RFE practice (62)

J'Anna couldn't meet last week, so I went by myself. I set up my camera on the tripod and put out number signs to mark the area I could work in. I could have missed, but wanted to do another video for the Ray Underwood MDSA workshop.

MDSA workshop - The first part of this video is a clip of me walking the way Ray suggests. I don't find it pleasing the way my hips sway side-to-side. Ray said to imagine I'm walking with a book on my head. I've tried it since, but don't have a video of it to check the optics yet. I included a short clip of Gimme doing "otto" so Ray would see she really does love backing-up moves. From there we did a few individual "thru" as a warm up and then did them in sequence. Since Ray's recommended way of moving as a handler makes a smaller space, Gimme sometimes misses it. This will just take a little time. Right in the middle of doing the sequences, she was distracted by a dog standing right by the ring gate. To her credit, she stayed with me and then was able to get back to work pretty quickly. Then we did some warm-up "beep" from in front, followed by "beep" from "heel" and "side". This is the first time I'd asked Gimme to do this without a barrier in front of her. One time she was ready and did "beep" before I was ready. Needless to say, I'm very proud of Gimme's efforts and her progress.

"Izzy" & "otto" video - The girl has her "izzy" and "otto" back. Right now the "izzy" is sometimes a wide circle, so I plan to work on it extra. In practices when I do both, I'll work "izzy" before "otto".

Center-front pivot video - Gimme does a nice job with this. I spent a bit of time putting some treats into the wait-for-the-cue bank account. As usual, she's always up to turn something moving counter-clockwise into "otto". So I did it a second time going slower; without the momentum she is able to stick with the behavior we were practicing.

Sidepass in front video -
She does really nice with this. Her work moving her heiney to her-right-my-left is stronger. So I want to put some extra focus into the other direction.

Sit-Stand & Down-Stand video - "Sit"-"stand" in "heel" went well. I haven't asked Gimme to "down" in "heel" for a long time, so we needed a couple tries to get her heiney down as she tried to turn it into "take-a" bow. Going from "down" to "stand" needs some focus. So there are 3 things to focus on and they need work separately: full down (not a bow), down alignment in heel (no butt angled out) and coming up into a stand. Interesting I haven't specifically worked on Sit-Stand in a long time, but she does it well on both sides. I think I have just cued stand often enough when she sits and I don't want it, so it's kept the understanding at a higher level. The last Down-Stand in "side" position was perfect. Obviously this isn't going to take much effort to get the behavior strong again.

"Fanny" video - Needless to say, to Gimme, any opportunity to work in "otto" or "izzy" is fair game. Clearly we don't have those two on stimulus control yet. While she is mostly out of her false pregnancy, I did notice she got a bit food crazy and stopped listening. I see this a lot with the f.p. and I find it helps her if I slow her down, giving her some strokes and such. I don't think she's really clear on this behavior. I want to try working this with multiple platforms... in position for "side", "heel", "center" and "fanny". I think having them there will make her less likely to do "otto" and "izzy", plus they'll help to stabilize her positions. Clearly needs a lot of work.

Circle Handler 3x video - Gimme has gotten a little sticky on this, so we just need to practice it more.

Backing in heel video - This is still a work in progress, which surprises me given how much Gimme loves backing up. While watching this I just had a realization. Gimme has a strong tendency to swing her butt out when she is in "side" position - I call it a fishtail. She does the same thing in "heel" position and in the same direction. It's her preferred direction when stepping to the side with her back feet. In "heel" it keeps her in a tighter position, while in "side" her butt goes out of position. I think I need some barriers to help build muscle memory.

Paw lift video - We were working on her left paw, cue is "low". I noticed in the video the first paw lift was perfect, nice and high while keeping her right paw on the ground. Then as she gets more excited she starts bringing the right paw up. I may need to just do one or two reps and then intersperse other behaviors. I definitely need to be using a clicker so I can pinpoint when the left paw is coming up and the right paw is still on the ground. This is more of an issue for the left paw lift than for the right paw lift. Sometimes she sits there with her paw held off the ground, waiting for another chance to do it - I need to be mindful and only give the cue when both paws are on the ground.

Overall a nice session and having the video on the tripod didn't turn out too bad either.