MDSA March workshop

The workshop for March was about combination moves and matching the dog's skills to line-dance moves.  It was a lot of fun.  On Wednesday, March 27th, I recorded some training in the carport.  My original plan was to share these because they were so cute the night before - where she kept flipping them over and then pivoting on them.  She was very deft in how she did it, pulling the flipping foot out at the last moment. 

Dish work tricks video - Gimme got more serious about it in this session, creating two potential new behavior chains. It fascinated me to see she used them both in the same way the night before and here she had two very different ideas for these two props.

• Blue dish - Gimme flips it over and then uses it as a base to pivot on.
• Red dish - She backs in and then pivots on her rear. Note how she backs up until a foot is touching the side of the dish, then neatly steps in. Teaching the pivot on her rear is going to be very challenging, but Gimme loves challenges and the treats that come with them. I saw I missed a lot of good clicks because her back feet were obscured by her body, so I will definitely have to use a mirror.

Pivot-in-a-bucket video - There is much of this we are repeated from the night before, but it was a change of location, so it's to be expected. Initially I was getting feet in as she was passing through. I focused on clicking really early to clarify it was front feet I wanted. I withheld clicks a couple of times for in-and-pop-out. Then when I had a stationary moment I treated several times while her feet were in the bucket. There were some badly timed clicks as she was stepping in with the rear and I just made sure the rear feet were out when she got the treat. After the front-feet-only idea was more solid, I started looking for pivot steps. There are moments when she starts to put her back feet in and then changes her mind - I love watching her think. Since she was stuck not wanting to turn her back to me, I used luring to encourage it a couple of times. Within 30 seconds of the second time I showed her, she offered the full pivot. Then just a bit later she did it again. One foot comes out of the bucket, but we can work on it later. We ended with this success...

In watching this video I see her boldly stepping on the prop as it rolls on its side. I really want to make a prop for her to roll like a barrel. I'm just not sure what to use and definitely want something she can control.

On Thursday, March 28th, during our RFE practice, I recorded these videos for the MDSA workshop.

Bits & pieces video - As I was doodling to come up with a short sequence for the end of this month's MDSA online workshop, I came up with these little segments I liked.

MDSA video segment video - This is the quick segment I made to show some of the steps we learned this month. It's still toooooo slow for Gimme. Bless her heart for trying so hard to stay with me.

MDSA March workshop video - As it turned out, they didn't use the segment above.  Instead she cut pieces from many of the videos I shared and edited them in with video from other participants.  The Gimme pieces are spaced here and there through the whole very long video (almost 14 minutes).  Be sure to watch through to the end where Gimme has the final "word". 

I also recorded and shared these training videos which were inspired by the workshop.

Freeshaping backward weaves video - I am using a clicker, but it's so quiet the camera isn't picking it up. I don't know what happened to the good one I had in the car. While these quiet clickers are great for noise sensitive dogs, in this environment it just isn't loud enough with all the background noise. Gimme is making really good progress. We got to the point where she was able to turn while backing up very quickly this time. I think we are almost ready to line the cones up straight.

Freeshaping pivot-in-a-bucket video - I followed pretty much the same process as I had the day before - I thought it went faster this time. As I was helping her with some lured full pivots, I was trying to do it in a way where she'd keep her feet in the bucket. The last "lure" was just my hand in the air over hear head. Gimme offers a lovely full pivot at the end, for which she gets dozens of treats.

This is all some really fun stuff.  We haven't done much freeshaping in the last couple of years because it's nearly impossible to get Gimme to give me stimulus control of anything she invented with freeshaping.  She enjoys freeshaping sooooo much, so I am just going to have to work harder on stimulus control so she can do more freeshaping.

MDSA online workshop

As a member of Musical Dog Sport Association (MDSA), I get to participate in monthly online workshops.  This month's workshop is focusing on combination moves and also line dance moves. Of course I've been promoting Gimme's Spinotto and Turnizzy combo moves. They've been a huge hit. The line dance moves are fun to learn, but I'm no dancer, so it's challenging to say the least. Naturally Gimme looks good no matter what we do...

MDSA Grapevine video - I found Gimme did better when I didn't take such big steps. We've been working a lot on her sidepasses in practice and I see it comes together nicely when she realizes which behavior we're doing. I really need to put these on cue. Sswhe's doing so much better maintaining alignment. I already use grapevine when I am sidestepping into Gimme, but I start with the step-behind to let her know I'm closing in.

MDSA Heel strut video - Much of the difficulty in this is on my part - trying to get a feel for this dance step. Looking at this right after I edited the sequence video from the next day, I see a big difference in how Gimme is able to move. In the sequence video I moved slower, which is not a smooth speed for Gimme. She's so sweet to put up with my nonsense.

When I shared these two videos with the MDSA list, I made the comment that they weren't working behaviors. Karen took exception to my statement and sweetly edited the two together, putting them to the music by ABBA - Gimme, Gimme, Gimme video.  I can't believe how much better it looks just by adding the music.

MDSA Heel strut sequence video - I was planning a combination of Heel Strut, Heel Close and Rocking Chair. I also thought Gimme would be able to go from "center" to "side" and finish with an "izzy" on the cue "izzy"; likewise with the cue "otto". She's normally so smart she just puts stuff like this together on her own, but I guess this concept was too vague for her. She did this variant once each for "izzy" and "otto", but not afterward.  However, she did notice a dog in the park, so it may have been too distracting. Rocking Chair feels really awkward to me, so I'll probably substitute Montana Kick in the future.

I sent a question to the list about Rocking Chair. I'm wondering if it is intended to be a 4-beat step rather than a 3-beat step. I noticed when I watched the example again, the presenter was doing 1-2-3 Rocking Chair steps and then a quarter turn, making a 4th beat. I was planning to do it stationary (no turn), which created a 3-beat step; maybe why it felt so awkward. Perhaps it would feel more natural if I paused between iterations, making it a 4-beat.

Phantom of the Dogera

About 1½ months ago we completed our segment for the MDSA collaboration.  I thought I blogged about it, but can't seem to find the entry.  We had segment 1 and I was going for a dramatic look.  The compiled video is out and available to view.  Enjoy...

Phantom of the Dogera video

RallyFrEe practice (37)

My plan was to come up with a sequence to music for the current MDSA online workshop on Transitions.  It's really been a good workshop.  I learn from all of them, but this one was stellar.

Session 1 video - I took my shoes off because I've recently learned how much they influence what I can do in freestyle.  Gimme used to have really great stays - now, not so much - clearly need some work.  I just had a thought and am wondering if it hasn't become weaker due to all the times I gave her the "wait" cue, but then moved in a way she interpreted as a behavior cue, thus she's confused about it.  She seemed distracted this day, but I was able to get her attention after we worked a little bit.  I'm wondering if it was because of the dog invading her space the night before.  I've been giving her less reward for jumping up on me to ask for reassurance, so she doesn't do it as often.  This time I think she did it because I had taken her by the collar to move her back to our start, so she knew she'd misbehaved.  Bold as she is, she is really quite sensitive too.  She did pretty well on the sequence first time through.  As is her current trend, she'll try to turn almost anything into "Otto".  I had to do the center-front-pivot with my hands down as a guide to remind her how it goes.  Then we broke off for a bit of healing.  She's just sure we should be using any prop we get close to, so they serve as good distractions.  Once we do go to the prop, she is sure we should be doing "bacon" or "table", so it takes a bit of maneuvering to get her to "pivot".  I think my biggest project this year has to be cue discrimination, since it's an issue that comes up time and time and time again.  We practiced bits and pieces of the routine some more.  I kept expecting the alarm to go off at any moment and it should have by then.  I put some effort into tightening up her "around"; and later this would lead to her checking my right hand for a treat repeatedly, but she got past it when it didn't pay anymore.  I see I've gotten sloppy about working with treats in my hands too often - need to work on this.  She's better at the inside-"spin" than the inside-"turn", yet another thing needing more work.  When I finally check my phone to see when the alarm is coming, for some reason it stopped a few seconds in, so I must have hit the button twice.  This session ran 14 minutes, which is terrible.  Actually Gimme handled it quite well.  Partly because I kept her moving and didn't get stuck in hard stuff and partly because she's getting out of Mommy-brain.

Session 2 video - Since the first session was far too long, I wanted to make this one short.  We did a run-through to music.  Gimme was startled by the guy shaking out a plastic trash bag.  To her credit she instantly went back to work.  Then the same guy wanted to traipse through the part of the room where we were working, another distraction.  He is one of the autistic kids that come to do light cleaning here (the same one that made weird noises at Gimme several weeks ago).  He did go a different way when J'Anna told him we were taping. 

After our run-through, we did a "bacon" into a chair.  This is the first high "bacon" since Gimme's discombobulation started.  I wouldn't have required her to finish with her front feet if she didn't want to.  I thought she acted like she thought it was going to hurt, but did it with just a little encouragement.  We had the follow-up with the chiropractor later and he said everything was holding good.  Our next appointment is in four weeks.  We usually space them 6 weeks apart, but thought we'd make this a little closer, in case she needs fine tuning.

Session 3 video - We started with a bit of heeling and then did 4 run-throughs.  There were things I liked about each and things I didn't like.  I ended up using the first for the workshop submission.  Overall it was the smoothest, with the least little errors.  My version of the walking weave looked the best in the second try, Gimme did a great job on the circle and thru transitions, but then I messed up the figure-8-grapevine.  She did a nice job on the center-front-pivot even though my transition into it wasn't effective.  The best thing about the third try was how well Gimme did the fancy first corner transition.  She added a spin to the third corner thru transition, but it really looked okay.  By this time she's getting a bit more insistent about treats and its creating errors.  (she's finally out of Mommy-brain, so I'm eager to get back to not having a continual stream of treats)  Gimme seemed to enjoy all this dancing.  I think it's the movement and predictability.  Here is our submission for the Transition workshop wk4 video.

Julie made a suggestion for how to improve the setup for the first corner.  Her idea was to have me do a spin before starting the backing-up pivot, since this would have Gimme's rear swinging in the direction it would need to move for the pivot.  I also thought our invented move, the Spinotto, would do the same thing.  Spinotto is a "thru", ½ inside "spin", then ½ "Otto".  I decided to do another training session and video to work on these.  I didn't get the timing right for the spin lay-up, which I asked Julie about and she agreed I needed to complete the spin before beginning the turn.  The Spinotto worked well enough, but could have been better.  The weather was nice so there were a ton of people walking their dogs and Gimme was having a little difficulty concentrating.  Training session video -   I also played with the walking weave, which just didn't look as good on video as it seemed in my head.  This was a little better, but still not what I wanted.  Julie suggested I was taking much bigger steps than I needed.

I did another training session in the house (no video) and when I let Gimme finish the spin before starting the turn, she was so much faster on the pivot.  Fast enough so I had to quit after a couple of repetitions, because she was making me dizzy!  Even the Spinotto was faster.  Then I tried training the walking weave without taking such big steps.  I had to lure Gimme through a couple of times for her to believe I really meant for her to do it.  Even though the smaller steps were a big improvement, Gimme really had backing up on her mind, so I knew I was going to need another session where she wasn't primed for backing up.  When I did do a second session, she was practically slithering through the opening.  I'm sure I need a couple more sessions to build up the "thru" bank account. 

RallyFrEe practice (36)

As I said before, this month we are doing a Transitions workshop with MDSA.  Our assignment for this week was to turn in a video of some variations of spins, circles, and throughs, toward transitions.  So my goal for these practices was multi-purpose.  First I wanted to keep Gimme busy, happy and working with focus.  I wanted to be sure to keep the sessions closer to my target time of 8 minutes.  I wanted to play with some ideas I had for the Transitions workshop.  And I wanted to do a better job of keeping Gimme moving more.  Kathy pointed out to me after reviewing videos from our last session, I tend to get stuck working behaviors and she thought Gimme needed the hard stuff broken up with more movement.

Session 1 video - We started with some heeling on the left and then switched to "side" position for more heeling.  Gimme clearly wanted to work, but if you watch carefully, you'll see she's not consistently responding to the cues I'm giving.  Much of the time she's hearing me speak and then just doing the last thing she was rewarded for.  So we did some "side" position setups and single steps of heeling to get more focus.  Whenever I could, I tried to break out into rapid heeling - which Gimme liked.  Of course, she tried to throw in a few "Otto" reps here and there.  Interesting that her understanding of "wait" was almost completely gone this day.  One of the things I wanted to include for the MDSA assignment was the move Gimme created when I was first trying to teach her an inside "turn" - so starting from "heel" position, its "thru", followed by ½ "turn" and ½ "Otto", back into "heel" position.  When she did it on her own, it was smoother, but I like it and want to keep it as a move - which we'll call Spinotto.  Catchy name, doncha think.  We haven't done the "thru-right-behind-thru-left-around" sequence in awhile, and especially the "right" and "left" (single leg circles).  So I had to warm it up before we could get the sequence successfully. 

I made a new rule for myself about how many behaviors I'd do after the alarm goes off, since my sense of time is completely skewed.  I will do either 2-3 repetitions of well known behaviors or work on 1 behavior.  As a result, this session came in right at 8:00 minutes, which is what I'm usually aiming for. 

Session 2 video - I had an idea for a handler-front-cross and dog-front-cross repetitive sequence, so we played with it.  Gimme needed the support of my hand to hold her "wait" while I did my movement.  It's not fancy, but I think it could be cute with some dance movement on my part, after we get her "wait" back.   You'll see what I mentioned before about her not really listening to cues, but just repeating the last thing she was paid for.  So after the hfc/dfc sequence, we heeled a bit and then I wanted to work on "Otto".  Given how much she loves the move, for her to not respond to the cue really surprised me.  In hindsight it's pretty clear (see below).  I gave up on "Otto" and decided to work on inside spins.  I was having difficulty getting these at home.  I'd lure the inside spin and before I could reward it, Gimme would back-spin, as if to show me how it's supposed to be done, because the inside spins are the reverse of what she'd expect for the position based on all the training we've done to this point.  By moving forward immediately, it interrupted the tendency to back-spin and got me the chance to reward what I was trying to get.  This session was 7:45.

Session 3 video - For this third session, I worked on a couple of sequences I'd thought of.  Some things are just better in my head than on the ground, eh.  Some feel okay, but then look awful on video.  Pawsabilities has some handicapped people doing simple jobs for them and at one point one of them did something to attract Gimme's attention, which she found very distracting.  I felt I needed to report it to the front desk.  I didn't report it because it was a problem for me, but rather had J'Anna been working her dog, it would not have been pretty since her dog is not people social.  I heartily support the program, I just think there needs to be more supervision for safety.  Just about 45 seconds before the end of this session, I tossed a treat for Gimme and it seemed to me she lost her balance in jumping to get it. 

Now that I have the video to review, it looks more like her rear crumpled under her.  From then until just before her chiropractor appointment 4 hours later, she was unable to lift her tail or wag normally.  The chiropractic went well and I hoped this would be the end of it.

BTW the assignment for MDSA I submitted is Transitions 2 homework video.

Freestyle Doodling and BH practice

Last Saturday was a busy day for us. 

I know I've told you I'm a member of the MDSA online workshops list.  If you are interested in canine musical freestyle, I highly recommend it.  At just $25 a year, its well worth it. 

Last month we did a tribute to our living and past freestyle dogs.  You may remember I posted this posed picture with Gimme and I "doing freestyle" and submitted pictures of Lucy and Michael.  I tried freestyle with both of them.  Michael just didn't get enthused about it, preferring the high activity level of agility.  Lucy loved learning the tricks and dancing with me, but was adamantly opposed to "performing".   Our Freestyle Journeys video

This month's workshop is about transitions and the instructor is none other than Julie Flanery (creator of RallyFreestyleElements).  Our first assignment was to post a video of our baseline spins, circles and through - from both sides.  So before heading over to the Barn Hunt practice, I squeezed in a quick session at the tennis court, where I could safely have Gimme off leash and not get my shoes soaked by wet grass.  After a quick potty walk, Gimme performed flawlessly and I thought surely this would go quickly.  I put her back in the car and set up the camera. 

For our second session, she was so distracted and unfocused.  I really couldn't understand where her brain went.  Since we haven't worked there in 6 months, I think she needed more time to acclimate.  So, in hindsight the potty walk before the first session served as a "perimeter walk". Another thought I had was, the time in the car was only a couple minutes and usually at our RFE practices in Fife, she gets at least 15 minutes down time to regroup mentally.  I should have spent a lot more time warming her up mentally, but the camera was sitting exposed in the rain and I was in a hurry (next time I'll put a plastic bag over it).  It took 7½ minutes to get good repetitions of just 6 behaviors. Transitions 1 video

From there we drove to Eatonville for a Barn Hunt practice.  The last time we trialed (Nov. 2016) I found Gimme had forgotten how to tell me where the rats were hidden.  She totally remembered how to find the rat, but thought standing in the middle of the ring barking at me would be enough to show me where it was.  Janet pointed out that its not fair to not do something for a year and then expect to come out and be perfect again.  Well duh... 

So I rejoined the practice group in Eatonville and this is the first time we've had a chance to get over there for a practice.  As it turned out, on this day Gimme communicated her finds very nicely.  I set up the camera to record a video: Second practice session.

Since its 1:20 drive each way and we were there over 2 hours, this pretty much ate up the rest of the day. Gimme was sooooo ready to be home resting with her babies.  I was myself soooo ready for a long soak in a hot bath.

RFE Practice (33)

Once I started seeing the videos other participants did for the MDSA tribute, I realized my instructions to J'Anna to keep the whole working space in the field of view made our video look very different.  So I decided to try again.  While I was at it, I wanted to add a bit more movement to my body. 

Session 1 video - I was surprised to see we worked for almost 12 minutes.  Gimme often has so much fun and is willing to work so much, that its hard to have a sense of passing time.  I see I did not do as well about not rewarding the bouncing-babe behavior.  As I said before, this is very much about changing my behavior before I change Gimme's.  Interesting she is doing better about it in some of our daily behavior.  I started with a little warm-up at heeling, attention, and then refreshed the behaviors in our segment.  I learned I've created an unintended problem and Gimme now thinks when she's in center position, paw-on-knee is always what I want.  So I worked to clarify the bent knee is the cue, not the center position; its going to take more work.  This is what happens when I make something pay so well.  So now I need to make being still in any position pay well, to make stillness equally valuable.  (there is some weirdness in the video while J'Anna moves to a different position).  I ended with trying to teach Gimme a new behavior.  I want her to circle me like "around" and "behind, but with distance.  I set up some props for her to "out" around and got mixed results.  She didn't seem inclined to stay out there and J'Anna commented how all the rewards were coming close to me - good point.  I may try this again on our next session.  I don't have enough room to do this indoors and wouldn't want to waste all the time of her searching for treats in the grass.  Though I could try using her special bowl as a distance reward point. 

Session 2 video - If I was surprised to see 12 minutes for the last session, then 18 minutes for this one was even more surprising.  The first thing I noticed was how low my jacket hung.  I wondered if Gimme would object to it.  While she seems distracted at first, I think it was really because she'd just noticed the raw steak on the counter.  Note how she very pointedly sniffs in the direction of the counter.  I reminded her what I wanted once and then she was fine with it.  I can see on the video, there are slits on the side aligned right where she would come through - certainly no more challenging than an agility chute.  We ran through the sequence several times.  I think J'Anna had the field of view too close, but will wait to see what Kim thinks.   Then we did some more work on our new "loop" behavior.  In hindsight - we were already 10 minutes into this session, so Gimme may have been mentally tired.  And I don't know what I was thinking to try to fade four props down to two when she hadn't been correct doing the four.  I'm also wondering if the jacket sleeves weren't somehow changing the look of my hand/arm gestures and confusing her.  She was clearly confused.  We did finally get some nice figure-8-sends, but not consistently.  I wanted to end on a more positive note, so I pulled in the baby chair so she could do some "bacon" to it (one of her favorite behaviors.  Note how unconcerned she is about the chair tipping a bit while she's using it. 

MDSA takes video - I ended up with 7 takes... some are better than others.  The best are 3, 5, 6, and 7.  Of them, I thought 3 and 7 were better and we ended up using #7.

Session 3 video - Because she'd already worked so long (I didn't realize how long), I wanted to make this session simple and short.  I started out with easy behaviors, ones she knows well.  Then I switched to putting some money in the being-still account.  This was only moderately successful.  I should have stopped much sooner.

Gimme seemed off today.  I noticed she had a warm spot along her spine, about 4 inches in front of her hips.  She sometimes seemed unable to focus or listen.  Some cues she knows well were simply not available today.  And I noticed at times she seemed a little clumsy and she was tending to stand splay-legged in the rear.  She also nipped my finger in the course of taking a treat, something she never does.  Being a worried Mommy, I was concerned these could be symptoms from a pre-seizure aura.

Luckily we had a chiropractic appointment today with Dr. Powell.  He found the warm spot and fixed it, along with some adjustments to her hip joints.  These together could certainly explain what I was seeing in her movement.  The warm spot is gone now.  Doc also found her atlas vertebrae was out of alignment.  The atlas vertebrae is always suspect when there are issues with thinking.  He told me there is a probable connection between atlas misalignment and seizures - its just not known which comes first.  He said the atlas misalignment could cause a seizure and equally likely, the intense physical response during a seizure could cause the misalignment.

In any case, Gimme simply loves him.  He didn't have anyone in the slot before out appointment and was sitting on the couch reading a book when we walked in early.  Gimme climbed right up in his lap.  I am so happy we found him; what a blessing...

Trying Freestyle

You've seen what we did trying doing a little bit of choreography to video a 25 second segment of freestyle for the MDSA tribute to our freestyle dogs.  I found it amazingly hard to do it.  When I redid it and tried to add arm movements, I discovered I can't actually move my arms and count in my head at the same time.  Who knew?  Of course if I was doing a real routine, I'd have the music playing and could work to the beat, but technical difficulties got in the way this time, so I had to rely on my choreography and counting.

Here is the final video.  MDSA tribute video

Gimme's segment starts at 3:45.  I hope you enjoy it.  It was certainly a learning experience for us.  In case you didn't get your Dalmatian fix satisfied with Gimme's part, Kathy has 2 segments -- Wesley (at 2:25) and Nori (at: 4:30).

Nosework (4/10)

Gimme had nosework class this morning and did a great job, as always.  Nosework really wipes out her little doggie brain for a few hours.  Usually I've been at work all day, so there is rarely time to train before class and too lazy to train at midnight after class.   So one advantage of having morning class is that later in the day I can have another training session. 

Joyce put out some really tough hides for her.  I have to say Gimme is very persistent.  I remember when she was a puppy riding to the airport, screaming her head off because she didn't appreciate confinement to the Sherpa bag.  At the time I said, "one day I'll appreciate her persistence, but not today."  Well I was right, today I certainly appreciated it.  One hide was on the wall between a rolling mop bucket and a chair.  You can ask to move things, which I did, but Judge Joyce said "no"... because at level 2, inaccessible is part of the challenge.  Gimme bracketed all around it and then just got as close as she could and streeeeeetched her neck over to within inches of it.  She might have a contortionist in her pedigree, hitherto unknown.

None of the other hides were completely different, just less accessible than usual.  One threshold hide was on the side of the metal furnace unit where all the treats are, so she was distracted and tempted by them, sniffing all around them, but not stealing.  Then finally homing in on the actual odor.  We repeated the drawer hide in a different cabinet.

I think the hardest one for her to actually find was a q-tip in a crack on the floor.  She was just all over this one section of the room, kept checking stuff around the sides and going  back and forth.  Joyce asked me where I thought it was and I said the toy bookshelf.  Turns out I was practically standing on top of it.  Since we keep moving to prevent the dog from using our location as a clue - I was pretty much dithering all over the spot where it was.  When I finally got a little off of it and it coincided with her going by, she went right to it.  Me and my big feet.

Later we did another session of the leg-weaves and figure-8-weaves.  I did randomize as I said I would and we quickly moved the mean up to 4.  I discovered I was being boring.  She wasn't all that hot about doing "thru" when I first taught it, so I went slow and unthinkingly have kept it slow.  Today I pumped it up, giving the cue for the next thru before she'd finished the last and she got into it.  She's gonna be flashy.

We also did a little more work on listening skills.  Started out well and I was pleased with what she was doing.  When I tried to do a second/different listening skill exercise, I discovered I'd used up her brain.  So obviously, on nosework day, we can only do one brain-intensive exercise.  She still wanted to train more, just couldn't focus enough for that.

I considered giving her a quick session when I got home tonight, but she zoned to nap-land awful quickly, so it'll hafta wait.

Sheer Brilliance

Certainly the title says it all.  I free-shaped a forehand pivot on "the brick" a 7" diameter octagon made of 2" thick wood.  It's painted blue and has sand texture.  Gimme is very very good at her pivot.  Tonight I decided I needed to get in gear and fade the brick prompt and get this on a simple verbal cue. 

So thinking to take a shortcut, I cut a 4" octagon of blue paper.  We did several warm up pivots with the brick, then while her back was turned I moved the brick and replaced it with the paper.  When Gimme turned toward me I cued "pivot" and waited to see if she'd make the connection. 

She looked at the paper, looked at me, looked around and spotted the brick on the arm of the couch where I'd laid it.  She jumped on the couch, knocked the brick to the floor and then neatly did the pivot where it landed!

I've always said you have to be smarter than a dog to train one... with this kid there are definite times I wonder if I measure up. 

Anyway, this weekend, I'll cut a brick out of 3/4" thick wood and some thin panelling and get them painted.  While I'm painting, I'm going to paint some sandpaper too.  So I'll be able to fade from the brick to a thinner and then thinner one.  From there to sandpaper bricks, in gradually smaller sizes.   

I will save all these, because I really want to get the forehand pivot in the other direction, as well as rear pivots.  Meanwhile, I'll continue pondering my place in the universe.

Busy Girl

I've come to the realization that I'm just going to have to keep a separate calendar for Gimme's schedule.  I keep running into conflicts between what I have planned and what I want to do.  I feel like a soccer mom who is desperately trying to keep up.  All Gimme wants to know is whether her new purple leash is in the car and do I have enough cheese.

We've been keeping busy lately with a little bit of plinking here and there on different training things.  A lot of focus is going into nosework... which is how I discovered the calendar double booking.  The trial I planned to go to in April is on the same weekend as the Sdao/Pouliot seminar we are signed up for.  So now am looking at a couple others - March or June, both in Oregon.

We are playing with the Project behaviors again - which we haven't done since October.  I have been working off and on with the target stick "wait for the cue" and its coming along.   I still haven't fixed the "apple" box, so that will have to wait. 

Grape - dead bug (on back, feet in the air)

I wanted to do this since I now have interlocking floor matting to cushion Gimme from the hard floor (and provide better traction for other things). Since we haven’t trained this for three months and since it wasn’t on cue when we left off, it took awhile to get Gimme back to offering it. Even though she has been doing the Grape in my lap when she wants attention (which started 4 days after we let Michael go). She offered me a lot of "pretty" instead (we’ve been free shaping this), got frustrated and barked some. I kept clicking a "down" and when she was solid on that, I started clicking for movement while she was down. Finally in frustration she did a movement that was almost a grape and she got two treats. Next thing I knew she was throwing a LOT of  grape behaviors at me. I started putting it on cue and will continue in the next session. She sure is cute.

Melon - push cube with nose

Again a project behavior we haven’t done in three months. Gimme knew what to do the moment she saw her cube. There was a short bit of skiing on the cube and batting it, but she settled down to using her nose very quickly.  I started putting it on cue and following our earlier Grape session, she seemed to understand what I meant. She was even pushing it with her paw or using her mouth to get it out of corners and away from the walls so she could then push it with her nose AFTER I’d cued "melon". Smart cookie.

My friend loves to alter pictures and such and add sayings and stuff... so I usually get things from her that have pictures of Gimme that she's taken before.  Just got this one...

Breakthrough Imminent?

We didn't train yesterday because Gimme up-chucked in the car on the way home.  Obviously I didn't want to fill her up with treats.  She seemed a bit "off" for a couple hours, but then got back to normal. 

Tonight we did another session on scent discrimination.  It went fairly well.  She brought me an unscented tin a couple times, but mostly got it right.  At one point when she brought me an unscented tin and got nothing for her efforts, the next time she went back to the pile she spent a little time sniffing the correct tin and one next to it.  As it turned out she brought me the wrong one, but at least she is using her nose to try to sort out the difference.  I realize she was likely just trying to smell a hint of food, but all the same I figure a breakthrough is imminent.  Its only a matter of time until she realizes what the difference is.

We also did some heeling and front stuff, mostly the same things we did the other day.  She didn't do nearly as well as she had then.  That's not unusual for her.  She often follows a really good session with one that is several steps backward.  I'm not sure why that is, but I don't worry about it anymore. 

Her learning pattern usually contains fairly steady progress followed by a leap forward and then her version of a plateau, which is several steps backward.  I've never had a dog that does it that way - most seem to have a plain plateau, whereas Gimme backs up a few steps.  Then again, I've never had a dog that takes such large leaps in performance.  If I factored those out, perhaps her progression is more "usual". 

Unless I miss my guess, she will have another session much like today's and then the next session after that will either resume steady progress or take another leap forward in understanding.  It is what it is.

Happily using the little gates really helped her "around" behavior (clockwise circle around me ending up in heel position) - its been nice and tight ever since we did that.  Now its time to work on "behind" (counter-clockwise circle around me ending up in "side" position).

Cool Happening

It was a long weekend.  Went to my parents' yesterday afternoon.  Then drove them to Seattle (they don't drive in Seattle and seldom at night) to meet with my brother, Sam, and his family.  We did some light sightseeing (my Dad can't do much) and then headed out to dinner.  My other brother, Mark, and his girlfriend Dana joined us for dinner.  It was fun and there was a whole lot of laughing going on.  By the time we got back to Auburn it was almost midnight.  Spent the night and then joined Mom for church this morning.  I was going to help her get her tree up, but basically the afternoon got dawdled away.  I made them a big pot of chili for supper before leaving.  Just got home an hour ago.

Naturally the dogs didn't get to do much and spent far too much time crated.  When I got home here, Gimme was fit to be tied and wanted ATTENTION.  So I decided to do a training session with her.  I had thought before I might do scent discrimination tonight, but since I wasn't sure how focused she would be, having been cooped up so much over the weekend, I decided to hold that until tomorrow.

We worked on the forehand "pivot".  I've worked on it several times recently really reinforcing the front feet on and tonight she finally seemed to understand I really didn't mean for her to put the back feet on at all.  She's gotten so reliable about keeping the front feet on during the pivot execution, so I started putting the cue on it.

Then we did some heeling work.  She was already getting the 90 right pivot, but the last time I tried to pivot left, she wasn't getting it, so I moved on to other things.  She really seemed to get it tonight that if I pivot in either direction, she can swing her butt and stay in heel.  Now all the sudden, its like she invented it.  One of the things that has been hardest for her is staying in heel for the first couple of steps.  So tonight I did a couple of one-step-halt and after the first one she got it.  She claims she invented heeling, but I seem to recall hearing someone talking about it before Gimme was even born.

After that we did some front work.  I could leave her on a stay and walk away, stopping either with my back to her or side to her, cue "front" and she did a very credible job of getting into front position.  Once I tweaked my own treat delivery it got even better.

I was mighty happy with all that and yet it was clear that Gimme wanted to do more, so I decided to do some of our nosework homework.  I have to confess I haven't done any nosework outside of class until tonight.  But I know we need to do a bunch of it to get going on the pairing of the level one odor with food.  I shut Gimme in the office, got our tin and a treat, put them in a shoebox and hid it in the walk-in closet off my bedroom.  Here's where it gets cool...

When I let Gimme out of the office I gave her our nosework cue "where-zit".  She had come out bouncy and ready to play and when she heard that she paused to look at me as if to say, "you mean it?"  Then her nose instantly and OBVIOUSLY went to work and it took her no time to find the hide in the bedroom.  I really didn't think she'd learned that cue and was assuming she knew what to do in class based on the location.  So to see such an demonstrable understanding was just waaaaay cool. 

We did three more hides, one in the bedroom, the bathroom and the living room.  It was really neat to see her look for them and find them.  Her nosework scenting behavior is getting clearer for me to see, which is also waaaaay cool. 

This nosework is lotsa fun and I highly recommend it.  Gimme seconds that recommendation.

Plan Change

Only a small part of this entry is about a change of plans, but I have to call it something...

This first video is our first session with many tins.  Overall Gimme did about as I expected.  Based on what I've been reading, I was intentionally letting her see me put the scented tin down.  However, in this particular session, I don't think it helped her.  The reason was, I think, my choice of treats.  I was using popcorn and she is just crazy about that stuff.  So I think the possibility of the popcorn was distracting enough that she wasn't focused - especially as compared to previous sessions.  So we won't make that mistake again, though I'll continue to use popcorn for other things.  I like having so many tins, since I don't have the non-rewarding aspect of not taking the tins when she brings them to me.

The second video is the second session today on "pivot" (the camera didn't record the first one).  Based on what I was seeing when I edited this video, I've decided to abandon training the rear pivot ("twist") until I have this on cue.  Then I will also probably go on to teach the forehand pivot in the other direction, which I'll name "tivo".  (chose that name because it uses letters that are in its companion behavior)  The thing I was seeing that got me thinking this way, was her tendency when frustrated or unsure to start putting her back feet on.  In the video there's a fair amount of bouncing back and forth between front and back feet.  Since I'm trying to teach her to use her front feet in a specific way during this behavior, it means I have to withhold clicks for what she may think is a good enough version.  When that happens, I don't want her just throwing some other behavior at me.  After "pivot" is on cue, I'll start on "tivo".  Then later after "tivo" is on cue, I can start the pivots on the rear ("twist" and "twirl).

Of course I hadn't really come to that decision until I did the editing of the pivot video, so I have this short video of the last (for now) session of "twist".  At times I think she is getting the idea and then I don't.  Since the camera angle provides a new perspective, I see two issues.  One, when I do resume training this, I really will have to put up the mirror so I can see that both back feet are on the brick.  Two, I think I also have to do a session or two of just rewarding her putting both back feet on, to get that behavior more solidly.  And three, I've got to do something about the brick sliding all over the place.  I have some scraps rubber shelf liner, so am going to glue that to the back of the brick, as well as some other platforms.  That way they will stay put and when I get this floor refinished, I won't have to worry about it being scratched. 

A confession:  I have had more difficulty with teaching Gimme to refrain from jumping on people than any dog I've ever owned or worked with.  Its clear in watching her that she really does try to be good and stay down, but then people start petting her and its more than she can handle, so she jumps up out of exuberance.  She really loves people, so I don't want to dampen her enthusiasm in teaching her to keep four on the floor.  Add to that the frustrating tendency for people replying to my instructions not to let her jump up with, "oh, its okay".  She's so dang cute that many people really encourage or, at the least, don't discourage her. 

I have friends that have worked with her, following my instructions, and it just doesn't seem to sink in.  This week I decided to try something a little different.  Given how quickly she learned to come to me when she sees bicycles, I'm taking the same tactic with people.  When she sees a person, I call her to me and give her treats until they pass.  Then if interaction is mutually desirable, I'm at least there to reward her when she has all four on the floor. 

What was so incredibly cool was seeing the light bulb go on - flashing brightly - when she realized, see people = go to mom.  The first time you could see the light, she ran up to and around a stranger, then looked at me and came running for goodies.  Then he wanted to pet her and she got lots of treats for four on the floor.  The next person she saw, she went running toward them, then stopped and looked back at me, then came running.  The same thing for the person after that.  My non-dog friend that was walking with me even recognized what she was seeing as Gimme "got it". 

She's such a smarty...  I love seeing her figure things out.

Because Talent Knows No Bounds

Awhile back I talked about Gimme's forehand pivot behavior... don't recall if there was a video or not.  I don't have one on file, so probably not.  Here is a video composite of two short sessions.  I was trying to get her to both start and end with her front feet on the brick and I do think we are getting there.  I want this to be a true pivot on the forehand and especially don't want it to to devolve into a spin in place.  I started by withholding the click until she got her feet back on the brick after the pivot... very quickly she figured out to keep them on to get the click and treat faster.  I also talked before about holding off putting a cue on this behavior, since I'd planned to name it "get in" and realized there was a conflict with another cue, "get it".  I was going to rename the "get it" behavior to "yours".  However, in the meantime, I've discovered that that cue is too entrenched, so decided to go with "pivot" for this behavior.  In editing this I was doing some slow forward and noticed there are places where she is actually crossing her back feet.  I never expected to see that.  Enjoy my cutie...

As much training as I do with her, she's still bored.  I've just learned that hunting season goes through the end of the year.  Arrrrrgh.  So will have to use the local walkway until then.  We are having a really wet spell locally - landed over an inch of rain in last twelve hours.  It rains a lot here, but often it doesn't really get going until afternoon.  Of course, that doesn't apply to the last 48 hours where it hasn't let up.

I've also just started working on teaching her a rear pivot, which I'll call "twist".  It takes her a bit to drop the insistence on a forehand pivot.  That will probably go away once its on cue.   It may be a bit too soon to start this since I don't have the forehand on cue yet, but I figure she needs a bit of a challenge to puzzle through. 

She goes through several interesting concepts here - what she believes I may want vs. what I actually want.  First there was – pivot then walk your back feet onto the brick. Then the same behavior with a barking embellishment. We had a few times when she thought it was put the back feet on, then back up until the front feet are on the brick. You can’t always clearly see what I’m clicking – in addition to back feet on, any sideways movement from the front feet. Often there was a backward component to that – so I tried to click where the sideways was the more prominent movement. She moves so dang fast, its like clicking a chicken and unfortunately that means I miss good opportunities or am late. Gimme holds strong opinions (boy I totally get that, doncha know) and she gets frustrated when I don’t click when she thinks I should. Barking is her default expression for frustration during free-shaping only (for which I’m eternally thankful).

BTW have emptied and washed up 6 Altoid tins.  There have also been some interesting follow-up posts about the method.  I'm eager to get back to it.

Today's Training

Since our schedule has been off for the last couple of days, I decided to do a couple short sessions today, even though Friday is normally our day off.

I started with "around" using the guides.  As soon as I set them up Gimme jumped in (edited out).  I was sure she'd be eager to get in there when she figured out that was where the rewards happened.  I opened the guides and had her go out and re-enter, wanting to reinforce how she should enter.  This session was really short - only 7 click/treats.  Do note two things... first, she never left until I indicated the session was over (unlike prior sessions) and as soon as we were both in the circle she started moving around me.  I think the idea of the guides is becoming clear to her.

This next session is a bit of target stick training related to waiting for the cue.  The idea is to present the target stick and give her the cue.  Then toss the treat and wait before giving the cue.  If she comes back and touches right away, I do nothing and just wait her out.  The moment she pulls away, I give the cue and reward her for doing the behavior with a click/treat.  This is something I think I am slow to do and the video confirms my impression.  If I give the cue and she doesn't do the behavior in a reasonable time (for now I count five) then I am lift the stick out of range to indicate a loss of opportunity.  I also lift the stick out of range when she bites on it, which still seems to happen a lot, though it is diminishing.  At some point I can also start clicking her for not touching the stick when she begins hesitating more often.  I think her touch-touch-touch and then sitting is an indication that she is starting to figure out the game.  There are clearly some missed opportunities during this session; Gimme will just have to figure it out in spite of me.

Then we did a bit of noodling about stays and heeling around food on the floor.  I haven't done it for quite awhile and obviously we need to go back to it.  It wasn't training so much as testing. 

Because life isn't exciting enough around here... now that Gimme is coming out of season, Meaggi has decided to give it a go, for the first time in several years.

More Guides

Its been a busy couple of days.  I was invited to a Veteran's Day celebration in Auburn that was set for early today, so we went up last night.  We were supposed to resume nosework classes last night, but our instructor had to make the decision to euthanize one of her old dogs and obviously wasn't up for class.

Today after the celebration, I went back to my parents' and performed some minor repairs.  If only I could get them to stop trying to fix things themselves, it would be so much easier not having to fix a twice-broken.  After that Mom and I spent a lot of time burning brush, getting kindling made, yard winterizing and other outside tasks.  I'm very tired. 

Gimme was her usual angelic self...  She had her first experience seeing fire and found it spooooooky.  Naturally within minutes she was acting like an old hand and swore me to secrecy (I had my fingers crossed behind my back).  Her help with the brush burning (stealing many of the things I was trying to get into the fire) was, shall we say, less than helpful.

Here I have two clips of training with the guides.  The first one is practicing the "around" behavior (clockwise circle around me).  Gimme still tries to jump out now and then (edited out of this clip), but I'm encouraging her to come back in and believe that will fade once she realizes that inside the circle is where the rewards happen.  You'll notice the first click it looked like she was thinking of jumping out, but since she had moved in the right direction, I preempted her exit with the click/reward.  I think I may have pushed her a bit too much for more and that caused the barking.  You'll see I was able to demonstrate spinning the opposite direction and it didn't faze her at all.   Note: This was only 8 repetitions, but when I watched the timing... it slowed down between reps after the fifth one.  Again, I see evidence that 5 good repetitions does seem to be optimum for Gimme.

This second clip is a short sample of how you could teach the dog to go around the cane.  I've edited this down to just the best repetitions.  I realize it was far too soon to introduce Gimme to this idea (I just did it for demonstration purposes), since she'd only had two sessions with the simple "around" using the guides.  The first thing she did was get "stuck" sitting and I used a click of her stretching her neck out to get her moving.  Once we got past that, she seemed to think I was shaping her for position relative to the cane.  I can see in the video that I missed a few good click opportunities.  I used treat delivery to get her past the hump to move between me and the cane.  Clearly Gimme hasn't made the connection to moving in a circle inside circular guides.  Still once she figured out what I wanted, it seemed to go well, which I think bodes well.  Do note that her tail never stopped wagging, no matter how confusing she thought I was being.

We have a lot on our plate for the weekend.  I plan to drive to Elma and let Gimme watch some agility from the stands after class on Saturday.  Then on Sunday we are going to an obedience/rally training session where you can buy personal ring time (PRT).  I'm buying 15 minutes and have asked them to break them down into three 5 minute sessions.  After that I plan to come home and do some winterizing of my own yard.

Monday is the one year anniversary of my nephew Josh's death.  Its going to be a hard day. 

Freestyle Seminar

The weekend proved to be a real learning experience and not just about freestyle.  I learned just how much seminar excitement Gimme can handle and what the best way is for her to experience it.  After how well she did at the agility seminar this summer, I expected her to be able to handle this better.  But in hindsight, there are several notable differences.

• agility seminar was outside, this was inside
• at agility seminar I was able to position us further from the other people/dogs and still be able to see and hear everything that was going on
• about a dozen teams at agility vs 20 teams and 10 more auditors at the freestyle seminar
• at agility only one or two dogs were out of crates at a time; here there were often all 20 teams out at once
• agility seminar was quieter overall
• this weekend she was in season - obviously not by plan, having come in almost a month early

By the end of Saturday Gimme was just about shut down.  I had tried hard to keep her up and happy, but it wasn't working well.  I made big changes in how I handled things for Sunday and it worked much better.  At the end of Saturday I was about ready to cancel our working slots for the seminar in April.  At the end of Sunday, with the changes I made she did much better, so knowing that she won't be in season again, I decided to let things stand.  However, I do plan to email both seminar presenters (Sdao and Pouliot) and ask them some questions before I make a final decision.

I was really disappointed in the people attending this seminar.  Many years ago when I was taking Michael to freestyle seminars, people were much more respectful of others' space needs.  Most people back then were fairly novice dog owners, whereas this group was more experienced owners.  I asked the seminar host to make an announcement and remind people to be more respectful of other dog's space needs, but it didn't seem to make any impression.  I repeatedly asked people to keep their distance and not crowd us.  Only two people got the idea that I was asking for consideration for the weekend, not just a few minutes.  Other people I had to remind over and over and over again.  I asked one lady to move herself and her dog so we could get to our crate, explaining that we needed more space.  She moved and then moments later walked her dog within inches of my crate with Gimme in it.  Fortunately I happened to have Gimme distracted at that moment.  I really had the best spot that was available - had anyone shown even a smidgen of common sense and courtesy. 

Naturally I think the person who allowed their dog to pee on my cooler, which was sitting next to my car -- well that's just well beyond R-U-D-E...

I chose to work off to one side during the working sessions and gradually got further and further away until I could find a place where Gimme wasn't too distracted by the other dogs and yet not too close to the food tables, which she also had a huge interest in.  Unfortunately this meant we got ZERO personal attention from the seminar presenter, Julie Flanery.  Ordinarily I think Julie is very good, but a couple things conspired to make this one the least positive experiences of the several seminars I've taken with her.  The fact that the seminar was being taped made it a logistical pain.  Also almost all the exercises for the second day were geared toward people with much more experienced dogs.  Since that wasn't made clear in the information about the seminar (and since I expected her to run the seminar as she had in prior ones), I don't think we got our money's worth as a working team. 

Since I'd paid to be a working team, I made the best of it.  I worked on as many of the exercises that we were supposed to be doing as I could.  But once I hit a snag, without any help, I couldn't go any further.  I learned between day one and two a bit better how to "read" Gimme and know when she is done.  She is not obvious in the way she shows it (remember what we went through when we were taking classes with Ursula and she had the false pregnancy to go through).  For much of the time we worked on other things, things I knew Gimme could do getting a high rate of reinforcement, so she was having a positive experience.  On the second day I kept her out in the car when she wasn't working, except for one brief time in late in the afternoon.  Often this meant by the time I went out to the car, got her "dressed" and got back inside, the working session was half over. 

Still, for all that, I learned a lot.  Julie has some interesting new ways to teach the freestyle staples in ways that the dog learns very quickly and so can get a higher rate of reinforcement while they are learning.  She makes these "guides" out of ten 12" x 12" grids (the ones you normally snap together to make little shelving sets), put together with zip ties.  Using those the dogs learn some really quick concepts, so you aren't teaching the same thing over and over, just using a different "prop".

For instance, if you set up the guides to form a circle and stand in the middle with the dog, you can just wait and the dog will move around you.  Click and treat that and soon the dog will really be going around.  Within two or three sessions you'll have a very solid behavior that you can put on cue.  Then you can do it again, but position the dog facing the other way and since the dog already knows the concept of moving in that circle of guides, you can get the other direction on cue even faster.  Then there is always backing up in each direction.  You can stand outside the circle with just one leg in and the dog will quickly figure out to move around that one leg.  Or stand outside the circle with a cane held in the middle of the guides and in no time you'll have the dog going around that too.  As you can imagine, there are any number of things you could teach the dog to go around in very short order.  Develop a routine that has a prop you need the dog to go out to and circle around - no problem, you can teach the concept to your now more experienced dog in a single session and that's likely including a cue. 

The beauty of this is that there is no luring that has to be faded later and its faster than free-shaping, because the dog learns that the guides in a circle mean one thing.  And in particular, for getting the dog to move around one leg, since you aren't luring or using your hand target, you aren't leaning over the dog, which means you aren't crowding them socially while trying to teach them something.  The guides can also be used to form a channel, a u-shape or a v-shape and any number of other configurations (limited only by your own creativity).

We did our session at the seminar in a 36" expen, since I wanted to be able to have Gimme off leash and know she wouldn't jump out.  Here I have a short video of a session that we just did with the set of guides I made.  You'll see that Gimme jumped in and out a couple of times.  I think she felt crowded because I hadn't made her circle big enough.  You'll see that she stopped jumping out and was more conformable moving around after I make the circle a little bigger.  She even tried backing up, she does love moving backwards.  To stop her all I had to do was briefly step back so I was in her way.  Sadly the camera battery died so you don't get to see the end of the session.  Another thirty seconds and she was going around me in one direction while I was spinning the other way.  It never occurred to her that there was anything for her to do other than continuing in a circle, something that often happens when you try to teach this part of the move without the guides. 

Gimme already knows "around", but its not very tight.  So I'll be interested to see if using the guides makes it a cleaner move.

A Big Fat Negative

Gimme finds being in season a big fat negative.

She's not getting the walks she's used to, adding to the frustration she feels. Last time she was in season we were able to go to the fort's training areas for our walks. However, its hunting season. The last time we were there, on a day when the area was supposed to be "open" for general recreation, we found deer entrails from a fresh kill. Clearly someone isn't honoring the schedule, so to be safe, we won't go back until hunting season ends.

The local place we walk is pretty busy with other walkers, bikers and dogs, so I only feel comfortable using it at its least busy times, given Gimme's "condition". Unfortunately it has been raining every chance I had to get there during quiet times. Today we got a walk and Gimme practically split a seam trying to check out everything at once. She was noticeably happier when we finished.

I was going to give an update on the whining front, to say how much better she is doing. However, that progress has evaporated since she's been in season. She was only a little worse until the day we were heading home from the bank and there were two deer trotting up the sidewalk. I guess they know its not safe in the woods. There's a small green belt near here, but they were several miles from any place they could be living. They didn't seem too concerned about their new digs. Gimme, however, was very concerned and has been on deer alert every time we've been in the car since then. This too shall pass.

To keep her happy and entertained I've been trying to get in some extra training. I haven't done much with the fruit behaviors. Instead have been trying to put together some behaviors for our freestyle seminar weekend. We've got some cute stuff. Nothing ready for cue attachment, but good enough that I can get the behavior when I want it.

We continue to work on backing up. I taped two lines on the hardwood, making about an 18" wide corridor. Gimme didn't seem to be making headway with that and was clearly frustrated. I don't think the tape stripes were noticeable to her, so it wasn't clear enough and the reinforcement levels were falling off, dampening her enthusiasm.

Since she is very comfortable with backing up to a target from the apple behavior (back into a box), I decided to use that. I got one of my small rectangular platforms and quickly shaped her to put her back feet on it. Then I moved further away and after each click dropped the treat in front of me. After that she would back to the board. Right now she is at a stage where she is backing up so fast (and verrrrry straight) that she is overshooting the board. I'll try to get this on video.

She has a very sophisticated awareness of her back feet. Its interesting how the fruit behaviors I picked were things I chose because I didn't want them to resemble any "important" behaviors for later… and yet, the dividends from them keep growing.

The weekend should be interesting. Julie Flanery is the seminar presenter and I know her from past seminars. It should be really good from that aspect. I don't know how well Gimme will do, since her emotions are really right at the surface. My independent girl becomes very needy when its "that time".

I talked to my veterinary and given Gimme's history with a false pregnancy before, he wants to wait three months after she comes out of season before spaying her. That will put it about mid-February, which is right at 18 months, the time I was aiming for.

Copier Pictures

I've already sent off the 4 best pictures from the 9/11 photo shoot.  I had to tidy the office before taking pictures, so it looks better than any time in the last five years.  Of course now I'm sneezing my head off from stirring up all that dust. 

Gimme was very good about getting into position and sitting there waiting through all my picture taking nonsense.  She really does have an excellent sit-wait.  In the first picture, Gimme is patiently waiting after I pushed the button for the copier to take the picture of her cute little tushy...

In the second picture, she is clearly impatient to see the final results and is actually watching the paper come out of the copier.

Afterward I spread her pictures out on the floor and let her look at them.  She spent quite awhile examining them, before tearing a couple to shreds.  I should have gotten pictures of her doing that.

There's another picture I would have loved to get, but needed someone to take the picture... I didn't want to risk Gimme breaking her stay and jumping off to get to me since its a long way down.  I may get that picture some day, simply because Gimme is so photogenic and it would be a cool shot.  But obviously not until I have another set of hands to take the picture so I can make sure she stays safe.

I have a great Halloween costume idea for her, but was too busy with other things to get it done.  Maybe next year.

We've only done a little training in the last couple days since I was fighting a cold and needed to work some extra rest into my days.  The second session with the target stick went really well, so I attached the cue.  Next time I'll start working on the exercise that I learned from Ursula.  I'll try to videotape it.

We have a working slot in a freestyle seminar next weekend.  I have been so focused on the fruit project that I wasn't even thinking about it and now here it is almost upon us and I really haven't taught her any of the behaviors I wanted to have ready. 

So, I'm also using free shaping to teach Gimme to back away from me.  The hardest part seems to be getting her to understand that I want her to go straight away from me.  On the hardwood floor, I lined up with the strips and started by clicking any time she kept one foot between the strips, then two and finally three.  Still, I'm not sure she is getting the idea and it was kinda frustrating for her.  So I'm going to lay down two strips of duct tape to form a corridor for her.  Then as she gets the idea I can cut away at the edges making the tape narrower and narrower to fade it.