July 12, 2013

A brief obedience lesson today.  My goal with Morgan this summer, believe it or not, is to have her come when called and to improve our relationship.  I know, an ongoing song. She will be 9 years old in October and I'm still trying to find out what her 'calling' is.  Right now I have no real ambitions for her any more. I would like to do agility with her but because I have the boys now, I'm not that intent on grooming her for any competition.  I think I might go for things that require no real training like lure coursing or something like nosework or tracking which she gets to tell me where to go.

Anyway, to day we did a few recallers' exercises-- push back and jam and cookies in the corner, hand touches and it's your choice.  I finished with a little pedestal work because it is good exercise and since I am training her on contact obstacles this summer, a little rear end work is always a good thing.

Bad Blogger Returns

It has been almost six months since I touched this blog.  What has happened?  Well, Morgan finished her Advanced Rally title in March at the Poodle Club specialty show. She was entered in the GCOC agility trial just to see what she could do which wasn't much but she did stay with me and did a few jumps. My purpose was to see how she reacted in that environment and do just a few obstacles. Howeever, at the match that night she was AWFUL.  She ran away and didn't don one jump. We had a few private lessons since then and she is getting better.  However, she continues to run off which makes me crazy.  This past weekend, at the Poodle Club agility trial we went in the agility ring on Friday, she took one jump and left the ring.  People told me that she heard Caroline talking and went to find her.  ARRRRGGGG!  On Sunday, I held onto her collar and let her go at the opening of the tunnel and she stayed with me, then ran off a bit but came back and finished up most of rest of the course except the last jump.  I was actually pleased with her. She came back and she stayed with me the rest of the run.

We have GOT to work on this running away shit. It is too embarrassing and I have to find a way to fix it.  Am I putting too much pressure on her?  I don't know but I am truly tired of it.  You know she left the ring in freestyle in January. I guess I'm just not fun in the ring. :(

Not much to post this week because I just didn't get out. It rained most days and I had interviews today but it was cold and rainy today.   I have really good intentions to train but most days I am just so busy or so overwhelmed that I just don't get around to it. Morgan's attitude, of course, doesn't help much.  I'm sure if we get out to train tomorrow she will be great.

Oh yeah, I am so bummed that I either forgot to put a stamp on my entry for Charlotte or it came off but I got my entry back in the mail 2 hours after the closing. Boo Hiss. I guess that means our debut will be at GCOC. Great. I am going to try to do a whole course with Morgan but will only do part of the course with Pen.

Although I did not train Morgan much at all this week, we did do a little agiltiy training on Friday. Morgan amazed me. She did the weave poles and did the weave poles and did the weave poles. She acted like they were the best thing she ever learned.  She is beginning to single step the weave poles. I think what is next for her is to move her to the second set of six poles but we will see if we get that same enthusiasm as we had on Friday.

She also handled a very small sequence beautifully, although neither Morgan nor Pen took the front cross I tried.  It shows me that they need more experience with the front cross before I move on.  My thinking is that I need more work on rear crosses but Sue Garret says not to do it until we have a dog who will drive through a jump.  Before they will drive through the jump, they have to get the foundation stuff first.  I always want to skip kindergarten but I know that it will just kick me in the but later on, making it so much harder, if I do.

I am cautiously optimistic about the March trial.

Beginning Again in 2013

Well, it is 2013 and I am once again attempting to blog about my training. I am a little motivated becaues I showed Morgan in Freestyle (at least I tried to) and obedience two weekends ago with various levels of failure.  :(  In freestyle, Morgan KNEW her routine. She did it very well and seemed to be enjoying it half the time.  On the day of the show, she ran out of the ring twice and still did not perform the dance while on lead.  I was so mad at her but also a little apprehensive because I planned to show her off lead at the obedience trial the next day. It turned out that she did not leave the ring, nor did she dive for the toys or cookies in the Figure 8. However, she looked like I beat her every day and twice on Sunday.  She never looked at me and she wandered off so far on her off lead heel, I thought sure she was going to leave the ring. All this in spite of getting multiple commands and much praise.

Today I gave a workshop for fellow obedience instructors on attention.  We did a lot of proofing exercises and I think that the dogs learned a lot from it. I KNOW that Morgan learned a lot from it and she was very confident in what she had to do. I HAVE to do more of that with her. I'm still convinced that her lack of performance is a lack of confidence even though she does know th eexercises.

My goal for Morgan again this year is to work on our relationship.  I need to be more vigilent about not giving her opportunities to do wrong and I giving her more opportunities to do well. Just a few minutes ago, she came to me with a toy she wanted me to toss for her.  I took the toy stood up and asked her to heel.  I decided to toss the toy after she heeled in position for the length of the hallway and kitchen.  When she did, I tossed the toy and she didn't go for it. I realized that I did not say her release word when I tossed the toy.  I praised her madly for not gettint the toy and then I released her and tossed the toy again.  We worked on her not anticipating today and she was good and was waiting on her release word.

She often has moments of brilliance. I once though she was an every other day dog to train. I'm beginning to think she is an every 3 days dog to train. ;)  She did well today but that may also be in part because I left the boys at home.

More about Morgan's training. I think I'm going to try to post once a week since I obviously suck at posting every day.

I posted this on obedience poodle list to get feedback and thought it would be good to put it in Morgan's blog as well.

The first is of me training Morgan in the 12-step heeling method.

http://youtu.be/PbvA00ldwUk

We are at step 15. What you do is heel starting

with one step, dog touches your palm with her nose, and then do two steps,three steps and so on to 12 steps. Then you start over with one step for the next set of 12. We have completed the first 12 steps and we are on to the next set of 12. I see a lot of mistakes in this video. First, I didn't once reward her at step 12, next, I turned back and looked at her when she lagged instead of stopping and starting over. I know there were other problems but those were the ones that stood out to me the most.

The next video is of Morgan and the dumbbell.

http://youtu.be/7YaTByubsBw

We have been having so much trouble with her kicking the dumbbell and chasing it that I have tried to throw it into a corner. That has helped with the kicking but it has also slowed her down. Mistakes I made here are so many that I don't even want to start listing them. The ones that I hate that I did were the ones where I lost focus on my goal. I wanted to concentrate on a clean pick up. Instead, I got annoyed that she was going so slowly and tried to speed her up. I even threw a play toss -oh so WRONG.

How the heck am I going to teach her not to kick the dumbbell when I reinforce it by throwing a play toss. Not only that, you will see that I even gave her a treat after she kicked the dumbbell. ARRRGGGG!

Morgan's weaves were AWESOME today and she was definitely having fun. I think tomorrow I'm going to have to bring out the jumps and tunnels so that she can have a blast. 

I also asked one of my training buddies to help me with distracting Morgan .  Again, she did AWESOME.  My friend even touched her on her set-up and she stopped looking away after 3 tries :)  There may be hope for this girl yet :)