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 :)

Morgan did 15 steps 12 plus 3 more with enthusiasm and in proper position today. YAY!

Morgan and I have been working on agility, obedience and freestyle. While we have no ambitions for showing in obedience any time soon, my  hope is to have her start showing in agility this fall and we will have a freestyle performance in  October.  One thing I have discovered about Morgan (can you believe I'm still learning about how to teach this dog?) is that she get adrenaline pumping and she cannot think. I still do not think she pays attention to words but I need to work on that--word discrimination. I like that 20 times a day for 20 day tip that Chris J taught us in a workshop. 

So far Morgan is doing 6 straight up weave poles some of the time.  I see that I need to start working sequences with her again since we were lousy with it on Wednesday and I need to still work on the jumping work including strength training.

My biggest problem with Morgan is that she doesn't see the point of most things and she doesn't understand why there are rules when she does have fun.  What to do, what to do

I continue to disappoint myself when it comes to Morgan. Invariably I end up irritated at her and then I yell and then I catch myself and quit. This is not how I start a new relationship with my dog.  How is she going to want to be with me or think all good things come from me if I get so mad I want to shake her.  I keep trying to tell myself that I need to treat her like Gally and Pen.  No expectations but dammit every time I start training her I can't help but think YOU KNOW THIS!!!! Obviously she doesn't because she isn't doing it. I really think she is confused about what she is supposed to do. We've been working on heel position, fronts and finishes.  She now realizes when she forges that she needs to be back in heel position -- that is a HUGE step. It used to be if she forged, she would just walk around me or sit in front of me.  However, she is still forging, forging, forging.  If I think back to basics, I need to reward her (maybe bring out the old clicker) for being in the right spot.  Something about Morgan is weird. She doesn't pay attention to words. No matter what word I use, she tries to offer me different behaviors. For example, I have been teaching her FRONT for years, yet sometimes she still wants to go to heel when I say FRONT.  It may be because I call the left finish FLIP.  I could call it something else. I'll think about it. Maybe heel!  I don't use HEEL.

On the weave poles, she is doing great with the 2x2s and I have shortened our practice so she is successful and I don't get mad. We had an EXCELLENT session on Tuesday.  I didn't get to the building today but we are going first thing in the morning.

Day 2 - Spring Training

Last night Morgan did quite well is her dinner bowl training. I'm getting really fast sits and she is looking up at me as well.  The minute she hesitated in looking up at me in heel position. The food went away. She looked up at me again and I gave her the food.  When she refused to look up at me just before entering her crate, the food went away again and she was so worried about having to go back into the crate that she didn't even notice that I put the food away.  Okay so I let her win that game. I put her in the crate and we didn't play any more. I wonder what she will choose tonight.

This afternoon, we did some weave pole training.  She has gotten very good around the arc with four poles. Sometimes, she is missing her entry and I am rewarding her after the first two poles. That seemed to work both on the on-side and off-sides of the poles.  Tomorrow. I will start by rewarding her after the first two poles, then do all four poles and then tighten up the angle.  We had gotten to the point where we were doing almost straight up and down poles and then I stopped training. How stupid!  Anyway, I'm hoping I can close the poles a little tomorrow. The biggest challenge with Morgan is keeping her enthusiasm.  I have about 4 repeats on each side and then I have to quit.  I'm hoping I can get 6-8 tomorrow.

It seems I'm always starting over with Miss Morgan. I've pulled her from all obedience and rally competition because she just was not getting any better. Nothing brought it home more clearly than showing to a judge I showed to a year ago and having her do the same thing she did a year ago with no obvious improvement.  I am retraining but am seriously thinking of retiring her from competition.  I would like for her to be a happy worker but if she maintains her cluelessness in the ring, then what is the use? 

Anyway, I got some good advice from a couple of different sources. The people I've trained with previously are now showing their dogs in Open and Utility.  Morgan hasn't gotten her first novice leg yet :(  Anyway, we did some training with about turns, left turns, etc. to put in whenever she gets out of position.  She forges everywhere except on the slow (where she is in heel position) and fast (where she lags--go figure).  That was working very well.  I took some things from Michael Ellison about getting the dog to back up and that has worked with her as well. I am also teaching heel position and flip finishes. She falls apart on the first halt.  I think it is because she isn't paying attention and that is part of it but the other part is that she hasn't learned that she is supposed to pay attention. I have a lot of proofing to do.  I learned something very disturbing a few weeks ago and that is that Morgan NEVER looks at me.  I want her to look at me in the obedience ring when she never does it anywhere else. So now I'm retraining watch me.  AT ALL TIMES.  It is a slow, slow process. 

I went to a seminar last weekend and learned how I can use food to get that attention in a rather unique way.  I am carrying the food bowl and letting her eat out of it when she looks at me, when she gets in heel position and when I ask her to do anything -- sit, down, front, whatever.  I think that is going to go a long way in solidifying to her what it is she is supposed to be doing.  I think one of my biggest mistakes with her is to think she knows something when she really doesn't.  It was all a lucky guess. Again, I need to make sure she knows stuff with more proofing. DUH!

I put together goals for the first part of summer for each dog yesterday. Morgan's goals are: attention training. Finish sequence that we learned in seminar, finish weave pole training, finish salo jump tape.  Before I do jumping, though, I am going to have the vet look at her back. I'm seeing tremors in her legs when she sits and I'm not liking that.

I would like to show Morgan at our agility trial in June but I'm not pressuring either of us for that.  If she is ready and we are having fun in training, we'll go for it. 

First APDT Rally Trial

Morgan and I showed at our first APDT (Association of Pet Dog Trainers) Rally trials this past weekend in Durham, NC. It was really fun and I learned a lot about my dog, my nerves and my training. We had to go into Level 1A because it was our first time doing APDT Rally. The cool thing about it -well there were a lot of cool things about it but the one that attracted me the most was the fact that they allow food in the RING. You can feed your dog at every stationary exercise. I thought by bringing food into the ring, it would help get Morgan to focus more and not stress out in the ring.

It worked pretty well. When we entered the ring, she was not very enthusiastic and I tried to jolly her up and not drag her into the ring.
When she got into heel position, I gave her a piece of pork loin (something that I took home in a doggie bag after one of my many meals eating out with job applicants). That perked her up and her eyes were glued on me. We had several moving exercises that she did pretty well. She has a tendency to forge in competition so our left turns weren't that great and there were a lot of them (left 270, left 360, spiral left, etc.)

On the second stationary exercise there were 3 signs that were what they call, married. It was a halt sit, sit down sit, sit stand-they are married because the dog doesn't have to sit again for the second exercise if she is already sitting for the first exercise. However, you ARE allowed to give her a treat after the completion of each stationary exercise. What happened the first day, we did our halt sit-I gave her a cookie. The next sign was sit, down, sit. Because she was already sitting, I just asked her to go down and then get into a sit, another cookie. On the third sign, again, she was already sitting, so I just asked her to stand, and you guessed it, she got another cookie. You should have seen the smile on her face for getting 3 cookies in a row! She moved beautifully after that and didn't forge that much. We did have to repeat a couple of exercises because of the forging but made up for it because they have BONUS exercises after you complete the required exercises. Morgan nailed all the bonus exercises including one I didn't think she could do! ;) She got a 5th place on Saturday morning (you read it right 5th place, lol) with a score of 199. Saturday afternoon, she was way better but still only got a 200 but she got a third place. This morning she did her best work and got a 203, second place and her title.

In trial four, I learned something about my dog. She was extremely attentive before going into the ring and thrilled with the turkey that I had for her.
Just before we went into the ring, someone's dog started whaling and howling loudly. She immediately got a worried look on her face and I tried to jolly her up and she wasn't having it. I gave her a cookie at the start line and almost as soon as we started heeling, the dog started that loud whaling again. She looked in that direction again with a worried look so I had to redo the very first exercise. Unfortunately, I had to do three obstacles before giving her a cookie again and by then, I had mostly lost her. But we soldiered on. Lefts were abominable and we had to repeat the sit, down, twice. REALLY? I was working hard and I go into show mode so after the first one or two signs, I didn't hear the dog any more but I could tell by the way Morgan was reacting that she was hearing something and it wasn't me J. This tells me that I need to proof with that kind of distraction. I'm sure Merlin, Pen and Gally will be happy to do some screaming while Morgan and I train J It also tells me that even the best cookies don't work when she is really distracted. Finally it tells me that maybe four trials in two days is too much for the girl.

What I learned about myself that always surprises me is how competitive I am and that competitiveness give me nerves. I actually had nerves that first morning-not as bad as I do for AKC but I hadn't expected to be nervous at all. My being a little nervous was a good thing, though because I think it told Morgan that a) we were really at a dog show and b) we can work together even if Mommy is a little weird at a show. By the second trial, my nerves were gone and she did well. This morning I was more nervous than the 2nd trial but by then, Morgan had gotten used to my nerves, I think, and did very well. I was not nervous at all for the 4th trial (we already had the
title) and she performed the worst, so part of what I learned is that maybe I need to care a little bit to get a better performance out of Morgan.

I am encouraged and I am going to do a lot of off lead work with her from now on so that we can venture forth to the next level with the help of food.
The next level is fun, fun, fun-recalls, sending to the jump (coming soon to AKC Rally), fast from a sit, leave the dog and run have dog come front.
There is retrieving in level 3.

This group does four sets of 4 trials per year. Another group does trials in Myrtle Beach but I don't know how often. So even if we have to show in APDT only for a year, it will be worth it to get my girl happy in the ring. I hope our group wants to do some APDT trials too but I'm not sure we have a space big enough to do it.