RallyFrEe (3/3)

RallyFrEe (3/3) and a smidgen of nosework class...  

I've been thinking about my concern about the nosework back-to-baby-basics emphasis by our co-instructor.  My objection has been the tendency I've noticed after having already found an odor box and gobbled up the self-serve cookies, on Gimme’s second time back to the box she checks it for self-serve cookies and then quickly moves on.  I don't see this as a good thing.  So the solution I thought of and will try at the next class, is: when she is gobbling the self-serve, I will keep adding more treats; to keep her mindful of getting goodies from me, even after self-serve.  Hopefully then when she doesn't find the self-serve cookies, she'll pause, giving me time to pay up.

RallyFrEe class on Thursday morning was great.  Even though we had a skip week in there, I didn't get to work much on our two behaviors - due to a ten day migraine and extra work hours.  I talked to Kathy before class and asked her if there was time, for help repairing Gimme's "side" (offside heeling) behavior.

Our first behavior we were working on was to tighten up her circle around me from the offside position.  Gimme starts and ends in position, but is really wide in front and on my left as she makes the circle.  I tried to work on it once and Gimme just didn't want to - it was then I realized she needed to see Tonya for body and energy work.  It was a very interesting session.  Afterward Gimme did better, was more willing.  I then realized part of the reason she goes wide is probably because its her awkward turning direction.  I was able to show some improvement for class.  Kathy cleaned up some of my mechanics and we got even more improvement.

Part of the difficulty for me is using the clicker when I need to have my hands free to treat in any position and always wanting to make sure I'm not clicking in her ear.  It hurts my ears when the clicker is too close, so I think it’d be worse for the dogs.  Kathy suggested using a "mouth click" (making a click-ish noise with my mouth), but I can't due to the cleft palate. I've since experimented with a soft clicker I got from a friend.  I'm going to try to get a second one and a wrist bungee for each.  They are soft enough I wouldn't worry about clicking in Gimme's ear.

After this we worked on her "down" in the offside heel position.  I hadn't done this at all in the two weeks since the last class and even had to look it up on the blog to see what our second behavior was.  Its the down-stand behavior and I chose the offside position because it would be weakest.  To start with I need to simply get her to down and remain aligned in position, since she tends to turn her butt out about 45° as she lays down.

Kathy had me do it with some barriers set up.  At first Gimme was confused by the barriers, but then after she got used to them was fine.  In fact, she was so fine, the third time when we were approaching, Gimme ran ahead to lay down in the place I’d given her the cue twice before.  Even though it wasn’t what I wanted, I was happy to see her thinking and trying to be right.  Afterward we varied where on the barriers I asked her to down and she did great.  I need to practice this some more using natural barriers at home (different pieces of furniture) and then will start moving away from them and see if we can keep the position.

J’Anna, a classmate, wanted some help with her back-around and I wanted to play with the course Kathy had set up, so they went into a different part of the building so I could have Gimme off leash while playing with the course.  Gimme was distracted by the Shelties who kept getting up to look over their barrier, but once I spent a couple of minutes working on basics, she did well. I found she was popping forward of both “heel” and “side” and so missing cues.  For instance if the sign was a thru-transition and she doesn’t slow or stop with me, she is already too far out of position to do the thru when I cue it.  This is a symptom of her broken “side”, though this is the first time I saw it infecting “heel” as well.  Arrrrrgh.

Kathy was able to help me with this retraining “side”, which I’ve been trying to reteach the same way I first taught.  Kathy had me shape it, by capturing moments when Gimme passed through the position and gradually ask for tighter and tighter requirements.  I realized in doing this, I’ve been trying to work on too many criteria at once.  Since she used to know it well, I was getting frustrated when she would sit or forge past me or any number of things.  Gimme was well aware of my frustration and was avoiding me a little at those times when she thought it was most likely to happen – which was unfortunately adding to my frustration, thus we were in a downward spiral.

So the criteria for basic heeling, broken down to individual training items, is:
●  loosely in position
●  moderately in position
●  tightly in position
●  duration in position
●  slowing with me
●  speeding up with me
●  stopping with me
●  remaining standing after stopping (“side” position)
●  remaining aligned after stopping

Gimme was willing to move with me, but the moment I slowed or stopped would move away.  So Kathy had me abandon treating her in position and instead click in position and then throw the treat.  I can’t do this at home because our living room training area is too small (5x10 feet) and tossed treats too often go under furniture.  If we do it in the yard it would take forever waiting for her to find treats in the grass.  Then I remembered the seldom used tennis courts, just a five minute walk from the house.

During class we were able to shape up to moderately in position with a little bit of duration in position.  Kathy had me catch her in position, say the cue “side”, then click and toss the treat.  Tossing the treat meant Gimme got to run out and pounce on it, introducing a bunch of fun into the training.   Today we did a little bit of capturing of loosely in position during our walk when Gimme was able to be off leash, with clicks and tossed treats.  Later we did a session at the tennis courts and once she got acclimated, Gimme did well.  I got mostly moderately in position with a few tightly in position.  The best part was getting some instances of enough duration in position so I could click/treat in position and then after a bit more duration, click and toss the treat.  Gimme had fun and I was very happy with how it went.

I am very happy to have Kathy as a trainer.  She’s very insightful and completely reward based.  I am so glad to have her to train with.  I’m sure Gimme is happy to have her too – she likes having someone she can rely on to straighten me out when I get crooked.

Well, I promised Gimme another training session today.  Can’t keep the Empress waiting…

Nosework (5/7)

I discovered last night and this morning I've broken Gimme - poor munchkin.  We've been training a clockwise back-around me and though we haven't really done much, its been enough to strain a muscle behind her right shoulder.  She turns right more readily than left, so I think in addition to using this muscle to push back and to the left in an unusual way, she's pushing against a bit of body stiffness.  Fortunately I was able to get her to see Tonya right away today and she worked on her quite a bit with massage, body work and energy work.

Now I'm massaging her whenever I can.  Then we'll be doing some cookie stretches to increase her flexibility to the left.  I'm not going to train the back-around for a few weeks.  In the meantime I'll be training "Tivo" (clockwise forehand pivot) and 360º Center Front (clockwise direction).  I'm hoping this will strengthen the muscle more gradually before we return to training back-around.

Tonight nosework class started with an exterior search of a very long narrow area.  We were supposed to try to verbalize what we were seeing.  As much as I talk you'd think this would come easy to me, but not so.  For the life of me when I was supposed to be talking I couldn't.  And yet Dorothy says when I'm searching and not thinking about talking, everything I say to Gimme is right.  So perhaps the answer is to talk "to Gimme" about what she's doing - perhaps it wouldn't feel so much like trying to divide my attention. Anyway, there were three hides and Gimme did a good job of finding them all.  She ran the show and clearly knew what she was doing.

Then we went inside for container searches.  There was 20 boxes and six pieces of luggage with a handful of other containers.  We only knew there were no more than 4 hides.  Gimme found the two box hides very quickly and never really paid much attention to the luggage, so I called finished.  There were two more hides in luggage.  They had me search again right away and pay her for even a passing sniff at the luggage.  I did and Gimme was happy to get paid.

There was a bit of discussion and the co-instructor said there is obviously something broken in Gimme's foundation on containers.  I do mostly luggage for containers, but haven't done many practices on my own in the last 9 months.  I said I wondered if its because we so seldom have the odor in luggage.  Both instructors think I am wrong so it could have nothing to do with it.  

Then the co-instructor concluded Gimme is bored with peanut butter.  Seriously???  Her reasoning was because she likes ice cream, but would get bored with it if she got it all the time.  I think there is a big difference between "liking" something and being addicted to it.  Do you know any crack cocaine addict who would say, "no I've really had too much crack lately, I'd really just prefer a beer."  Not.  I have referred to peanut butter as Gimme-crack before - she'll never get enough of it.

So for our next search of the same containers, which was off leash, they gave me some roast chicken and I was supposed to simultaneously present chicken and peanut butter for each find and let Gimme choose which she wanted.  What happened?  She went for the peanut butter every time.  She was happy to eat the chicken, but only after the peanut butter was taken away.  I rest my case.

For the third container search (off leash) they swapped the locations of the box and luggage hides.  This time Gimme ignored the boxes and kept returning to the luggage until I kept lingering near the boxes.  Basically I think we made such a big fuss over the luggage finds, she thought I now have a preference for them.

I was still certain I was right about the box-luggage-containers hides, so I reviewed my blog since I started taking classes with Dorothy.  Fortunately I use the label feature and keep really detailed records, so it was easy to single in on the entries where we'd done container searches.  In 13 months: she has found odor in 38 boxes, 32 other containers, and twice in luggage.  These numbers for other containers are skewed quite a bit because one night the only containers they had were plastic water bottles, where she found odor in them 24 times.  So if we throw out the water bottle numbers, its 38 boxes, 8 containers and 2 pieces of luggage.  The relative percentages are 79% boxes, 17% other containers and only 4% in luggage.  

Now granted, she should find odor no matter where it is.  But given how much harder luggage is to source odor because of how its trapped in deep recesses and absorbed by cloth, it makes sense she would go for the easy ones.  Also, we had two level one element trials for containers and they were all boxes.  The element trials had 4 searches each with one box hide, so we can add 8 more box hides into the numbers during this time frame.  Factor in the element trials and she's now found 82% of her hides in boxes and under 4% in luggage.  And don't forget, she has a much longer history of finding odor in boxes, because its all you train early on.  I think it stands to reason she doesn't think luggage pays very often.  Why didn't the other dogs get this message?  I assume its because they aren't as smart as Gimme is... 

I take it as a clear lesson of what can happen when you get in a training rut.  I'm sure they don't put odor in luggage as often because it takes so much time to air out luggage to make sure the odor is gone before you can use it as a blank bag.  Whereas boxes and most other containers are going to be simpler to air out, as well as easier to store in large numbers.  I guess I need to get out and do some practices and for sure I'll be bringing my luggage collection along.

And Gimme just says, "whatever, so long as there is peanut butter..."

RallyFrEe (3/1)

Class was again very good.  Kathy is a methodical and organized instructor.  She has a solid ability to watch and provide feedback to several students at once.  She remembered where we were last week, so noticed Gimme's big improvement with the pivot platform on my right and how much her pivots had improved.  

At one point we'd finished the exercise, so Gimme and I were reviewing her independent pivot behavior (i.e. not tied to heel position).  Gimme was a little frustrated and was "talking" to me with a whining tone.  Kathy asked me about the noise and what it meant.  I told her I thought Gimme was a bit frustrated.   Kathy reminded me, if I'm still using a prop to get a behavior, I should break off and do something entirely different before using the same prop to get a different behavior so as not to confuse Gimme.  Well duh, I should have known it...

We started class by reviewing the things we worked on last week and seeing where we are now.  As I said, Gimme had a huge improvement and was able to demonstrate it well, even in the distracting class setting.  Kathy teaches the side pass based on the pivot with the dog's front feet as the pivot point.  Its an interesting way to teach it, one I'd never seen before.  She said the advantage to this method is the dog moves their rear end toward you and then their front end, so you don't end up with a dog with a side pass done at a 45° angle, where the front end stays with you and the rear end lags.  Kathy also said a side pass is a totally unnatural behavior physically speaking, so once you are actually side passing, never do much at one time. 

She had us start with the footwork for a 90° pivot.  We move our inside foot (the one closest to the dog) 90° to a point in front of the dog.  As the handler steps the outside foot up to join the inside foot, the dog will pivot their rear into position parallel with you, as they turn their front feet.  The 90° step starts teaching the dog the physical cue for the side pass, by creating exaggerated hip and knee movement.  If you are doing 
it correctly, it takes four 90° 
pivots to do a circle.  

After you have done this a few times, you switch to a 45° pivot.  It is all the same, except you move your foot 45° instead of 90°.  This will create a hip and knee movement which is a bit more subtle than before.  Your dog will notice these hip and knee movements and they become a physical cue for a side pass toward you.  Obviously it takes eight 45° pivots to do a circle.

When you are ready to actually work on the side pass, you will turn your inside foot as if to take the 45° step, but instead of placing the foot in front of your dog, you'd place it in front of or past your outside foot.  The dog will "read" your hip/knee cue and start pivoting her rear behind/toward you and then when they realize you aren't in front of them, they'll move their front end over to remain in "heel" or "side" position.  Thus you train a side pass where the dog leads with their rear and develops a habit which doesn't degenerate to the 45°angled side pass.

Kathy then demonstrated four different ways we could use this physical cue to do a side pass, showing us different ways to dance in a side pass.  Its intriguing.  Gimme isn't ready for the side pass, so we just practiced the 90° and 45° pivots with my foot work.  She does it better when she's on my left, but did pretty darn good on the right.

Another thing I did in class was to be very conscientious about not doing all the work for Gimme about relaxing in the class setting.  I realized over the weekend at the barn hunt trial (which I've not yet blogged about), I'm doing all the work for Gimme and its getting to where it takes more and more from me.  Its a bad habit I've fallen into.  

Last year I noticed Gimme was really unable to relax when we were out and about.  So based on Kathy's advice, I took Gimme out for some relaxation walks.  This is just me walking 100 feet and then stopping and standing or sitting in one place and waiting until Gimme relaxed on her own before moving on.  She actually picked it up very quickly.  Unfortunately I haven't stuck with it and haven't done enough of it in different, less calm settings.  So I've fallen into a bad habit of managing her behavior with lots of treats and such.  Managing her is doable, but it also means Gimme never relaxes, which is ultimately stressful and tiring (for both of us, eh).

So today was the first of my planned instances where I will just wait for Gimme to relax.  She was doing a lot of pestering and hinting, trying to get me to pay up like she is accustomed to.  I just repeated to her, "relaxation is its own reward", and waited.  Gimme thinks this new mantra is a load of horsey poopy.  However, she did get more settled.  She was still pestering and hinting from time to time, but overall was much more relaxed than she has been this year.  At times she needed a hug from me, for reassurance.  I think its entirely normal with such a big change.  Whenever she was close enough and calm, I made sure to stroke her.  She's very tactile, so this is a reward which actually supports a calm state.   

I think this will pay big dividends as she learns to relax and calm herself in public and other challenging situations.  I look at it as part of the process for her to grow up, where she takes more responsibility for her own emotional state.  I also plan to get back into practicing the relaxation protocol.  Its more boring than dirt, but I know its good for high mental energy dogs.

We met up with Tonya on the way home to get more flower essences for the both of us, body work for Gimme and a very quick communication session.  Tonya noticed how much quieter Gimme was in the car and when she communicated with her how much calmer her mind was.  These things are all coming together methinks.  

Agility (7/5)

I know the numbering on this class is strange, but Blynn seems to think we haven't finished this round and according to my records we have.  I've taken my time before blogging about class on Thursday.  It was frustrating and inconsistent and I wanted to think about it.

Our first round was an unmitigated disaster.  I never had Gimme's attention for more than a few seconds.  I knew she wasn't hurting because we had a session with Tonya the day before and she said she was back to usual physically, though she did put a lot more clean energy in her.  Tonya left at the crack of dawn this morning for vacation, so I wanted to be sure we had a "last minute" fine tuning, given the recent discombobulation.

There are a lot of reasons why our first run was so bad.  First we didn't have much warning knowing we were next.  Then there was a new person loitering between both doors with her St. Bernard, so we couldn't get in the foyer for our usual brain-warm-up.  Instead we stood in the dark under the trees.  They only moved when the other team came out and told them to move so we could come in (they were ignoring me, being focused on what was happening inside the arena).  As it turned out, a returning student had forgotten where to crate her dog, so we couldn't have used the area to warm-up anyway.  Then we get in for our turn and someone had dropped a bunch of hotdog pieces on the floor in three different places.  I finally had Gimme's attention and we were supposed to come off the dogwalk for a 90 degree right turn to the weaves, except the lady with the St. Bernard is back, standing right next to the barrier at our 11 o'clock.  <SIGH>  The whole round was a waste of time - i.e. nothing positive gained from it.

At one point Blynn said something to me and I grumbled about the "quart of food" on the ground.  I was very frustrated and likely spoke sharply because of it.  Later Blynn talked to me and asked me not to "bark" at her.  I didn't remember doing it and certainly didn't intend it, but I figure this is what she meant.  Along with an apology, I said I hadn't intended to bark at her, but I was frustrated with Gimme and I'm sure it showed up in my tone.  To which she commented, she thought I was going to have a lot of frustration "as long as the sun and moon have to be in perfect alignment to get Gimme to work with you".  

To say the least, I was stunned by this assessment.  Gimme loves to train and tries hard.  She has issues and so she does have needs which must be met, but I don't think they are unreasonable.  In thinking about this, I think Blynn is making a general assessment covering the last few months.  Think about it, I was "broken" for about 4 months starting back in April and how I was doing surely affected Gimme.  And now with this recurrence of her barn hunt injury, Gimme has been broken for more than a month.  There have been times in there when she was brilliant, but I think Blynn is only seeing one long pattern of inconsistent performance.

I don't think we need perfect cosmic alignment for her to do well.  For instance, for our next session, I was told at the last moment we would be up first.  I cut my walk through short (never getting to the end), got Gimme from the car, potty walked her briefly, stepped in the foyer and had about a minute to do our warm-up game, then on the course for a near flawless performance.  I had her attention the whole time and there was only one place where she erred.  I didn't know all of the course, but Gimme went everywhere I sent her and her one mistake could have been my fault - I'll know when I get the video.

In thinking this over, in hindsight, it probably would have been better to take a few months off when my hand problem started.  I don't think the time was a waste, but it may have contributed less than great agility training to our history.  I've decided for the next couple of months to go back to basics.  I'll practice heeling to the startline, practice more of Mecklenburg's six recall-to-heel behaviors, and go back to treating every few obstacles.  I may work with the course laid out, but getting through it won't be my aim.  I also have some ideas about working through the food shopping and starting work on the reactivity, I'll be using our "whazzat" a lot.  

I know my plans will work, I just have to work through them and not let myself be lured into doing the course without the basics in place.  Blynn would want me to be stricter with Gimme, but its not my style and for heaven's sake, she's not a Border Collie. So, I'm not going to take Blynn's comment personally, though it sure felt personal when she said it.  Instead I'm going to take it as a challenge to get back on plan with my brilliant girl.  She doesn't have to be brilliant all the time.  Still, I do want to see the less than brilliant moments in the "damn good" category.  ☺

I don't think I've mentioned I have signed up for a Rally FrEe course on Tuesday nights, starting in October.  The class is in Lynnwood, so it will be a long drive, 1:15 going up and probably longer coming back due to rush hour traffic.  

Now I'm going to start packing the car and then we'll leave for the drive to our hotel in Clackamas, Oregon.  We have two element trials on Sunday, for containers (AM) and exteriors (PM).  I'm not as confident with containers because it'll be a field of boxes and we'll be doing them four times.  Gimme tends to get more and more stimulated each time she sees boxes, so she could revert to demolition mode.  I think it'll go smoother when we get to level 2 container element and then the search will have a mix of containers, not just boxes.  I'm certain we'll do well with the exterior element.  In any case, cross any body parts you can spare.

Agility (5/5)

Today we met with Tonya for another treatment.  Poor Gimme was still really out of whack, though it was mostly neck and shoulders, the hips and low back held the prior treatment.  Gimme had a lot of muscle knots.  Tonya really had to work on her for a long time to get everything back to normal.  I was going to skip class and keep her home, but Tonya thought it would be better to get her moving.  So we decided to jump her with the little dogs in class and do no weaves.

For our first course, Gimme was eager to work and attentive, but the first few starts she would not do the first jump.  Each time she just neatly stepped around it.  I immediately realized she was concerned about it hurting, so I lured her over the jump with a tossed treat a few times.  From then on she was fine with jumping.  

In fact in both courses I noticed a bit her wanting to just run and jump and not really pay attention to my cues.  She was paying attention, but was also focused far ahead and not making some turns which I was cuing correctly.  I know she knows the cuing.  It was like she was running along, playing and singing to herself, "la la-la la lah..."

I've been wondering what brought all this on and had a thought coming home. When this latest discombobulation started, it was exactly a month from the incident when Gimme ran headlong into a barn hunt tunnel and smacked her head so hard on the wooden tunnel roof.  We saw Tonya for a treatment right away.  The neck/head area was what needed work then and the same area has needed a lot of focus for these two treatments.  So I'm thinking the struggle over being positioned for the x-ray was enough to cause the same thing to resurface.  Adding in the affect of the x-ray disruption to her energy/chakra just made it really pronounced.  It wasn't such a huge struggle, but I suspect the issue was primed to crop up again and this was all it took.

Anyway, Gimme had fun in class, is clearly feeling better.  As we speak she is sound sleep.

Nosework (1/5)

Here are the videos from class this week.  I noticed Gimme wasn't as perky as she normally is.  I found out later her back/hips are still hurting, so she is getting another treatment tomorrow.

The first search was an interior with one hide.  The hide is under the seat on a stool right next to the big black chair (left foreground against the wall).  On the other side of the stool is a baby gate flat on the floor, to add to the puzzle for access.  When I found out where the hide was, I was surprised Gimme didn't just push right in there.  Of course hindsight knowing she's still experiencing discomfort, it makes perfect sense.  She wasn't at all bothered by the man walking through the search area.  She does spend a lot of time checking other stuff, which could be pooling odor due to the overhead fans.  Because of the access issue, this is considered an NW2 level hide.  She sucked me in on the folding chair - or maybe I sucked me in, because she didn't do a real indication there.  I just called it because she went so far under it with her head and the search seemed to be taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R.  You'll note she finally decides where it is, but still doesn't commit to telling me its there - I waited for a strong alert. It was a long search, but I see value in letting her figure it out and decide to really insist this is it.

090114A Interior

Clearly she got all warmed up on the interior, because she nailed the container hide in 12 seconds!

090114B Container

The warm up stuck with her and Gimme nailed this vehicle hide in 10 seconds!

090114C Vehicle

Gimme actually left the designated search area here, but I let her.  I've learned to let her chase odor in the way she wants to.  Good idea, since she nails this - again in 10 seconds!

090114D Exterior

Gimme found the threshold hide very quickly - 9 seconds.  This was totally on her, since I didn't actually stand in the door so she'd come back to check the threshold like I usually do.  Clearly she detected it from the startline.  Having the garage door open makes the search a different challenge.  Letting her sort it out on her own the first time around worked well, since she found it in less than half the time the second time.  It took just 1:30 between the first and second hides, compared to 3:30 to find just the one during the first search.

090114E Interior

She found the first hide on the vehicle even faster this time - just 6 seconds!  Gimme normally isn't hesitant to go in tight spaces, so I chalk this up to her discomfort again.  Once I lead her in, she goes right in and finds the second hide in just 30 seconds.  

090114F Vehicle

Clearly I don't want her to be in pain or uncomfortable.  Still its nice to know she will work through it if the work doesn't make the discomfort worse (comparing her response to nosework vs response to agility).  She loves work and so will always try.  On the other hand, she's smart enough to not beat up her body for it.  

Tomorrow she gets a treatment and I surely hope it will resolve this for her. 

Agility (4/5)

Class this week was not good.  I really expected it to be better than last week and in some ways it was.  It started out okay, but I found I couldn't keep Gimme focused and she seemed slow to me.  I felt like I was always ahead of her and pulling her along - which is definitely not our normal.  I knew there was something else 'off' during our first session, but didn't know what it was.

During the second session it was even worse and I realized what was different about the first session - it was the lack of connection.  Even when she isn't focused, I usually still feel connected to Gimme.  I can't explain the distinction, but I know it when I feel it.  During the second session, we struggled the whole time.  We'd get good bits but it wouldn't last.  

At one point Gimme came to me and needed a hug and reassurance.  I think she sensed how frustrated I was getting.  Blynn talked to me and said she thought Gimme was just working me and I shouldn't reward her with hugs.  I understand where she is coming from and we talked about it.  On the other hand, I know Gimme and I know when something is off.  

I thought it might have been because I gave her some rescue remedy before leaving home, to see if it would help with the car whining.  It did, but just a tiny bit.  I know a lot of people use RR for themselves and many people use it for dogs right before competing.  Still I also know the affect is highly variable, so I didn't discount the possibility it had a negative affect on Gimme.

On Friday I asked Tonya do animal communication with Gimme to find out what was wrong in class.  Among the many things they talked about, Gimme said about class "I wasn't myself" and "my hips hurt".  I didn't know what the first part meant, but was sure a bodywork treatment was in order. 

Tonya worked on Gimme today, doing both bodywork and energy work.  She did functional corrections from right behind her ears to her hips.  She also found a huge ball of dark/dirty energy around her belly and had to clear a chakra.  Right after the treatment, Gimme immediately went outside and peed a flood - I didn't know she had room for so much inside her.  Interesting, since her full bladder was the reason for the x-ray at the veterinary.  Gimme has been back to her usual self ever since her treatment.

Since its only been a few weeks since her last treatment, I've been trying to figure out why Gimme was so out of kilter when she really hasn't done anything out of the ordinary.  Then it occurred to me, perhaps this was all set in motion during the x-rays at the veterinary appointment.  It wasn't like there was a huge struggle, but she was very tense, resisting what we were trying to do and the x-ray table was very slick, so she was scrabbling for footing at times.  Plus the x-ray was of the area where Tonya found the dark/dirty energy and where the chakra she cleared was located.  

All interesting stuff.  I feel really fortunate to have Tonya so close to us. 

Agility (6/1) & Wknd Recap

Tonight was nosework class and they taped all the runs (if we brought our own camera).  I'll wait to blog about it until I have time to review those and can upload them.

Last Thursday was agility class.  It went well enough, but I really don't have anything special to report.  I'd gotten Gimme out for a run on the Fort Lewis training area earlier, so she was pretty focused.  During our first turn, she was avoiding jumps.  I'd had her treated recently, so I knew she should not have been uncomfortable.  I slowed everything down and just got her to jump a half dozen jumps one-by-one.  Afterwards she was fine and the rest of our turn was lovely.  I think she remembered being uncomfortable two weeks before and since we haven't practiced since then, I believe she thought jumping might still hurt.

For our second session, it was a disaster - all because of me.  For the life of me I could not get the course to stick in my head.  We never did do more than short smidgens of the course, but Gimme was doing everything I cued... so I was certainly happy with her efforts.  I can't explain why I couldn't remember the course, I just couldn't.  Oh well...

I do want to talk about our last weekend, but not the nosework trial, which I've already covered in another entry.  We went down to Cowlitz for a barn hunt workshop.  It was just a basic workshop, which we don't need, but I'd talked to the organizer telling her what I wanted to do - which was basically to have Gimme experience multiple rat finds.  I didn't think she would have any difficulty with it, but did want to try it before I entered a trial.

Mock Instinct Test

So we did the whole basic workshop.  I have to say every time this girl gets near rats, her intensity just doubles.  During the "introduction to rat" when she gets to smell them and see them in a little cage, she was completely over the top.  I was barely able to drag her away.  All the other people were amazed to see how intense she was.  She did fine on the mock instinct test - no surprise, since she already has the instinct title twice.

obligatory Barn Hunt butt shot

Then she did a regular novice run.  She discovered, when I'm "undressing" her (the dogs have to run naked), she could just back out of my arms and take off without waiting for me to release her.  Fortunately I experienced this in the workshop instead of a trial.  The next run I got down on my knees behind her instead of beside her, her essentially sitting in between my knees - thus no place for her to back up and it worked well.

Second Find

I have since bought her another different harness to use in barn hunt, so hopefully we can get back her loose leash walking if she never gets to pull like a maniac in her front-hook walking harness again.  I need to practice our starts using the new harness.  I'm going to use a Kong with peanut butter in it as the "lure", so I can figure out where to place my hands while I'm unhooking it and she's less than cooperative.

Our last run was a two rat search.  When Gimme found the first one, she was being her usual over-the-top self and trying to keep it from being taken away, when I told her "Thank you.  Find another one."  I use this cue in nosework to tell her to look for more odor.  Amazingly, she just stopped, looked at me for an intense half-second, then took off to find the other rat.  I was just so proud of her.  To see her respond correctly to a cue she'd only heard in the context of nosework, in this entirely different context - well, it was cool.  But then we already knew she's a genius.

I'd seen a group holding a weight pull in a nearby building.  I asked if it was possible to try it with my dog and the lady said if someone had a harness in her size, they could let us try it at the end of the day after the trial ended.  So after our workshop was over, I watched weight pulling through to the end.  It is mostly Pit Bulls, but a smattering of other breeds, to include one woman with four toy poodles.

There was a harness available in the correct size, so Gimme got to try weight pull.  I was so proud of her because the woman who dressed her was pretty rough and intrusive, without any introduction or finesse.  Gimme handled it well, though I could tell she thought her very rude.  Gimme pulled the cart three times.  The first time she was kinda worried about the feel of the harness straps against her legs and the bar moving behind her, but was willing to pull while licking peanut butter.  The second time she was a little more comfortable and pulled with the peanut butter just as a lure, despite turning to look at the huge old cart coming after her (there is a person behind it acting as a brake to make sure it doesn't run up on the dogs).

The third time she just pulled because I was in front of her and cheering her on.  I could tell she was kinda enjoying the experience.  I was pretty certain she would like the challenge.  The cart she pulled on smooth and level ground weighs 340 pounds.  For the novice title she would need to pull eight times her own weight, so between 360 and 400 pounds, depending on how much she weighs at weigh in.  So her easy pull was nearly enough to qualify for a title leg.

To get a weight pull championship, she'd have to accumulate 100 points.  Points are assessed based on how much weight she pulls successfully each day.  They can earn 5, 10, 15 or 20 points.  She'd get 5 points for pulling ten times her own weight (450-500 pounds).  I'm sure she could do it, since the 340 pounds was so very easy for her.

I'll want to do some training and conditioning for her.  I'll have to buy the pulling harness for her, as well as a 4 wheel garden cart from Home Depot.   We can start just pulling it around the neighborhood.  Then I can load it up with cinder blocks and let her pull it around for conditioning.  We have some shallow inclines which would be good for conditioning.

I just love seeing all the things this girl can do.  So far I'm thinking Barn Hunt is her all time favorite.  Still she likes doing new things and conquering challenges, so we have plenty of things we can do together.

88 Percent Club

It was a very good trial, even though we didn't title.  We got 7 out of 8 hides, thus the subject for this entry.  The trial site layout was really nice and the hosts were very good.  Only 4 dogs out of 34 titled (12%).  I didn't really think we were ready so soon after our holiday training vacation, so I'm happy it went this well. I started the day doing a container drill at a local post office.  I also set up three hides on some mail trucks.  I like this and when we do it, I notice she gets right down to business on the first search of the day.

Interior

We had two rooms, the first room, the hide was under a table leg.  Gimme found it fast (24.37 secs).  The second room had two hides, one six feet in along the wall on a hinge, close to the floor.  The other was in a stapler on a desk along the opposite wall.  Gimme found it really quickly.  She kept going back to investigate a group of desks nearby, going around and around them, checking up on the desks and the chairs below.  She'd gone through the rest of the room, so I just believed she was onto something.

The picture below roughly represents the room.  The triangle low and on the right side is the doorway.  The black are all big desks or tables.  The orange are children's desks, with the "x" at the top where the stapler was.  The green are wall cabinets, with "x" for odor on hinge.  I've drawn the swirling area where she got caught up.  Her searching pattern is pretty classic for a converging odor vortex and I should have recognized it and drawn her out of it.  I also failed to notice the air current from ceiling vents, which complicated the search.  My bad.

The judge's comment was "Very good job moving dog on from found odor."  I think she is referring to when Gimme goes back to where she'd already found a hide.  I always just repeat "Thank you.  Find me another one."  Gimme knows what it means and moves away on her own.

The judge commented in her debrief, while most people took time at the start line to let their dog scent in front of them, she noticed those who didn't wait for their dog to scan in both directions were more likely to miss the threshold hide on the cabinet.  Usually the dogs tend to scan left and right taking in the area ahead of them.  Gimme did turn right into the room and likely rounded the corner when she came through the area of the second hide going counter-clockwise around the room.  Also she does tend to search high more than low, especially if I haven't worked a lot of low hides.

NOTE TO SELF:  Wait for her to scan both directions before starting search.  And work a bunch of low hides in the week before trials.

Exterior

This search was a pretty big area, including a wall and part of a driveway along one side and then moving out into a picnic area of about 10 tables in a pavilion, with a couple trash cans.  The start cones were set up on the near end of the wall.  In starting, even though I had us in between the cones, Gimme stepped to the left of the cone.  The rules say they have to pass through the cones to start, so I swung her around and through them (taking up probably 5 seconds).  I was told by several people she might be faulted anyway, but she wasn't.  I think the reason she stepped left was because the hide was along the bottom edge of the wall, so she was going direct to odor and when I swung her around I was actually pulling her away from odor!  I'm lucky she didn't get too frustrated and refuse to work for me.

The second hide was on a joint on one picnic table.  Gimme was all over the table as soon as she got close to it, even jumping up on it.  She worked the hide well and indicated dead on odor.  We got both hides in 57.35 seconds.  Judge's comment:  "Good Job!"

NOTE TO SELF: Line the dog up centered between the cones (not self).  Make sure line is short enough so the dog can only go forward through the cones.

Vehicles

There were four vehicles, set up as shown in the picture.  One small motor home (dark pink), two SUVs (green & blue) and one small trailer (orange).  The grey shows brick buildings and the red cones and line is the start.  The two SUVs were nosed in facing each other and odor was behind the license plates on both, about 3 feet apart.

Hides this close really isn't too hard for the dogs, but its a total psych-out for the handlers.  Gimme found the license plate on blue SUV very quickly, but then spent a lot of time on the other end of the green SUV.  She also briefly checked out the trailer and the far side of the motor home.  She checked the end of the motor home and the side nearest the green SUV.  The breeze was blowing from blue toward green and was probably swirling toward the motorhome because of the walls.

Gimme came back to the hide on the blue SUV twice.  Then she finally came back between them and searched all over the front of the green SUV, settling on the license plate and gave me her alert again.  I fell for the psyche out, but when her paw came up and I got the look, I had no choice, I had to "trust your dog" and called alert.  The judge said, "You already got this hide".  Then she went on to say she'd seen me pull her away from the other hide on the other license plate three times.  To which I said, I thought the other was the one we'd alerted to first, thus why I'd cued her to find another hide.  Fortunately they video tape all runs, so she was able to check the tape and verify we were correct.  Gimme got this challenging search in 1:56 minutes.  We had a laugh when I said, "Gimme often proves herself to be smarter than me and now she's shown she is smarter than a judge.  Welcome to my world."

Judge's comment on the sheet:  "Great Work!"  She was very apologetic for the mix up...  Another funny was, when she went to check the video, the judge instructed me to move myself and Gimme to a specific place so we weren't standing in odor and not working.  So the stewards from the next search (possibly thinking I was confused and leaving the area) were calling me, "No Carla, come this way for containers.  We're ready for you."  And I yelled back, "I can't.  I'm following instructions, for once."  Everyone there who knows me laughed a LOT.

Gimme did earn a fault for putting her feet up on the door of the motor home.  Dogs can put their feet on bumpers, running boards and tires, but not on painted surfaces.  Hides will never be placed in a way which encourages the dogs to go up on the sides of vehicles, still odor can climb a surface based on air current and a dog might chase it up the side of the vehicle.  And of course, she is allowed to put her feet up on desks, desks, cabinets and walls in other searches as needed.  This is something we'll have to work on, but I'm still puzzling through how to make the various okay versus not-okay distinctions for her. 

Containers

There were 26 containers of various types and 9 boxes, set in a sort of spiral out from the center.  Gimme quickly moved along the right side of the spiral, giving an extra sniff to a floral patterned box.  Then she quickly moved along the far side of the spiral, doing an impressive snap back, followed by intense sniffing on another box, which she left on her own as I moved past it.  Right next to it she got serious and alerted on the handle of a bag laying flat on the floor.  She did this in 19.93 seconds.  Judge's comment:  "Yay for you!"

We found out during the debrief that the floral box contained two tennis balls.  Gimme likes to chase balls, but she's not a maniac about it.  The other box contained a muffin with peanut butter on it.  That's the one Gimme left when I moved by it.  She's the best!

I thought she was too vigorous with her paw on the bag, but we did not get faulted.  Still its not the behavior I want.  I remembered to move her out from the search area, so she wouldn't be attracted to any boxes in case she had an urge to demolish something.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was very happy with Gimme's efforts all day.  She worked intently and with focus and going right to odor every time she could.  There was none of her recent tendency to indicate "close enough" to odor, without getting to source (which has been happening a lot since the inaccessible hides seminar).  I have finally decided how I want to train this issue; I'll use differential reinforcement, which is a concept Gimme understands.  In training I'll set up an inaccessible hide and when she indicates what I consider only "close enough" she will be rewarded with cheese.  Then I'll show her exactly where odor is and reward as close as she can get.  Then we'll leave and re-enter the search area and when/if she goes and really tries to get to source, then she'll get the good stuff, either pork or peanut butter.  She's a real smarty and I'm sure she'll figure out how to get the good stuff.

The other thing I was very happy with was her paw indicators.  They were all very nice, except the one on the container search and even so, it was not bad enough to earn a fault.  I did notice Gimme did something new for the warm up boxes.  The first indication would include a scratch on the box, but then as I stood there, she'd stand beside the box and reach out to the side and tap the box with her paw, asking for more goodies.  I'd repeatedly give her treats for the taps... probably 25 taps over the course of the day.  This tells me she is really starting to understand what I want and is trying to give it to me.  In the heat of the moment, she may do an indication which is too vigorous, but she's really trying and making substantial improvement.

We are both tired and staying home today to rest up.  Gimme has an appointment at 3:00 for a bodywork session.

LATE BREAKING:  The bodywork session went very well.  Tonya was surprised, but all the corrections from last week held.  She did mostly energy work today. 

Bodywork & Agility (3/1)

We got to see Tonya on Tuesday.  Gimme really needed the session.  Her usual spot mid-back was really bad this time.  Tonya corrected it twice and both times it immediately popped out again.  So she did some energy work there, corrected it, did energy work again and then it stayed in.  She was also locked up at the very top of her neck where it attaches to her skull (probably why she was popping out of and avoiding the weaves).  She totally didn't want Tonya working on her neck - not even cooperating with peanut butter at her nose.  Once we got it corrected (I say we, because I had to restrain her so Tonya could do it) then she was much happier.  She also had the first joint of her tail locked up.

When I took her walking yesterday, she just ran and ran and ran and ran.  Like the wind she ran.  I was really beating myself up for not having noticing how "off" she was.  Then it occurred to me, I was attributing all her changed behavior to the false pregnancy. 

So, I've decided to simply schedule the treatments regularly, like every 4-6 weeks...  and hopefully it will be more preventative in nature.  As it is, Tonya wants to see her twice more over the next two weeks.  She had me jump her at a lower jump height last night and instructed me to see how she did with the weaves and then make a decision.

At class she was a dog with a mission.  She wanted to run and run and run and run.  It took a bit for her to settle down and work, but once she did, it was all great stuff.  She did fly off the a-frame for the first time in her life, "Look Mom, I fly..."  The only problem we are really having is with the tire jump.  The last time I thought it was the proximity to the wall, but last night it was in the middle of the course and she still had a problem.

We don't have class next week, but I'll be meeting Chris for fitness.  So I'll take Gimme and do a practice with her, doing lots of tires.  I think it just looks different to her and she's got it in her head to run under it instead.

BTW we have the NW2 trial this Sunday.  Start praying and crossing body parts now.  I am...

Nosework Practice

I'd forgotten to put my odor kit back in the car, so I didn't get the hides set in the morning.  Instead I went over well before we planned to meet, set them, then took Gimme for a 3 mile walk on a nearby trail.  That gave us a cook time of roughly 2 hours.

As you watch this, note that Gimme only goes into one shed that didn't have odor in it, quickly ruled it out and left.  Odor was in the 3rd, 7th and 9th sheds (relative to the startline).   She does "catalog" the first two and then goes on to find the others before coming back to indicate them.  I let her go behind the 9th shed, because the wind was blowing away from us and I wanted her to have a chance to detect the inaccessible odor from a vent 5 feet off the ground.

The 9th shed has that one in a vent at 5 feet up and then q-tips in the door right above the hinge  which you see in passing at 1:37 and 2:04.  At 2:57 she pulls the odor out from under the support of the 7th shed.  At 3:29 she finds the last hide (3rd shed), which Tucker had pulled down and we neglected to reset, so it was in the middle of the floor.  Gimme found all four in 3:22.4... a very respectable time for 4 hides in one search area - which she'll never see in a trial.

Gimme, even with her cataloging, is fast and accurate.  Our training buddy took over 9 minutes to find all four - with a little help from us.  He's not nearly as driven as Gimme.  Sometimes he is faster than she is, because she blasts by hides.  However, when they are hard, she's always faster.

When Susan was picking up the tins after the indoor searches, she noted that the odor was very faint.  Certainly enough for the dogs to detect, but the lack of air movement other than shoppers going by, would make it a tough search.  I don't remember when I last refreshed the q-tips in those tins.  I'll be setting these same hides on Wednesday for class - using all fresh q-tips and with 7 hour cook time.  So it will be interesting to see how that affects Gimme and Tucker in their searches.  The q-tips for the shed searches were all fresh, having only been used once.

You can see that she localizes one of the hides at 27 seconds...  she doesn't get up to it, but knows generally where it is.  The odor is up above the second shelf, in line with the support between shelving sections, so it could easily be pooling where she puts her nose under the lower shelf, still she didn't indicate there.  She brackets the second hide at 52 seconds.  It takes her 4:38 seconds to find the first hide.  She does get a bit frustrated 6 minutes into the search and throws a false alert at me...  given how quickly she leaves it, I'm certain she knew odor really wasn't there.  At 6:42 seconds I try to "make a corner" with my body to help her find the second hide, but it didn't seem to help.  If you watch carefully at 6:55, her tail wag speeds up (fast enough to strobe on the video) as she finally gets a real bead on the second hide - interestingly well above it.  She found both hides in 7:09.  That's a very long search - Tucker was just a little longer and would have quit if Susan and I hadn't helped him.

Gimme got sooooo close at 1:22, but didn't persist.  While this search was very long, Gimme never needed help or encouragement.  I'm sure she smelled it just enough to make her keep looking.  She never lacks for persistence.  She makes me think if the little boy optimist in an old joke, where he's placed in a room full of horse manure and when they come back hours later he's still happily digging away, just convinced that with all that manure, there has to be a pony in there somewhere.

That's Gimme's approach.  All she needs is success in the end - it doesn't matter to her how hard the challenge was, so long as she wins - she thrives on challenge.  

Another note... I did notice my handling sucked in this video.  I got stuck standing still frequently - especially when I knew she was pretty close to the hide.  Of course it doesn't help that the aisle was narrow and cluttered.  Fortunately I handle well enough most of the time that Gimme doesn't pay any attention - never having learned that I might cue her where it is by getting stuck myself.

We did another search, but ran out of space on my camera's disk.

Gimme had a bodywork treatment after class on Saturday.  I had noticed Gimme was willing to sit, though responding a bit slow, but she didn't want to stay seated unless the rate of reinforcement was high.  She was doing pop-up toaster sits.  Sure enough Tonya found both hips were out of whack, but her right hip was really locked up.  It was so bad she had to do the energy work first, so it would relax enough for her to do bodywork - otherwise it would have been very a forceful and painful adjustment.  So Gimme got energy work twice - once to release the hip and again at the end, as usual.  I did some TTouch and energy work later where Tonya said would need it.  I could really feel the heat from the inflammation when I started, but it would be almost normal by the time I was done.  Gimme is doing much better now.  I'm going to get her treated again this Saturday.

Public Dog (6) & NW Practice

I did get Gimme a bodywork treatment session yesterday and Tonya said she was better than before.  She thinks the energy work I've been doing is helping.  I was talking to my friend and she said they can start a false pregnancy well before the due date.  So, since I've confirmed Gimme has "fluffy boobies" - I'm chalking her weirdness up to her delicate condition.  I'm searching high and low for her baby lamb.

Yesterday in Public Dog class, she did not do well with the chaos of having 6 teams in that small space.  We played Doggie Tic Tac Toe again.  Gimme was mostly able to do her part - 5 out of 6 tries, but not to the standard we normally would do.  There was a practice round that ended up a draw, then four rounds.  They kept switching the teams around and even so, the team we were on won all four times.  So between Monday and yesterday, Gimme and I were victors each time - Doggie Tic Tac Toe CHAMPIONS...

The rounds were: LLW into a square and sit in the square with luring; butler style LLW into a square and sit in the square with luring; LLW into a square and sit in the square with food on us but no luring; and butler style LLW into a square and sit in the square with food on us but no luring. The leash had to remain in a J shape the whole time and we did it 4 out of 5 times, but it required a lot of me talking and helping her hold her position.  Once we were done and she got her treat, the moment I took one step toward our area - she was dragging me to get back to her sanctuary.

Tonight Susan and I met for a nosework practice on containers again.  We did eight rounds of searches with gradually increasing difficulty.  Gimme thoroughly enjoyed it - along with her marshmallow rewards.  Being false preggers does not affect her nosework ability.  She is contentedly snoozing as we speak.

Tucker did very nicely and I'll be eager to hear how he does this weekend - they are going to a match.  I did talk to Susan about possibly not coming to any container class with Joyce between now and her trial.  She didn't say whether she would or not.  I explained to her my reasoning and now its up to her to make a decision. 

Nosework (5/13)

First, about agility class last night.  Gimme was not at all focused, even worse than the day before.  I basically did the courses treating after each obstacle.  I said I thought the lights weren't even on, but Blynn said they were - just at a substantially lower wattage than I'm accustomed to.  We did the math and Blynn thinks its too early for her to be affected by a false pregnancy.  However this season was weird - coming early and lasting longer than usual, so everything could be off.  In any case, I'm going to get an appointment with Tonya (we're about due anyway).

Tonight at nosework Gimme did pretty good, but there were only two searches.  Joyce had set up a container exercises with food distractions.  There were 19 boxes, one odor and the rest all food.  Our instructions were to let them do whatever they wanted with the boxes and reward even a casual sniff at the odor box.  She had her own dog run first as a demo and she did such vigorous pawing that we had to re-tape three boxes (imagine my eyebrows practically arching off my face).

Two of the dogs (both NW1 level and very mild mannered) did well enough with the exercises set up this way.  For Gimme, I did not reward a casual sniff of the odor box and treated it just like I would have for a trial - waiting for all 4 parts of her indicator for containers.  Of course, Joyce talked to me the whole time, so needless to say Gimme stomped on several boxes, but only trashed the odor box and even that wasn't as vigorous as I'm used to seeing.  And then she just had to tell me that when the day comes that we are faulted-out-of-a-title, she's going to remind me that she's warned me.  I just said, "don't you mean IF we are faulted out?"

They had taped our searches so we got to watch them afterward.  On the second video I heard Joyce say to the class "I don't know why Carla pays me for classes and doesn't do what I suggest?"  I almost got a hernia not replying "I've wondered about that myself" OR "I only follow your good suggestions" OR "I know my dog and I only do what I know works for her" OR...  <sigh>  If only there were better instruction available within a reasonable drive.

Tucker did really well the first time and found the odor box very quickly.  Clearly what we've been doing in practice has really paid off.  But then Susan let him get to one of the food boxes as she was leaving the search area and Joyce had her let him continue sniffing it until he decided to leave - except Susan finally had to drag him away.  So his next search was awful and he was in total food search mode and could care less about odor.  He was picking up the boxes with his teeth biting into a corner and trying to carry them away.  For him, sniffing food is self-rewarding, so letting him do it only increases the strength and frequency of the behavior.

Susan and I hung out and talked after class.  We talked a LOT about different ways to reward him so that we can increase the value of finding odor.  He's a "strange" dog and not easily motivated.  So we'll be trying some new things.  I also spent a bunch of time trying to impress on her that letting him sniff boxes until "he decides to leave them" is not going to work for him.

I further explained to her the immutable characteristics of behavior strength and frequency, that it can only do one of three things: increase, stay the same, or decrease.  If its increasing - then its being rewarded.  If it stays the same - its getting enough reward to be maintained.  If it decreases - then its not being rewarded and/or is being punished.  What we've been doing in three weeks of practices, by not letting him linger to sniff the distraction boxes and heavily rewarding finding odor is decreasing the distraction sniffing and increasing odor finding.  Yet one instance of being allowed to sniff distraction and he's suddenly (but not surprisingly) aggressively sniffing again.

Unfortunately Susan would never just ignore Joyce's way of doing things, so I'm going to talk to her at our next practice this Friday.   I'm going to suggest that she not come to class when Joyce lets us know she's going to be doing food distraction exercises (we have to bring the food distractions) - at least between now and her trial the end of this month.  Probably will only come up once at the most.  That way there is a chance we can get him through this enough for her to do well at the trial - since it clearly only takes one instance of self-rewarding to re-strengthen the unwanted food searching behavior.

Moving Whazzat

I had a lot more planned, but the day conspired against me.  Hopefully tomorrow will be more cooperative.

We walked around the Capital Lake, making it a training walk.  Gimme continues to have difficulty with loose leash walking - I think its conceptually just too darn vague for her.  Though we are making some progress.

Because it was early afternoon, we only met a few dogs.  For one of them we were actually able to pass while doing a moving "whazzat" (look-at-that).  That's the first time I have tried that and only did so because we had room to play with it.  Even though the dog (a Boston Terrier) was staring and pulling toward Gimme, she did really well.  So while its been slow progress, we are making headway.

After that we met Tonya at the barn.  I had noticed some warm spots after exercise, so I scheduled an appointment.  Gimme is MUCH improved over her last treatment, as I expected.  Tonya said much of what was wrong now is not about being stuck, rather she has some soreness and tension in muscles in a couple of places.  Tonya suggested massage.

I know TTouch and bodywork would be very good for Gimme, but she has real difficulty with the whole stillness thing.  Every time I've tried she hasn't been able to just be still and accept the work - instead always wanting to turn around and lick me or try to play and other things.  So now I have to get serious about teaching her to just be still and calm...

A funny -- when Tonya was showing me where I need to focus the TTouch/massage, it was hard for me to see, because someone is such a wiggle butt.  Only Dalmatians come to us with a full set of pre-installed locator spots, so we used those...

I also talked with Tonya about exchanging training lessons for treatments.  She doesn't really have a lot of money for classes and I'd like to get Gimme treated more often.  So this could work out well for both of us.

Nosework (2/12)

Its been a long time since I'd had Gimme in for a bodywork session and lately I've been noticing some warm spots, so today we got to see Tonya.  Boyoh did Gimme need it.  She was very stuck in two places on her back (loin and midback), and her right shoulder was very stuck.  Because of those three, basically her whole spine from right behind her ears to her tail, plus her hips needed fine tuning.

It was bad enough that Gimme yelped during one correction and then wasn't going to let Tonya touch her again.  Of course, a liberal supply of peanut butter convinced her that she could endure it.  Tonya was pretty surprised to hear Gimme was willing to jump in agility, but I've noticed she can be a pretty tough little cookie.  (not that I think that was the issue last night, since it was only that one jump she was having trouble with)

After the appointment we came home and Gimme curled up on the couch and slept for 45 minutes... at which point I had to wake her up to go to class.  We just got home ten minutes ago and she is already sound asleep.  Sometimes when I'm really bad, after an adjustment I'm so relaxed all I want to do is sleep for a couple hours.  I've put it on the schedule to get her in for another fine tuning in three weeks.

Tonight Joyce started us out in the little room full of stuff, with three hides.  Then out to the big room with two hides.  Then last in the little room with one hide.  All of them were level one hides... stuff we were doing a year ago.

For her first search Gimme wasn't getting anywhere and was dithering around.  So I spoke to her to remind her to get to work and moments later she indicated the first hide and found the other two right after that.  Joyce told me I shouldn't have said anything to her, saying she was working.  When I took her outside, Gimme peed twice and then pooped.  Proof that I know my dog - I know when she is searching without focus (for whatever reason) and when she is really working.  In this case she had something else on her mind (even though she had the opportunity before her search) and wasn't really focused.  Speaking to her served as a reminder and she did what she's there for.

The second search I thought she'd do better.  She was more focused, but not like usual.  She did find both hides.  Likewise for the third search.

It occurs to me that one of the corrections Tonya made was to Gimme's "atlas", where the spine connects to the skull.  I know that sometimes when mine is out of whack and Doc does a big adjustment, I can be kind of muzzy-headed for several hours.  So, in the future, no bodywork on class days or in the day before a trial.

Nosework (6/5)

Starting last weekend, I noticed that Gimme wasn't herself.  Actually before that, I thought I found a warm spot on her back, but that Saturday she wasn't willing to play as much with Grafton and was more insistent about her refusal to engage with him.  And by mid-walk we noticed she wasn't running as much or moving as far away from me.  When I got home the spot on her back was really hot.  I used TTouch to cool it down.

I tried to get in touch with Tonya, the person who does bodywork and energy work on Gimme, but never did catch her until Tuesday evening -  came home to a message from her.  As I'd guessed, her family was out of town for the Memorial Day weekend.  So Gimme got an treatment Wednesday afternoon.  Her whole back was out of whack, so Tonya had a lot of corrections to make.  Her mid-back was really locked and was the area in front and behind.  Tonya thought it was all related to her original issue.  Also there was a stuck area between her shoulders.  We talked and Tonya thinks I may have pushed the "take a bow" training, since we've been working on duration -- obviously I'm not doing that for a week and then will work up much more gradually.  And both hips were stuck, with no idea why.  Poor baby.

I also asked her about checking her energy and she said she would, but that Gimme might be a bit loopy for a day afterward.  She was concerned about how it would affect our class that night.  She did find her energy slightly stuck in the rear, but nowhere near as bad as the first time.  Tonya had to work hard to get things moving again and asked me to keep her a little less active for 36 - 48 hours.  So today was our first walk again with her Grafton, Mary and Linda.  It went well, though Gimme was still less active.  I checked her during and after the walk for any warm areas in her spine and didn't find anything.  I think she may be worried about hurting and not actually hurting.  Still I'll keep an eye on it and see how it goes and may get her back in for another session after the ORT if she isn't completely back to normal. 

Tonya was right about Gimme being loopy.  Our class was basically three ORT type searches, the first we knew where the hide was and the other two were blind.  Three of us are scheduled for the ORT on Friday (8th), so we were all glad to see container searches, since we hadn't had any for several weeks.

Gimme found the first one, but it was really apparent that she wasn't as focused... for heaven sakes -- it took her as long as everyone else to find it!  The second time she did better, more like she regularly searches.  The third time she was back to normal and little Miss Nose-That-Knows Gimme.  She has a tendency sometimes to give a drive-by indication on the right box, but keeps on going and then will come back around when she's sure there isn't a better one.  She did that the first two times, but the third one stuck with the correct box the first time.

Cross your fingers about the upcoming ORT.  If we don't get this one, I'm just going to lay down on the floor and cry...

Amazing...

Gimme got her bodywork treatment today.  Tonya didn't find anything that would affect the way she was sitting, but did find an area in mid-back that was seriously in need of correction.  It took a bit of doing to get it to move.  I'm sure that is a holdover from the reason she needed her first sessions last year.  So we'll be re-checking that in a couple of weeks and will be keeping an eye on it.

What happened next is where the title for this entry comes from.  Tonya also does energy work.  I am a huge fan of alternative medicine, but had never experienced any energy work.  Though, I've been told that when I do TTouch, I actually move energy (when I worked on a person that was sensitive to it)... but I don't know how that is happening.  TTouch isn't designed as energy work.

Anyway, I asked Tonya to check Gimme's energy and let me know if there was anything she could do to help her calm down.  Gimme is particularly wild this week.  She said that any calming affect wouldn't show up right away and might take more than one session. 

She checked Gimme and said her energy around her head, neck and shoulders were fine.  She said to that point she was very balanced.  Then about mid-back, right where her back was stuck, there was a small amount that she needed to work on. 

When she got farther back on her spine, her hands were just drawn to the hip and thigh of the leg that Gimme is holding oddly in her sits.  She said Gimme had a "huge ball of stuck energy" on the inside of that thigh.  Up to this point, Gimme had been her usual fidgety self.  But when Tonya started working that area to release that stuck energy, suddenly Gimme got very calm (at least compared to what she'd been like thirty seconds before).  She described the stuck energy as "very dark".  I asked her if that meant dark as in Darth Vader.  She said it means that it had been built up and stuck there for a long time.  She said the stuck energy isn't uncomfortable or painful in any way, but that it can make some things feel "unnatural". 

Anyway, when she finished, Gimme stood up and wagged her butt... and then offered a sit for the remaining treats.  The sit was flawless, everything in its right place and perfectly balanced!  I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it.

BTW cross your fingers and any body parts you can spare.  We leave at o'dark-thirty tomorrow to drive to Oregon for the ORT.

A Day in the Life

Our day has been quite busy from start to end.  I knew we would end up spending a sizable chunk of the day driving, so wanted to make sure we got a long walk in beforehand.  Gimme has a favorite stick that sits beside the pipeline road that we walk on.  She usually picks it up on the way out and carries it for awhile.  Then on the way back she picks it up and carries it back to where it started.  Here's a short combined clip of Gimme with her favorite stick on the whole planet...

She didn't carry it nearly as far as usual today, but it was very hot and I'm sure that made a difference since stick carrying interferes with breathing, doncha know.  Still she did pick it up again on the way back and return it to its customary starting point.  Don't know why she does that silly routine, but she does.  I think I've mentioned before that she has her own ideas of the right and wrong of things... and this business with her stick would seem to fall in there somewhere.

After our walk we hopped in the car, went to fill the tank and then started out on a two hour drive to Vancouver.  Don't think I mentioned it before, but I noticed almost two weeks ago that she was gitchy in the back - letting me know she didn't want to be touched in a certain spot.  I made sure to get her to see Doctor Dennis for her first bodywork visit before the agility seminar.  Today was our follow up visit. 

Today doc had much less to fix and Gimme was clearly feeling better since she was a lot less willing to stand still for the exam and treatment.  Fortunately her peanut butter tube works wonders.  Doc pronounced her fit to do anything we want - just to watch her and bring her back if anything crops up, and of course to consider regular checkups.

Then it was back in the car for the two hour drive home.  We had a short break at home before heading out the door for class. 

Gimme did well in class and I was pleased with all her efforts.  We revisited the issue of someone touching her during a stay and she did very well with it.   Remember when we first attempted this, we didn't realize she was about to whelp a large baby lamb toy, so didn't know she was going all hormonal... we've waited to make sure she was past that before returning to "the hardest thing" training.   

To make it even harder, it was Ursula's new co-instructor, who is someone Gimme has only met once or twice and this is the first time she has interacted with her.  So I wasn't really expecting her to do this well.  It only took a little bit for her to get the idea.  She figured it out beautifully and did a stellar job.  Of course, that was very hard work for her, so she had a peanut butter bone to refresh herself, followed by chewing on her rawhide. 

Then, while the other students were shaping their dogs to go to matt, Gimme and I played with a box.  It was a funny large box, shaped kinda like a Kleenex box with a cut-out that crossed the top and front edge.  Our first task was going to be to have her put her head in it, but of course she did that the instant we set it down.  So instead I shaped her to back up to it and put a back foot in the hole.  It took all of fifteen click/treats for us to get to that point.  Too bad I don't have THAT on video - it was very cute.

Then of course when the co-instructor Robin came around Gimme didn't want to do that any more.  I couldn't convince her that Gimme already knew how to do it and was bored with that task and wanted to show me other ideas she had.  I would have liked to have gotten feedback from her and/or ideas of how to help Gimme stick with something and perfect it.  But since she didn't really know Gimme's capabilities, or mine for that matter, she was convinced that Gimme hadn't done it and didn't know it.  If Ursula had been working our side of the room I think I would have gotten more helpful instruction on this point.  So, will make it a point to ask her tomorrow night.

It was a very long and busy day and Miss Gimme is sleeping soundly.  I have to wake her in a minute and run her outside before we head off to bed.