Plodding along

I cannot believe that I didn't post at all in the last nine days. I actually did train but obviously am really bad at keeping track of it. It has been horrendously hot so we haven't made much progress on the agility end of things but we have been plodding along in obedience. The heeling is getting much, much better. Today we started change of pace. I started with the fast this morning because that is easiest for her as a conformation dog. I was able to improve her right turns because my training buddy pointed out that my slew foot gait was getting in her way. When I turned my left foot in, she was excellent at the right turn. On the left, she is bumping me a little so we have to work on that. That was about it for our obedience training this morning. I did get her to do a few freestyle moves which she does remember. I will be doing a heel to music routine with her in the November show and wanted to add some stuff to our routine.
I have been bad, bad, bad about the dumbbell but we WILL get it. The same is to be said of the Control Unleashed stuff. I hope to attend some seminars this summer but it looks like Morgan may be coming in season soon so we may need to forgo one of them. I'm holding off on my registration until Thursday to see what is cooking, if anything.

I went back to the cookie in my hand and Morgan did great. She is really getting better at the turns but both can use a lot more work. I am committed to completing the perch training we started MONTHS ago and that will help with bumping on the left turn and may work well for the right turn and about turn as well. We also are going to only work against a wall to help with the crabbing. I was told to fade the lure quickly and shorten the duration of the heeling. That I can do in the house. The training building is getting increasingly hot and once the humidity gets really going, it probably won't be possible to work in there at all. That means starting earlier and setting up a ring outside. I don't look forward to it :)

As far as agility is concerned, I have worked the A-frame grid a little but it is hard with a yapping dog in the next yard breaking Morgan's concentration. Amazingly, when I had food, that almost never happened :)

I have been intermittently working on the controlled unleashed stuff. I just need to get more organized about what I am doing in training. I feel so scattered. I KNOW intermittent doesn't work. I need to do it every day for it to stick. I used my shoulder as an excuse not to do much before, now I'm using the heat :)

One more day and Morgan isn't in season and I'm supposed to be siezing these precious moments to prepare her for her competition career. I REALLY need to get on the ball or I won't have a dog to show next year as well.

June 17

I didn't submit this to my blog but I copied it from the entry on Obedience Poodle list.

I just want to kick myself when I do something dumb in my training and have to back up and fix it. Here's the story. I have been training heeling with Morgan and would keep my treats in this little apron thingy that I won at a trial with cute poodles on it. I taught her to focus on my left hand by putting the hot dog in my fist and luring her with it. It worked great. She was heeling straight and happy. Gradually I faded the cookie so that she could not see it but it was there and when she was especially good, I'd reward her with it.

Here is the bad part, ya'll. I decided to go with nothing in my hand and I discarded the apron (a good thing?) BUT I put the cookie in my mouth where it is when I do most of my teaching in obedience. (You know what's coming.) We have been working on left, right and about turns for the past few days and I noticed that when I exaggerated my cue for the right turn (turn my head and shoulder looking down and to the right), Morgan would lose all focus and get out of position. It happened several times and I couldn't understand what was going on. I finally went to the mirror to see what was going on and I found out two things 1) she was crabbing and I hadn't noticed and 2) when I looked in the mirror she lost focus and moved out of position.
Damn it, SHE WAS LOOKING AT MY FACE as her new focal point. When I turned my face away from her, she lost her focal point and didn't know what to do. I had been stupidly taking the food out of my mouth to reward her-no wonder she was looking there.

Now, I have to go back and re-train the focal point AND get rid of the crabbing. What was I thinking?!!! I wasn't, obviously. I do NOT want another crabbing dog (Merlin crabbed because he is so little and wanted to look in my face) so I have to get her focal point back to my hand where she was in a good position. I'm hoping that it won't take long to re-train because we haven't been doing the 'no cookie' in hand routine long-two weeks tops. I probably have to go back to the beginning with the focal point and name it. What do you think?

There was one good thing. I found that after all that practice, if I just moved my eyes and shoulders, she finally got the right turn w/o lagging. She kinda reminds me of myself in 5th grade when the teacher was trying to get us to do long division and wanted us to show all the steps. I would invariably skip a bunch of steps because I didn't need them. My teacher was outraged that I had done that and couldn't conceive of how I got the answers without going through the steps. And she was teaching a gifted class???!!!
Anyway, I'm thinking Morgan in some cases may not need all the tiny little steps but we will take them and speed through them if she seems to 'get it'
more quickly. OTOH, she needs teensy, eensy, weensy steps in retrieving-I'll ask ya'll about that next.

Steamy Monday

Took the pups to the training building this morning. Peggy had opened it up and had started a couple of fans but it was already 83 degrees when we got there. I had a physical therapy appointment so I knew our training time would be short so I opted for working in the building.

Morgan's heeling is coming along. Today, I started out with a lure and quickly faded to a treat on the turns only. She is doing great on the left turns. The first time, I she bumped into me. I have exaggerated my cues to let her know that I am about to turn. I think she was catching on. We'll keep working on it. Her right turns are 3/4 of the time correct. She has been lagging but I have encouraged her, thrown a cookie (bad idea, she just keeps looking on the floor for a cookie), and finally went to only treating her when she was where I wanted her to be (DUH!--Clicker training). That worked like a charm.

I have to give a name to the right side heeling. I have a name I use with Merlin ---'heel' (left side is 'strut') I use Place instead of close but those words may sound too much alike. Maybe I should use 'Right'

A side note -- I CANNOT train Merlin to sit in heel position on my right side. I think it has to do with his vision in his left eye. he will heel on the right side --about a foot away. I'm only training for freestyle so it does not matter how far away he is. I'll work it into the routine.

Morgan's recall is getting to be very reliable. Today, she didn't even try to break her stay. He recall was not as fast as I would like (but. hey, it was 85 degrees by then). When it gets cooler, we'll work on speed.

I've been avoiding the dumbbell but I need to get to it. I can train the dumbbell in the house under air conditioning. I'm just so bad--been procrastinating on a million things I don't want to do.

Obedience Training

Today went well with Morgan's obedience training. We got there about a half hour AFTER I had planned to go. As I have written before, I decided that she doesn't go outside off lead any more and it really puts a kink in my schedule. I had to get up, take her outside, let her go potty, scoop the poop, go back in and let Merlin out to do his business. When they are out together, she is too wild so I'm doing it one at a time for a while. Then I showered and got ready to leave.

I had 1.5 hot dogs for treats for both dogs today and I decided not to get any more. When I ran out I ran out. I just had to see how far I could stretch it.

Morgan and I did a warm up with a tug and palm touches. She also did a couple of weaves and then we went straight into heeling. She is fabulous in a circle so today we tried a straight line and turns again. She was much better with the left turns. She did bump me a couple of times and that is something I will need to work on but I was pleased with her left turns. Today, the only time she got a treat was on the turns. She didn't lag as much on the right turns and quickly got used to me not making eye contact to make the turn. I'm hoping as I fade out the big move (turning my whole head) that she will continue to respond well.

We worked on recalls again-- this time we didn't have distractions. She did the first recall just fine. The second time she anticipated the command. Ooops. I put her back and said we'd try that again. That time she waited until I called. Did I mention that her fronts were to die for? She is doing VERY well with formal recalls. Now if I could just get that in agility :)

We did some heeling on the right but not a lot. We worked on some CU stuff. I am trying to get her to orient toward me when she comes out of the crate. She has got it in her mind that she has to do a front. Fine. I just have to remember to get her to do straight fronts every time so we don't lose that gorgeous precision. We also had to do a little leash disconnecting work. She usually does not get overly happy when the leash comes off but she does tend to wander away after a minute or two. Therefore, I have tried to get her to give me eye contact when the leash comes off and release her or give her a command. I need to read back in the CU book about what I should be doing when the taking off the leash. I know it is not supposed to be a big party.

Last night we did some 'leave it' work. The CU 'leave it' is different from what we learned in puppy class but I like it so we will build up to doing what was recommended there. We'll work on it more tonight.

I don't know what is holding me up with the retrieve training. I'm suffering from major procrastination. That usually means that I'm avoiding something that is going to be hard. It is probably more about her soft mouth and not knowing how to fix it than it is about not knowing how to teach the hold. I know that she will do it; she is such a natural retriever. It's one more thing I have to force myself to do -- and soon.

Well, we didn't do agility because it was hot and I was lazy. I know I don't have to be completely well before we do agility but I guess I'm using that as an excuse not to work as well.

I am so impatient. I wish she were already trained so that all I have to do is show her. There is so much work that goes into getting them ready to show YKKK!

That's all for now.

June 10

It has been hot and getting hotter. We had a great time at the WC/WCX but it has taken time for me to get back in the groove. I've been taking long naps--a true sign of avoidance behavior :) Anyway, last night I set up the A-frame grid--finally. I will set up some jumps and weave poles as well and actually start doing what I planned on doing for a month now.

I have actually started work on the control unleashed. Gave both dogs a massage last night (or what goes for a massage in my book). Neither one relaxed enough to close their eyes but I stroked them for about 20 minutes each and they were very relaxed. I think when I do this every day, they will get used to it and start to relax enough to close their eyes.

At the hunt test, I learned how reactive she is to other dogs. I learned more about her today that convinces me that she gets aroused when other dogs are out having fun. She seems to be okay if other dogs are present but when they are happy and the adrenaline is pumping, she loses it. Today, I taught my Novice ring ready class and had Morgan do an off lead recall with the other dogs heeling in the same ring with her. She never took her eyes off me, she did not break her stay and she did a perfect front. Whose dog was that?!! She was awesome! I saw in her eyes, she understood that this was a set-up.

We also did some dumbbell work. We have long way to go with 'hold.' She still does not get the concept and I'm not sure what I need to do to teach it to her. She was doing great, we took a week off and it is as if we never did this before. She will walk around holding it loosely in her mouth, will even trot like that. But she will not bite down. I am going to tie a string around it to see if that will help We'll keep plodding along but I cannot move ahead in the retrieve training until she understands 'hold.'

Her heeling is very good. Today, I got a little lagging when I introduced the right turn. What I did was take my eyes off her and glance to the right. As soon as I wasn't watching, she lagged. Her focal point is my hand but I'm sure she sees my face in her peripheral vision. It took a couple of tries but I was able to get her into position by verbal encouragement and as soon as she was in position while we turned, I clicked and treated. We did that a couple of more times and quit (as you know Ms. Morgan doesn't do high reps). I think she was getting it.

I put her on the pedestal to help her move her rear end to prepare for the left turn. She loves this game but we didn't play long. We only got halfway around before she started getting sloppy so we quit and went back to it later and that time I only asked for a quarter of the way around and we were successful.

In all, not a bad day. Hopefully, it won't be too hot this evening and I will get in a few reps on agility. I probably should do it before we go for our walk. Something tells me she won't be any good AFTER the walk.

June 7

Over the weekend, we were at the WC/WCX test where Morgan went into water up to her elbows but wouldn't swim, even for a duck. We went to the building to train today for just a little while. We worked on heeling in a circle and stopping. We did figure 8's (big ones) and 270 degrees. We even did some tiny Rally style 270s and 360s. We worked on her stay for the recall. We worked on a fast recall. We also worked on the drop. Not bad for 15 minutes. I left my training bag in Caroline's motor home so we couldn't do anything with the dumbbell. I think I have some larger articles I can work with here at home.

Tomorrow, I start to fade the treats in heeling while I work on turns. The plan is to stop luring and give her a cookie at every sit and every turn. My physical therapy is progressing so that I am working on raising my are on my own. Maybe I will be able to actually do some things in agility and obedience by next week.

June 2 training

Well, I put Morgan's June schedule together yesterday and we worked on it today. She did some beautiful heeling in a circle and we did a 270 degree turn. She tried to sit in some places and I realize that I had been sitting her in the same place each time. I guess I need to vary that :) Had some good work chasing after the dumbbell but she had gotten a really soft mouth with it. I'm going to put a string on it and see if that works to get her to hold it better. Had her do some standing on her hind legs (works for free style and agility).

If it doesn't thunderstorm tonight, I'll set up some agility jumps and get her to play a bit.

Best Laid Plans

Well all my training plans were put on H O L D for the month of May. I had my shoulder surgery on April 30 and I had no idea how debilitating it would be. I also taught a class every night during May and that coupled with being totally preoccupied with my shoulder and my sling (not to mention the GCOC Obedience trial)there was nothing left for Ms. Morgan.

However, I have tried to rectify these past transgressions already. I am out of the sling as of yesterday and that really helps but I still do not have full function (in any way shape or form) of both arms. Last weekend we started her on her swimming lessons and we went again yesterday to work on that. She is less afraid of the water which is great but still will only go in up to her shoulders.

Today, we did obedience for the first time. I spent 15 minutes and we did a little heeling in a circle, some recall exercises and sit and down stay. The recall continues to be an issue with anticipation. I think she has settled the difference between the sit exercise and recall but she just won't stay until I call her and if she does, she is soooo slow. So we have to work on that.

I will set up some jumps and the A-frame grid tonight and hope to practice agility a little tomorrow morning. If it is cool enough tonight, we'll do a little tonight. Anyway, I intend to back up my plan by one month and get started on my plans right now. I have 11 weeks to work on stuff this summer and I intend to get the most out of it.