?v=n6U0aEcYJiM
It's interesting that at this agility trial I spend a lot of time
talking with people about CU. Interest in it is still very acute,
possibly even more so now that word is spreading.
Fri Jun 27
Duh - the Clomicalm is chewable, so I can just add it to Yoshi's food
no problem. It's still too early to tell, but his fuse seems
longer now and if he reacts to something he seems to recover more
quickly.
One notable thing is that I took him on a walk and though I heard the
tinkling of dog tags but didn't see a dog so we kept walking.
Then he turned and startled and woofed. Knowing that meant "dog,"
I didn't even bother looking around, but immediately got him by the
collar and took a few steps away from the direction he was
looking. He seemed to relax a little and I looked back to see a
JRT standing not 20' away. His owner was right there and told the
dog to go back to the back yard, and that was the end of it. We
moved on and I was left pondering that if that had happened a week or
more ago that Yoshi would have completely lost his mind in panic, so
that's our first real data point. I've been careful about not
pushing him this week at all, and may start back on dog park work next
week.
Wed Jun 25
His blood, fecal, heartworm tests all came back fine. His ALT
(Liver enzyme) is a touch high but they decided it wasn't worth
worrying about especially it's been like that before and he's been
fine. So I picked up the Clomicalm and he started it tonight.
The one thing is that it's a trigliceride and the instructions say that
he's not supposed to have aged cheese. I usually give him his
medicine with cheese so I guess I'm going to have to switch to peanut
butter. I ground up 1/2 a pill in a small bowl and mixed in a
little PB and gave it to him. The bowl I got back was sparkling
clean.
I'm keeping an eye on him for any side effects like nausea or diarrhea,
but so far ok. He's a little subdued (expected), but still very
much alerts to anything outside so I put his shirt on him. The
medication usually takes about a week to come up to full effect and
then at some point we have the option of increasing his dose.
Right now he gets 20mg/day split into two morning night doses.
Trek has a trial this weekend at Dixon and I'd been assuming that Yoshi
was going to have to come along since Terri will be out of town.
Then I realized he was going to be starting this medication and I really
didn't want him that far from his vet. In a bit of a panic I
emailed Mark and Jan and they said they'd be happy to come by and check
on him a couple of times during the days (Phew). I also decided
that I was going to drive back and forth both days so I could spend the
evenings with him.
Tue Jun 24
Dogs and Terri seem to have done well.
Took Yoshi into the vet for a baseline blood test to make sure he's ok
to start Clomicalm.
Mon Jun 23
I'm back, and I was in such a hurry to leave that I missed the
instructions on the Bayteam site that you still had to send in an entry
via postal mail. I've come to my senses and realize that Trek is
not ready to run under Master's rules so I told her to scratch the
entry. For July we'll do the Bayteam CPE trial and this weekend
tek has her first AKC trial.
Tue Jun 17
Leaving for the rest of the week at Mt. Shasta. Terri has the
dogs.
Mon Jun 16
I wasn't going to enter Trek in the Bayteam's USDAA trial as she's not
ready, but it's Local Qualifier for the Performance National
Standard and you need one qualifying score to enter the Regional later
in the year, so it's worth a try even though she's just about
guaranteed to not Q. She's entered on Sat in Performance
Nationals Std, Performance Speed Jumping (that's the performance
version
of Steeplechase), and the Standard class.
Sun Jun 15
Intro to CU
I was worried about Yoshi getting through this workshop since he had
one last night. He was certainly touchier and crankier but still
able to work. And later in the day he was able to demonstrate his
well honed LAT, which really impressed people since they'd seen him
lunge a couple of times
Here's a post of mine discussing it:
Those of you that were in the June 14th Continued will be amused to know
that the walled city that
seemed to work so well for Yoshi (soft crate surrounded by a sheet
covered expen.), was completely outdone in the June 15 Intro by the
mcmansion (I'm joking Lisa - please don't be offended) that Lisa built
for Trigger which included a soft crate, flooring, 2 paneled expens - 1
was too small, a hot tub, and his personal attendant, massage therapist,
and architect Lisa. We all should be as lucky as Trigger.
Trooper also has his own walled city as well complete with room service
(a manners minder with Sarah carrying the remote).
Rachel and Kubby had taken over the Southlands behind the auditors.
The room was resembling a bunch of fiefdoms. Good thing there were no
wars declared despite the occasional saber rattling. I guess good fences
do make good neighbors. :)
The cool thing about having the expen around Yoshi's crate is that I
could pull the front sheet up and let him watch canine reality TV
complete with his personal attendant (me) feeding him an assortment of
yummy refreshments (Red Barn, Natural Balance, peanut butter, cheerios,
bread sticks).
Thank you all for a productive and surprisingly entertaining weekend.
We all have very lucky dogs.
Ellen
Sat Jun 14
CU continued
This is going to be a big weekend for Yoshi. Tonight is the CU
Continued workshop which is the more advanced of the two workshops, and
tomorrow is the all day Intro to CU workshop.
This was certainly tougher work for him. Fortunately the group
was small (6 dogs plus, Kienan's dog Neimesis. First challenge
was that we were doing basic box work. Yoshi was in the box and
Kienan brought Nemmy out. "Grrrrrrrr" says Yoshi and goes
to lunge we turn and walk further away while still saying in the box
and Kienan has her dog stay there. We finally were able to play
Look at That from across the box area (20').
Latr on was the Car crash game which is sort of a clover leaf pattern
that 2 dogs walk in opposite directions.You are guaranteed to run into
each other. We chose to do the game with Abby as even though
Yoshi and abby have never really interacted, they have spent a lot of
time just looking at each other in their crates during our DVD evenings
so it seemed a natural choice. With a lot of body blocking and
space managment it worked very well.
I followed through with the idea of surrounding his crate with a sheet
covered expen and that worked much better than expected
Fri Jun 13
Trek's first full
obedience class with Lori.
In general she seemed to enjoy it, though she thought the heeling was a
bit A.R. She got to demonstrate her retreive with the Air Dog
Dumbell (see photo), and she loved that. Her recall is
fabulous. She's not quite sure what to think of the stand but I
just introduced it to her (Lori went over some detail in training it,
and how to stay while standing by slowly hand feeding them treats that
are placed on the floor in front of them. Sits and Downs went
suprisingly well. She's getting the idea that she has to stay.
[Agility class]
Yoshi setback. And he was
doing so well. He had spent the whole class looking at dogs and
doing ok with the occasional grumble. Class was over and we were
down in the parking area and one of the terriers (he hates terriers)
walked up and I didn't see it until he started to react. I pulled
up on the martingale to close it and started to walk away but right at
that moment he shook his head hard and the collar came off. Once
he realized he was loose, he attacked the terrier (who is old and not
able to defend), and latched on. We finally got them separated
but the poor terrier was bleeding some (probably from us pulling them
apart.. Fortunately Yoshi, not being a terrier, just latches on
but doesn't know how to do anything past that and he doesn't know how
to bite hard (though he's never bitten a person so we don't know this
100% sure.) But it's still really distressing, especially since
he's had all this progress.
Someone who works with mentally ill children, put it plainly.
He's mentally ill - he needs medication. He needs all the
behavior training, but he really needs phamacutical help for his
miswired brain. I explained that he had been on Prozac but he was a
real jerk on it. She mentioned how Clomicalm really helped one of
her dogs. I've heard of Clomicalm before, but in terms of
separation anxiety. Obviously it's worth a try. I've left a
message with his vets (talking about his anxiety) to see if I can talk
them into it.
Poor Trek missed a run because I couldn't concetrate and I instead
wrote this. She did forgive me and did ok though distracted by
the compost in the mulch.
In the mean time, Yoshi gets to wear his gentle leader again. The
timing of this is all ironic as he has a CU workshop tomorrow and on
Sunday.
Wed Jun 11
Someone had noticed that the old Dominance Quiz was on the bcrescue web
site:
http://www.bcrescue.org/dominancetest.html
She was noticing that her CU dog failed all of the criteria and how
ironic that was since some person on a different list is totally
claiming her dog is dominant.
I responded:
Did you notice the 1997 publication date? ;)
(Actually I think it's much older and dates back to Monks of New Skete
I'm surprised that bcrescue puts it on their site.
Some of the questions are just common sense leadership ones.
Other
ones like Who eats first? are a load of hooey. Pat Miller had a
grand
time skewering this one in the Tuft's University Your Dog publication
(I don't have a reference at hand.)
But who can resist? [I added my own answers]
1) Does your pet get out of your way when
you walk?
Usually as they don't like being crunched, but tripping me is an
effective attention getter.
[Serious note: If you train in formal obedience you don't want your dog
to move till you tell them to.]
2) Who has the best seat in the house?
They do - in my lap. They jump in my lap on cue.
3) Who walks through the door first?
[This is one of those patently absurd ones.]
Usually them, but only because I've released them from the doorway stay
while behind them.
4) Who eats first?
They eat when I feed them, and they know that.
5) Is your dog obedience trained?
[They have some good advice finally.]
6) Who owns the food/toys/treats?
Trek's crate is a vertible dragon's lair, but we just clean it out
every so often.
7) Who walks whom?
[quote]
>Again, alpha dogs lead the way and if your dog is pulling you
down the
street in a waterskiing fashion, he thinks he's the leader and can go
where he wants.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
A true alpha dog doesn't need to prove herself with such silly
demonstrations.
But loose leash walking is a very useful thing.
8) Can you groom your pet?
[good advice]
9) Who wins staring contests?
[quote]
Direct eye contact in dog language is a threatening gesture. Your
dog
should not want to look directly at your eyes if you lock your eyes on
his. Submissive dogs turn their heads away.
Well sort of. Direct eye contact is a threatening gesture, but
you
would be far better off becoming well versed in calming signals and
controlling resources than engaging in adolescent staring
contests.
Staring back just invites more aggression - is that what you want?
10) Does your pet growl or snap at you?
This could be caused by so many things, and requires someone very
experienced in dog language and behavior to diagnose.
Like Trish says - painting things just terms of dominance, diminishes
the complexity of the dog-human relationship.
The point is: Be a real leader, not some insecure despot.
Ellen
Sun Jun 8
Yoshi Herding.
We're improving bit by bit. He wore his booties again for the
first run and that made all the difference though one of his pads is a
touch abraided, but ok. What we're doing now is not worrying
about the course but just moving sheep around in a semi-orderly
way. He's still way too fast but is more responsive to me.
It's also helping that I rewatched video of Debbie Pollard handling him
and saw how she would get from one side of the sheep to the other by
letting the sheep pass her first. That worked a lot better rather
than trying to go through them.
I'm also using "Go by" and "Away" but I have to think about it every
time so I'm not very fast and if I need him to turn the other
direction, I tap (wack) the herding wand/stick on the ground and say
"Switch" and that works pretty well.
After doing one high speed herding session I stopped him and then put
him on leash and with him panting hard worked on "Walk up" and "Steady"
(steady pace). Funny how it's easier with him dog tired.
Spent some time having him stay and then opening the gate and then
closing it (sheep are a ways away at this point.) After doing
some good work I released him to the sheep and he brought them back
running into the pen. I need to explain to him that that's really
dangerous and could get a sheep killed or hurt as they're not bright
enough to slow down when being herded by a dog going too fast.
Fortunately all was ok, but after that I decided to do 2 more sessions
in the round pen.
The round pen sessions worked very well. Since there's no where
for the sheep to go I can get him to stop much more easily and we can
work on directionals, and the all important "Steady"
He made good progress today. Too bad he gets a 3 week break since
we have a CU workshop, I'm then at Shasta, and after that Trek has an
agility trial at Dixon. After that we're hoping to have a
frapfest up at Joyce's (July 6th).
Tony was very complimentary to Yoshi about his temperment
improvement. He remembers that I had to cover his eyes at the
Corgi Nationals, and now he will tolerate herding dogs walking by him
as long as they're not unknown and directly approaching. He
thinks that Yoshi will eventually learn to slow down. His dog
Cash who is 7 years old is finally getting it and looking very
smooth. I told him all about Control Unleashed and that we've
only been doing it a few months.
Fri Jun 6
Got my dates wrong. Lori is coming next Friday.
As a result, I took Trek to work for the morning and she had a grand
time charging down the halls and saying hi to people.
Yoshi did some really great work at the dog park. We walked
around the outside once and stopped and watched some Basenjis approach
- even said hi to them briefly. My timing and insticts have
improved so that as soon as I feel him tightening up with automatically
increase the distance between him and the other dogs.
After we did one circuit, I took him into the small dog park on
leash. Just getting in to the park was a challenge as there was a
Scotty guarding the gate and the owner wasn't doing anything to stop
it. So just stood there and played LAT on the Scotty, which gave
both dogs time to settle. Yoshi wasn't reacting to the Scotty at
all which means that he was reading the Scotty better than I was an
maybe there is nothing to worry about. So we walked in and there
was no incident at all. We then walked to one end of the park and
watched dogs from there, walking around in sort of circles. Then
we were able to walk to the other more challenging part that is near
the big dog entry. He was doing fine until a German Sheperd
Wookie appeared at the fence and he lost it. We walked pretty far
away and he settled down (a little) and I could hear one parent very
evenly telling her kid that that's why some dogs are on leash
here. He also got more "Awwww" attention as a couple of intrigued
people (trainers I suspect) came up to say hi to him once I told them
that his issue was dogs approaching and not people. (He's lucky
he's cute.) He relaxed and eventually I carried him out rather
than make him negociate his way out on his own.
Good thing he likes being carried as I can get him a lot closer to
other dogs at the gate that way. Maybe I'll keep doing this walk
outside the park and then go in the small dog park on leash routine
going for a bit. I have taken him in the large dog park on leash
as well, but some rude large dogs are fasinated with him and charge
right up to him which flips him out and justifies his paranoia so we'll
probably stick with the small dog park for now.
Thu Jun 5
At noon did some retrieving with Trek. I can say "Get It"
optionally "Bring It," "Take," "Pick that up" and a host of other
things like "Would you get over here please?" "Hello? This
way?" She scares me when she essentially answers "Oh sorry, how
about this?" After Yoshi, she's just too easy. And I'm
finally relenting to reality, now that Yoshi is really starting to take
to herding.
I wrote to Lori (she's coming down here to hold classes on Friday).:
You're probably on the road but maybe
you'll check email tonight (if not, it's not a huge issue).
The time has been coming for a long time and I need to just admit
it. Superstar Trek is dying to work just about anything (save for
sheep - though she will do that too allbeit reluctantly.) And
I've haphazardly started teaching her some formal obedience
skills. As you might guess with very little effort on my part,
she has learned all of Yoshi's skills and more in a very short time and
is demanding more. She would love your classes and Special Ed CU
Yoshi finds them a slight personal hell. What I need to do is
both dogs separately, but Yoshi is too high maintenance for that to do
him any good yet (and it could undo quite a bit.)
So I don't know what dog to bring though as I write this I think what
I'm going to do this month is bring Trek, and do more outside the dog
park work with Yoshi. So you'll be seeing Trek on Friday in
either the Novice or the Open class depending on how crowded Novice
is. (She wants to show off her Air Dog toy as dumbbell
retrieving.)
Ellen
and an excited Trek and a much relieved Yoshi (who's going herding
Sunday anyway)
Tue Jun 3
On a walk I worked with him on "steady" which seems to have more of an
impact than "walk." Only saw dogs from a distance but still did a
fair bit of CU work (mostly reorienting).
Took a short video of Trek working on "take." Trek is scary smart
so I can do all sorts of wrong training. I can use the cue word
right from the start, and talk in complete sentences and she figures it
out.
Mon Jun 2
Air Dog serves a multi purpose.
Both dogs love the Air Dog toy and it works great as a dumbell
substitute. But today its usefulness went beyond what I was
expecting. I've been trying to get Yoshi to "take" something and
hold it in his mouth with no success. I'd finally concluded that
we didn't need the skill since it doesn't exist in obedience. But
it still bugged me that I couldn't just hand him something. He
will take the Air Dog toy. Mostly because he wants to take it
into the yard and dig a hole for it.
His compulsion to do this must be very high as I gave it to him and he
immediately started very industriously to dig a hole. His
concentration on the task was so complete that for the first time ever
Trek and I were able to play fetch with a ball and he didn't have a
barking, chasing frenzy like he usually does when another dog is
playing
fetch. This could come in very handy at times.
Sun Jun1
Yoshi Herding. Slow down young man! (the continuing theme).
Diane was nice enough to come video tape us (I'll edit that and put it
on You Tube. We did about 2/3 of an AHBA course and while we did
ok, I really do need to find a way to get him to walk with sheep even
if it means making him completely exhausted. Now that I know we
can do the course (save for the penning) I think we're going to go out
next time with no course set up and just wander around with the sheep
and work on "go by" [clockwise], "away" [counter clockiwise] and
"steady" [walk, don't run, dammit]
Diane and Bill had their Cardi's Petal and Spark herding instinct
tested and both passed with flying colors. They may have finally
found something Petal gives a hoot about.
Archive - Go to:
2008
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - May 2008
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Apr 2008
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Mar 2008
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Feb 2008
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Jan 2008
2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Dec 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Nov 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Oct 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Sep 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Aug 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Jul 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Jun 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - May 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Apr 2007
Yoshi
and Trek Training Diary - Mar 2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary
- Feb 2007
Yoshi and Trek Training Diary
- Jan 2007
2006
Yoshi Training Diary - Dec 2006
Yoshi Training Diary - Nov
2006
Yoshi Training Diary - Oct 2006
Yoshi Training Diary - Sep 2006
Yoshi Training Diary -
Aug 2006
Yoshi Training Diary - July
2006
Yoshi Training Diary - June
2006
Yoshi Training Diary - May
2006
Yoshi Training Diary - Apr
2006
Yoshi Training Diary - Mar
2006
Yoshi Training Diary - Feb
2006
Yoshi Training Diary - Jan
2006
2005
Yoshi
Training Diary - Dec 2005
Yoshi
Training Diary - Nov 2005
Yoshi
Training Diary - Oct 2005
Yoshi Training Diary - Sept
2005
Yoshi Training Diary - Aug
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
Yoshi Main Page
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