Nosework (3/15)

Class tonight was good.  Gimme peed on the exterior for the first time in a long time.  I'm not too worried - since the dog that went before her peed, so that's a factor.  Of course, that could happen in a trial.  Its very hot today, so the dogs are drinking more water... thus increasing the likelihood of peeing.  Other than that, Gimme did a nice job.

Her paw indicator continues to be more moderate and improving all the time.  So much so that Joyce even noticed and commented on it.  She asked what I was doing to change it.  When I started to explain that I held off doing anything to change it until I could think of a reward-based answer, she agreed saying coming up with non-punitive ways to train things is very important.  I guess she's forgotten all the times she recommended correction.  In any case, she has now noticed and complimented my results.  When the process is all done, I think I'll write it up and share it online. 

I spent the weekend at my parents and did some training.  I already taught Gimme to "touch" my hand with her nose pretty much anywhere I offer it to her and I wanted to introduce an "up touch" for heeling.  I tried working with this at my parents' and it started out well, but then fell apart and Gimme got really frustrated and spent a good deal of time yelling at me (i.e. barking loudly).  I had to end the training and making her lay down to calm herself.  I realized later that she had every right to be frustrated.

When she was beside me in heel position and I put my hand out with my palm parallel to the floor, she did fine.  But then I wasn't focused on what I was doing (showing off for my parents doncha know) and I let her move in front of me, then the hand was no longer parallel to the floor or even fingertips toward the floor - which is what she is used to seeing for "touch".  Instead my hand was at an angle with fingertips upward - essentially the same cue I give her for "high", "five" and both for "ten" - which is what she was offering me.  So when I wasn't rewarding what she was giving me for the cue - she had good reason to tell me off.  She's never been bashful about speaking her mind, eh.

Later in the motor home I did the up "touch" right and she was fine at it.  We also practiced "high", "five" and "ten" correctly.  Gimme was no doubt pleased that I'd come to my senses.  We also got in a lot of "front" practice.  On Sunday we did some shaping of her backing her feet up onto a stool while Mom was at church and I was staying with Dad (he was napping).

I love that Gimme provides commentary on our training (especially when I'm not doing it right).  I think people who are still using compulsion would hate it though... they want compliance no matter what.  I'd hate to think I'd confused the training by forcing compliance when *I* was the one in error.  Gimme keeps me honest and makes me a better trainer.

BTW we are still fighting the battle of the fleas, but improving.  I'm down to finding about one a day.  I think they've gotten into the upholstery and area rugs.  So I treated them all with Diatomaceous earth.  Tomorrow I will clean out the car in preparation for the weekend and will vacuum it and dust all the carpeting, around the crate and her crate bedding with Diatomaceous earth.  For awhile she was getting hot spots and hives in reaction to the fleas.  Given that I picked 37 off her in 2 days... I think her body reacted allergically.  I gave her a maximum dose of Benedryl for three days, reduced dose for one day and one last dose this morning.

Benedryl does affect their scenting ability, so I was glad to see that she could search good today.  We are trialing on Sunday, so want her off it well in advance of that.  Gimme is still itchy, but at least there are no more hives or hot spots.  I'm putting hydrocortisone on any of the extra pink or itchy places once or twice a day.  Now that its evening, we'll sit down to watch a movie and she'll be belly up in my lap so I can gently rub the itchy places.  She always likes to do that in the evening, but particularly now.

Well, tummy duty calls me...

Seminar and Public Dog (13)

We had a two day seminar this weekend in Corvallis Oregon.  I drove down Friday and came back Sunday night. 

 

Debbi Decker was fun, nice and entertaining.  That day was mostly about clever ways to teach tricks, though nothing really "exciting" (I'll describe them in the blog).  She relies a LOT on luring, which isn't my favorite way to teach things and not as useful for Gimme.  Kris Hurley on Sunday was all about Mental Management ("With Winning in Mind", Lanny Bassham), though that was only mentioned in passing in the seminar promotion materials.  She's about to become a certified MM instructor.  There were no exercises with the dogs - or even with people, even though it was advertised as a working seminar for people.  I guess she thinks a 6.5 hour "discussion" qualifies as a working seminar.  It was okay, but I wouldn't pay money for her again.

 

It worked out great for us because the seminar was in Julie's new building with 5000 sq ft usable floor space. Early sessions only had 5 dogs out at a time.  I used wire guides to make a reminder barrier, so that other teams wouldn't unintentionally encroach on our corner.  Also, I told the instructor we'd signed up for a working slot when Gimme was doing much better, about our recent regression, and to please look for us in the far corner.

 

We started the day by walking the grounds and coming in before others arrived to work on focus. She wasn't worried - just distracted. So I worked with her until I was getting good check-ins and cue responsiveness.

 

During the seminar, Debbi came to us last for each session, by which time I had already done a lot of "whazzat", so Gimme was focused and working.  Debbi was really impressed with how smart Gimme is and had a lot of nice things to say about her, calling her "exciting" and "gorgeous".

 

For the 3rd and 4th sessions, there were 8-10 teams on the floor and Gimme  was still able to work nicely.  It was a little harder for her, so I made it a point to cue "pretty" (a sit up "pretty", as opposed to stand up "dance") and then rewarded her with PB.  I've been using the PB to get her to hold the position with the intention of building her core strength.  With regular treats its hard to dole them out smoothly and she has a greater tendency to try and grab my hand with her paws to steady herself.  Plus she's not as inclined to work hard like she will for PB.  So in this case I was able to get two benefits from it.

 

During one of our sessions in the building we were doing LAT and I noticed that Gimme had stopped turning her head all the way to look at the dogs when I cued "whazzat". Basically she was looking at the wall behind and to my right and then looking at me. I immediately thought someone was *sneaking* up from that side and turned to look. Instead I discovered my little canine genius was using a wall mirror and dog reflections to play LAT.  She's always been fascinated by mirrors and particularly likes to pose in front of them and admire her lovely self. She'll even turn so she can admire the other side of her lovely self. So she obviously knows what they do - I just never thought she'd be aware enough conceptually to use them in that way.

 

We skipped one session because I found her sound asleep and I didn't have the heart to wake her. Then for the last session when I brought her in, she wasn't nearly as focused. A couple of teams were close... though not any more than had already happened. I saw her getting stuck and even with helping her get unstuck, she couldn't work for the cheese. So I worked through her slow and minimal behaviors to a known cue until I got a good response and then rewarded with peanut butter. Cued it again, got a faster and better response and I rewarded her heavily and headed back to the car.  It was particularly helpful for me to have looked at the descriptions in what I was writing and to distil it down to a short list of clues that she was reaching her limits.  Having just done that, when I saw two things from the list, I immediately recognized it and changed gears. 

 

One thing I noticed when she was getting a little stuck was that when I touched her she didn't turn to me right away. She's so tactile and normally responds to any touch by turning to see what she can get from it. So, I decided to play with that during class today, where she was immediately responsive to it every time (even for the poodle - see below).  I will try it in other situations to see if its consistent that she doesn't respond quickly when she's concerned.  If so, it may be an easy "test" for when I suspect the environment is getting to her and before it other clues become evident. 

 

In hindsight I should have let her take the rest of Saturday off when she slept through me walking up to the car the first time (she's "psychic" and usually wakes up when I even *think* about getting her). Still I found it encouraging that she was able to work through it...

 

Interestingly, after noticing the difference in her evening behaviors last week... Friday night when we arrived at Motel 6, she was calm and barely noticed the motel noises. She'd lift her head and softly wuffed once or twice. On Saturday, she was much edgier and barked several times. I went to bed leaving the TV on to obscure much of the hotel noises, turning it off at 3am. So I think evening behavior will be a consistent after-the-fact assessment of how well I managed her exposure during the day. 

 

On Saturday night when Gimme was alerting to motel noises with alarm barking...  one of the times I said "what's that" after she bounded off the bed to the door.  Instead of continuing to bark as I tried to cajole her to stop (as I had the other times), she immediately ran to me with a change of attitude, thinking I'd cued "whazzat" (which is why I picked that cue). It worked in the morning too...

 

I got "Through A Dog's Ear" CDs from the library and thank God I did instead of spending money on them.   For one thing, I didn't notice any measurable improvement for Gimme.  And equally important, I found them intensely annoying. I kept waiting for the next note and it was like Chinese Water Torture, just exhausting...  I may consider getting a white noise machine or a small CD player and some white noise type CDs, for when we travel.  And could use it here at home when she's had a stressful day.

 

For today's class, she did pretty well.   We were in the park, so it was easy to move around and use space effectively.  She was whining a lot, but I took it more that she was wanting to be "doing" something rather than stressed.  This class tends to include a fair amount of standing around and that frustrates her.  Once we started really working the dogs, then she got quiet and worked well.  I did notice that she often was watching the dog that came late (small poodle) keeping one eye on it almost the whole time.  The poodle did look in our direction a fair amount, so that could have been part of it - it could also be sudden environmental change, because of them joining our group so late.  She responded instantly every time I touched her, so I'll watch to see if that turns out to be a good test for us. 

 

Ursula saw her flirting with Tor (Alaskan Malamute) and she has always been more comfortable with him.  So Frank and I are going to try to get together to go walking together, maybe Friday.  She needs more opportunities to walk with dogs that are well behaved.

For class on Thursdays (and all classes in the building) I have pretty much decided to continue grabbing the area that has the the only separate door to the outside. I'll also take the expen and stretch it around our space, enclosing the door. I can park my car right outside the door, backing in, so I can use it as a station as well as having her matt inside.  There are also visual dividers that I can set up as needed.  My initial approach was to start in the building and then leave for breaks... but that didn't seem to work well enough. So now I'm going to flip that and work outside and then dip in for short times, building up from there. Which of course, in hindsight makes perfect sense. Far better to start from a calm place and add small amounts of challenge than to start in a pressured place and try to relieve it. Duhhh...

 

Also I've been thinking I should try DAP again and see if its beneficial.  I tried it and it didn't work when I was trying to solve her car whining, back when I thought it was a stress issue.  Perhaps that wasn't a fair test, since I later realized its anticipatory whining, which is a rather different thing.

Public Dog (7)

I tried giving Gimme some Rescue Remedy before class today and it seemed to help.  She still wasn't her usual brilliant self, but she was able to focus better and at times did very well.  We lucked out that the co-instructor was gone this week and only 4 of the 5 dogs scheduled for class showed up.  Plus we had a huge park to work in, so it was much easier to adjust distance between Gimme and the other dogs. 

We did a lot of check-ins, pretty much any time she seemed unable to do more.  Also we practiced our loose leash walking... not getting very many steps at a time, but at least no hard pulling.  She was distracted with lots of sniffing, so I focused on making sure that I clicked when her nose was off the ground and the leash was loose.  

She seems uninterested in Tor - probably because he's so big (Alaskan Malamute) and always fairly calm.  Max is a big black Schnauzer-mix and is sometimes reactive, but usually good.  Gimme is fairly comfortable with him.  At one point he was laying down and his owner was standing talking with Ursula, so I eased closer and told Gimme to "chill".  We started about 12 feet away and gradually got to about 8 feet.  Then Tor came up and joined our group in the shade, about 15 feet away.  At that point Gimme got up and re-positioned herself so she could watch both of them and in doing so, moved closer to Max who continued to ignore her, so that she was then about 6 feet from him. 

The only dog she didn't like, indeed none of the dogs like him, is Bo.  He's a very stressy yellow Lab, who is always whining and fussing.  All the dogs seem to be uncomfortable with him to some degree or another.  They act like he's contagious - though in reality I think they are trying to send him calming signals and he doesn't seem to get it.  Gimme always knows exactly where he is.  I told Ursula about a stress-support supplement that I just learned about and she's very interested in it.

I came upon this quote by Walt Disney:

“I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true.  This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence.”

That to me sums up the attitude we most want in our dogs -  curious, confident, courageous, and constant (faithful, dependable and steadfast), and the greatest of all is confidence.  You really only get that kind of attitude with consistent positive reward training. 

More LLW

Today we went to the lake again and practiced our LLW...  Before we started the program I described... it took 1:05 minutes to get around the lake, because of how many times I had to stop, every time she pulled.  Today, at just our 3rd practice it took only 50 minutes!!!   Clearly that is a dramatic difference.

We've started videotaping the practice runs we do when Mary, Susan and I meet for nosework.

Threshold 1:  These threshold hides were done inside the quilt shop where Susan works.  She brings her dogs in on training class days and they spend the day in the shop, so Grafton and Gimme found it very distracting.  Here, you can see how distracted Gimme is, how she doesn't start searching until about 35 seconds into the video and then around the 40 second mark - a dramatic change of behavior when she caught the odor.

 

Threshold 2:  I am using these practices to introduce controlled levels of restriction.  Enough that she notices it, but not so much that she is getting frustrated.  At the last practice I did containers and an exterior on a 6 foot leash, which isn't nearly enough.  My plan is to mix it up and carefully nudge her into accepting these things.  I don't know if I'd ever hold her at the threshold in a trial, since there might not be a threshold hide and I'd be wasting time.  But I do want her to get used to looking around the threshold.

Threshold 3:  You can see that by this third search she has lost interest in the distraction of the environment and is all about the search.  Verrrrry nice!

Threshold 4:  This is a particularly hard search, as we discovered when we ran it.  All three dogs had a lot of difficulty and when I did the wet-finger test, I discovered the air was not moving at all.  So the dogs had nothing to go on until they happened to get their noses close to it.  Also, this is the room where the dogs spend the most amount of time, so it is more distracting.  Again she gets in odor at around 40 seconds... but then leaves it to go behind me and hit again on the odor from our third search (55 seconds).  Even with all that, she found it in 1 minute.  We want to do this search again, off leash as an interior search and see if the dogs ever get back to that hide and how it works for them.

Threshold 5:  For the second set of 4 hides we were experimenting with how the dogs did if we moved in the room with them and then just kind of kept them in the area.  Grafton and Tucker both improved noticeably, Gimme didn't seem to care.  You'll note a dramatic behavior change when she catches odor at the 24 second mark.

 

Threshold 6:  She did much better this time... a litte blasting in and then coming back and just nailing it. 

Threshold 7:  She was clearly distracted by the yelping of the puppy behind the door right at the start line.  Still it was a good solid search and I was very pleased that she was able to leave that level of distraction. 

Threshold 8:  Remember this is the room where the dogs spend most of their time when they are there and its also the hide where there was a real dead zone with no air movement.  You'll notice I was basically trying to use my movement to keep her in that space.  25 seconds was a very nice time for that level of difficulty.

Containers 1:  Starting from the approach end, bags 1, 2 and 3 have food distractions, 4 is a blank and the 5 has odor.  Gimme does a very nice change of behavior around 18 seconds on the odor bag.  You'll note that I wait for all four behaviors - sniffing, sticking, pawing, and looking.  Its what she does on containers, but not for any other element.  Also note that I keep walking around her when she sticks on a container, until I get the whole package.

Containers 2:   Starting from the approach end, bags 1 and 2 have food distractions, 3, is odor, 4 is a blank and 5 has food distraction.  Again I wait for the whole package; she's very consistent.  Keep in mind this is not an indication sequence that I taught her; rather its what she does and I observed her to discover it.  She's really getting good at not buying into the distractions.

Containers 3:  The bag nearest the edge between pavement and gravel is odor.  The small one with the handle is blank and the other three have food distractions.  You'll note she gets quite persistent with one of the food bags, but she never looks up at me.  She knows I'm not going to help her get it so there's no point in looking at me.  And, once I walked all the way around her, I was confident she was "goofing off" and called her away from it.

Our next practice will be back at the closed store.  We will probably repeat the exercise Joyce did with us last week, but will use the rock wall so it can be more spread out.  We'll always do containers.  Susan and Mary can't be there on the same day, so it'll be two practices for Gimme.

Nosework (1/13)

Class met outside a recently closed store.  Joyce repeated an exercise from months before.  Using a large metal clothing drop-off container, she placed 4 hides on it.  The hides were spaced about 4 feet apart and we were to approach from one end.  On that end the first hide was 4 inches from the ground.  The next hide was about 18 inches off the ground.  Then one at 3 feet and one at almost 5 feet.

The idea was to not let them pass the hide they were on (1, 2, 3 or 4) more than about a foot.  Once they finished with a hide, they were to be restricted to half the distance between it and the next and no more than a foot past the next hide (essentially 3 feet).

What Joyce wanted us to do, but didn't explain in advance was to repeat the nose touch and multiple rewards at each one, just like we'd done last week.  So the first few of us found out we were doing it wrong in the course of doing it and being criticized.  I told everyone who followed Gimme and me what was expected, so they had that advantage.   In Joyce's defense, her 92 year old mother has congestive heart failure and recently has declined substantially, so she was half expecting "the call".

Gimme did not respond well to this exercise.  She did well for hide 1 and pretty good for hide 2.  But, after that, the restriction of only having three feet to move in just really annoyed and frustrated her, so she stopped searching and resorted to "lying" to me instead.  That means she would pick something and paw at it, trying to convince me there was odor there.  Fortunately I've seen this before and so I understood what was going on - the key element is that she stops sniffing and just starts using her feet.  I don't think Gimme got anything from this exercise, but we'll be trying it again.  The other dogs did better with it, since they are all slower moving to begin with, so the leash restriction didn't really bother them.

The second search was a very large exterior under cover, with three hides and one food distraction hidden in a cinder block.  We knew where all the hides were, but were told to act as if these were blind hides.  Gimme did very well at this... she just went from one to the next to the next and never went anywhere near the food distraction.  I was very pleased with her efforts and she was certainly happy to get to search more normally.

Susan (with Tucker) and Mary (with Grafton) and I have committed to get together once a week to practice nosework.  For instance we are meeting after hours this Friday where Susan works, using the building for a bunch of threshold hides and then a container drill in the parking lot.  Next time after that, I think we'll meet at this same closed store location.  There is a 200 foot long rockery wall, so we can repeat this exercise, spacing it out.  With that much room we can probably set up a dozen hides along the wall and fifteen feet apart.  Some other time we can meet at the same location and do vehicle searches on the six semi-trailers parked end to end.

On Sunday we met in the afternoon at this same location and did a number of container drills with the food distraction.  Tucker gives whole new meaning to distracted - he tries to pick up the container and drag it off.  I stood on one end of the most delicious bag a few times; we finally resorted to putting a cinder block in that bag.  After several container searches, we did one exterior search in some cabinets sitting outside.

Susan has her work cut out for her because of the trial.  Purposeful food/toy distractions at trials are supposed to be inaccessible, but Tucker was #28 out of 34...  Somewhere along the way the lid came off the plastic container holding the muffin, inside the distraction bag.  He was able to get his nose in the bag and swallowed the muffin whole.  Needless to say, Susan was quite upset and also needless to say, we have a real challenge now that Tucker believes food distractions can be had with the right amount of effort.  He's so "vigorous" that my usual snap top disposable plastic dishes won't hold up - so I'm going to be looking for some sturdier stuff.  He's entered in a trial next month... so we really have to get him over this before then.  So no matter what else we practice - we will do container drills every time.

By the way... last night was agility class again and Gimme did well.  I got stuck in traffic and didn't get there in time to walk the first course, so we were not smooth.  Of course, lack of adequate direction is not Gimme's fault.  But we got through the course and she had some fun.  I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating - she is so fast and fun.  She manages to make challenging weave entries with no help from me - she totally gets that part of her weave job.  If the entry was hard she often can't hold onto the weaves and pops out around the 5th pole, so we have more work to do.  Still, she gets the whole package on the second or third try.

The other challenge we had was that she again decided she couldn't take the first jump at an angle.  She doesn't have any problem when she approaches jumps on a slice mid-course.  We ran into this once before... mid-winter and had to break it down for her then.  We haven't had an angled start like that since, so I'm sure that one experience wasn't enough to cement the lesson.  The really nice part was that once we broke that down... she was doing a fast two jumps into weaves... where she nailed the entry and held on for the whole 12 poles.

We spent our turn just doing those three obstacles, so Blynn had me find something else fun to do while the bars were being reset. 

So I selected a straight tunnel to L-shaped tunnel where I used the body of the L-shaped tunnel as a layering exercise.  The first time I sent her into the blue tunnel and ran ahead to position H1, cuing her to "tunnel" as she came out of the first tunnel.  I wasn't surprised that she took the path shown by the dotted line.  So I repeated it, this time running to the position shown as H2 and naturally she got it.  The third time I went back to the H1 position and she totally understood.  Since I'd never even thought of doing that with her... I was very pleased that she totally got it after just being shown what I wanted one time.

She's a smart cookie, but then we all knew that...

Nosework (5/12)

Joyce did come with an exercise for food distraction that was different than what I'd heard and have been doing.  We set the food distraction exercise inside the building for Gimme and Tucker (both trialing NW2 this Sunday - do cross your fingers for us).  Outside we set up a regular box container exercise for the other dogs (one is trialing NW1 this Saturday).

The food distraction exercise inside the building was set up with about a dozen containers, two with odor and no food distraction.  Then the room dividers were pulled across the room dividing it in half and another drill was set up on the other side that was another dozen containers that had food in most of them.

The exercise was to bring the dog into the first side (with the odor containers) and let them find both odors.  Then you move through the dividers into the other side and the dog sniffs them, but isn't permitted to "linger" too long by gently pulling them away or jiggling the leash.  After the dog is less distracted by the food distractions, then you move back through the divider and work to find the odor containers again.  Gimme was very good at this and I was sure glad we'd done all the work on it before this class.  There is no way that one exercise would have gotten her ready for the trial this weekend.

After we'd done that search twice, our third search was to do the outside boxes.  Gimme was just coming from her second inside search and was thrilled to see all the boxes.  She started searching and picked the wrong box and I called "alert".  It was actually quite a ways from the correct box, so I'm not sure why she thought it was correct, but her indication had all the features I look for, so I think it was a genuine error.  In her defense, it was a pretty strong wind and the odor box had been down no more than a minute.  I encouraged her to try some more and she did.  Then she picked another wrong box, which was actually right next to the correct one and again I called "alert".  Then she got really frustrated and started just trashing every box, one after the other, without even trying to search (not sniffing them).

After the fourth trashing in a row, I took her out of the search area saying "that's enough" to her, walked to the other side and restarted her.  Joyce expressed how happy she was to see me "finally correct her for something".  After the search where we were able to settle down on the right box, Joyce and I talked.  I explained that I only removed her from the search area because she was no longer searching as evidenced by the serial-trashing, thus she needed to be restarted.  Joyce says it would be perfectly "legal" to be presented with a bunch of boxes at any level of container search, so she thinks I should correct her by removing her from the search area any time she trashes a box (even if its the right one!).  She did admit she hadn't actually seen an all box container search for NW2 or NW3, but it could happen.  Personally, I don't think it would be fair to suddenly start correcting Gimme for trashing boxes, and certainly not the odor box, especially given that she has been allowed to trash boxes until now.

Joyce and I are clearly not on the same page.  I have explained my philosophy to her so many times, but she just doesn't get it.  I want to protect Gimme's enthusiasm and confidence in every way I can, while gently nudging her into better search habits.  Gimme enjoys any training/work and given the choice would be doing much more (darn that pesky day job of mine).  She is enthusiastic and confident... as evidenced by her ability to do a hard exterior search (at converging odor seminar) that lasted well over 7 minutes.  Most NW3 dogs won't persist that long if they don't find odor and I think I have every right to be pleased and proud of that kind of attitude.  Joyce's priority is that Gimme learns to be "efficient" and she's inclined to use corrections (a/k/a punishment) if need be.  That's just not going to happen while I'm at the helm.

I told Joyce - again - that until my nose is as good as a dog's and I know for sure what Gimme is smelling, I'm not going to correct her for a mistake.  Joyce said that Gimme has too good of a nose to be making mistakes.  Seriously!?!  Because she has a lot of innate talent, she can't make mistakes?  I find that an utterly bizarre line of thought.

So anyway, I've been pondering why Gimme got so frustrated.  I don't think that search was really too hard for her.  I also don't think that coming from the indoors exercise was too much for her.  I do think the excitement of seeing the boxes could have been a factor in her initial error, but not by itself enough to cause the frustration that led to serial-trashing.

Then it occurred to me as I reviewed it over and over and over again...  I think Gimme believes "alert" is a verbal click and when she didn't get rewarded the second time I said it, she got frustrated.  And as we know, frustration is her Achilles heel.  Up until now, she has almost always gotten her goodies right after hearing the a-word... so she has every reason to expect a treat after hearing it by her understanding.  It was never my intention that she think it was a verbal click, but logically with its usage, that's a fair conclusion on her part.  I tested that theory by saying "alert" to her awhile ago and sure enough, she whipped around with an expectant expression. 

So from all of this I see three training issues that I'll want to address (though, naturally, not until after this weekend):

1. Undo "alert" as a verbal click association.
2. Desensitize the distraction potential of a field of boxes.
3. Teach a new behavior that doesn't include trashing boxes.

This is how I propose to cover each issue:

Undo the "alert" as a verbal click association

• say "alert" frequently when not near NW practice or stuff, so it looses the association
• in practice or class use another word in place of it, such as "tree", "ball", "truck", "popsicle", picking a different word each time
• use "alert" only at trials, which will be infrequent enough that it shouldn't be a problem

Desensitize the distraction potential of a field of boxes

• when setting up container practices for myself, set up a field of boxes nearby
• first set them up on the far side of the container exercise
• later set them up closer and/or walk near them on approach to other containers
• goal is to walk through boxes on the way to search other containers
• then mix in higher and higher number of boxes with other containers

Teach a new behavior that doesn't include trashing boxes

• teach her a "perch" behavior where she puts two feet on an item
• use non-box items to start, like a bucket or stool
• transition to boxes that are unlike nosework boxes
• do the behavior on nosework boxes
• when its solid, put odor in a box and when she indicates, cue "perch"

also...

• put trashing on cue - its like the scratching for doing her nails
• set her up with situations where she can have the fun of trashing - like all the boxes that come into my life that have to be cut up into small pieces for recycle

Nosework (4/12)

Tonight we had class in a realty office downtown.  The hides were more like NW2 level hides and as always Gimme did well.  She was very busy, but found all the hides and fairly quickly.  Nothing about the environment fazed her at all.

An interesting thing is that her tendency regarding paw alerts in classes is much more forceful than what she does in practices or at seminars, matches or the trial.  I just took a few minutes and looked at the vehicle and interior videos from the match.  Then I looked at all the lengthy videos from the converging odor seminar.  In doing so, I verified that my impression matches reality - Gimme's paw alert on the videos is well within the acceptable range.

I freely admit her pawing on containers is over the top and I do realize that we'll probably get a fault for it.  But, the rules say we can only be assessed one fault of a fault type, per element... so even if she assaults each odor bag and/or the distraction bags, its still only one fault.  You can have three faults overall and get your title.

Joyce is practically obsessing about it and the more she obsesses the worse it gets during the space of one class.  Which leads me to believe that its something about the class situation that exacerbates Gimme's pawing tendency.  The two possibilities I see (probably a bit of both) are:

• Joyce talks to me while we are searching, thus distracting me so that I'm not as responsive - so Gimme dials it up a notch to get my attention.  No one talks to me at trials and I'm able to focus on every nuance of what Gimme is doing.
• The things about class that annoy me make me tense, which Gimme senses, feels frustration and reacts by going over the top.

In any case... I came home and did a little exercise with Gimme.  I got out odor in a menthos bottle and presented it to Gimme and then "yes" marked her paw and gave her cheese.  We did it over and over and over again.  As long as I was holding it, there was a paw and hold.  When I put it under my foot, there was mostly paw and hold or two whacks.  When I tried it in other places - she started getting wound up and pawing more, so I stopped.  She often finds repetition a bit frustrating and thinks that if a little is good, more is better.  I'm going to set up some more exercises of this type.  I'm not really worried about it, but it never hurts to cover something.

BTW there are now three of us in the upcoming trial (someone dropped out and that opened up a spot for another gal from our class to get in).  Joyce instructed the three of us to email her before next week's class and tell us what our biggest concern was for the trial and that she'll plan the class around exercises to address them.  Seriously!  The week before a trial???

In my experience of years of agility competing - one thing I learned is that you NEVER introduce something new or change something the week before a trial.  Fortunately Gimme and I have been working on my greatest concern for a month... so it won't be new and different for her.

Tormenting Gimme

Gimme has real difficulty with frustration and, like most Dalmatians, with distraction too.  I think these are her Achilles heel and I expect we will need to work on them throughout her life.

When I talk to people about Gimme's issues with frustration and distraction, I notice a disturbing trend for some to assume I am just making excuses and avoiding the issues, while not trying to do anything to train through it.  That is not the case - I work on this a lot.  I work on them in targeted exercises and training specific to those issues.  At the same time, I am sensitive to Gimme's needs as well as my overall plan and long range goals, so I manage her exposure to frustration and/or distraction when that is not the thing we are working on.  My preferences is to work on frustration and/or distraction in planned training that addresses them directly, not as a by-product of other training.

Case in point - nosework distractions.  I discovered back at our first ORT that our instructor's advice at the time was counter-productive.  Since then I have intentionally ignored distraction and thus avoided frustration.   We had and still have the time to work on this and don't need to rush to meet some arbitrary timeline.  I had a plan when I changed gears and started ignoring distraction and I still do.

My instructor's recent advice was to use timeouts when Gimme is distracted.  I find that troubling, especially since the week before she told me she thought Gimme "lacked confidence" regarding nosework experience.  I realize that timeouts are pretty mild as punishment goes, but it is still punishment nonetheless.  The nature of punishment is that it operates like a shotgun, suppressing many behaviors in addition to the one you are aiming for.  I'm not inclined to risk using punishment, no matter how mild, in the context of nosework and possibly diminishing Gimme's enthusiasm for the game.  I remain unconvinced that the abstract characteristics that identify container searches (items on the floor in a line) and vehicle searches (wheels on things) can be easily understood by dogs.  Therefore, I can't in good conscience punish Gimme for something she may not have the cognitive ability to understand - that just isn't in my definition of fair.

My plan is to continue what I'd planned all along and described in last week's nosework post.  We'll be leaving in a few minutes for class and it'll be interesting to see how much Gimme retained.

Also, I thought I'd describe the fun way I've been tormenting Gimme - with training goals in mind,  working on her listening skills and learning to deal with distraction/frustration.  I'm using her Kong ball, which she looooooooves, especially when filled with peanut butter.  Whenever I have possession of Kong-ball, she finds it very hard to listen because she's so jazzed up and distracted by the possibilities.  So while she's very distracted and frustrated - she is also highly motivated to win.

I've gradually made my possession-of-the-ball more difficult, as follows:

     ball on the desk - PB in reach in kitchen

     ball on desk - PB right next to it

     ball with PB in it on desk

     next step will be ball in my hand with PB on the desk

     then ball in my hand with PB in it

     then on the floor, etc.

I've also carefully increased the difficulty of the cued behaviors from simple single behaviors to a sequence of four behaviors.  I went to four because she was giving me the Kmart version (cheap imitation of the real thing) and then running over to her ball.  In a word, she was making her own decision about when she should get rewarded instead of listening for the click.

We play this game when I am doing something else, like getting dressed in the morning or folding clothes.   If she gives me the right response first time to the cue(s), then she gets the ball to enjoy.  If she is wrong, I go put on my bra.  Next, pants, next shirt, sock, other sock...  or I might fold another item of clothing.  Between each of them she gets another chance to get it right.  She IS getting better at this.  In the context of this game she is learning to deal with both the distraction that the ball presents as well as the frustration of not getting the ball when she makes mistakes or when she thinks she should.  Its hard work to focus through those, yet she's having fun and is motivated and determined to win.  I sure enjoy seeing her progress, which makes it fun for me.

One interesting thing I've noticed since we started doing the sequence of four behaviors, is - whether she is successful or not depends partly on how I say the cue.  If I say the cues with a bit more emphasis, she is more able to hear and focus.  I'm not talking about yelling or even speaking loudly, more like the difference between "down" and "Down".  I'll be looking at that more in the next few training sessions.

Whatta Day & NW (3/4)

Today we had our first private agility lesson with Daisy Peel.  Wow, what a jam packed hour and Gimme had a great time.  At times when we got talking about stuff, Gimme would wander off to snoop around the arena, but when called, she dashed back for more fun and excitement.  We packed more learning into that one hour, than we got in the five private lessons with our old instructor.  I like how everything is approached and the thoughtful and fun way Daisy builds a foundation. 

It was challenging and yet the goal was always for Gimme to think she was training me.  Just what Gimme needs, a whole bunch of new ways to teach me to play her game and give her rewards.  You gotta know she loved that!   Now that Gimme is "all growed up" we can focus on agility; its gonna be funnnnnnn.  I sat in the car after the lesson and wrote up four pages of notes, leaving with enough plans for the next several months.

I know I always say Gimme has no fear, but seriously - the kid has no fear.  She hasn't even been on a teeter yet and yet nothing about it bothered her.  Gimme was thrilled to create a new game, crash-the-board-down-and-make-a-big-noise.  Woohoo.  Of course I had to explain that Gimme thinks that helicopters are her friends because they listen and obey.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was a complete absence of sentences that go, "You've done a great job with her, but..."  Naturally those kinds of sentence always ended with a litany of what I'd done wrong.  I was always taught, that in a sentence that contains the word "but", everything before it is negated by whatever follows.  If you watch how people structure sentences with "but" in them, you'll see what I mean - that rule holds true 90 percent of the time.  "He's a really great guy, but we didn't click."  Translated means, "I have nothing in common with him, he's a moron and you are welcome to him." 

Instead I heard a lot of, "That's good.  The next step is...  Here's how to do it."  I am sooooo pumped.  I'm excited to get going on stuff and looking forward to our next lesson, which is months down the road.  Gimme is going to be a very fast agility super-star. 

Unfortunately the rest of the day didn't go as well.  I spent 3.5 hours trying to help my parents get their riding lawnmower into the truck.  We were not successful.  <sigh>  It's a long and frustrating story, which I won't go into.  Hopefully the tip I got from the guy at Home Depot on my way home from nosework will prove to be the solution.   I'm going to call in the morning and have Mom see if she can find the "thing" on the back that releases the gearbox.  Cross your fingers.

I was really looking forward to nosework class; howevah...  While Gimme is still doing great, as I've mentioned before Joyce just does not seem to retain what we talk about from one week to the next.  Tonight was the fourth time we've covered the same information and, since I was tired and frustrated (having just driven in from the mower fiasco) I'm afraid I was a bit short in my reply. 

To make it worse, she doesn't read Gimme well - I know I've said that before.  It may not be her intent, but it seems like she doesn't think I know my dog.  For instance, I think Joyce sees Gimme's tail wagging, and thinks she's not frustrated.  Not!  On the ORT video, where she clearly was frustrated, she wagged her tail the whole time.  She was even wagging her tail when she turned back to snap at the leash and when she was reared up on her back legs trying to get to something.  If Gimme is awake, her tail is going. 

I also think she's misreading Gimme's expressions - tonight I saw her shoot two looks of annoyance in Joyce direction when she was trying to attract her attention to a different area.   Whoa, that's not something I normally see.  Perhaps Gimme was tired too -  having come from that agility lesson and then a long day in the car.  I know I was tired.

She's only had half a dozen vehicle searches, including the match and the one practice I did at Shopko.  So she may not have caught on to the idea that if presented with a vehicle there is nothing else to look at.  Gimme is easily frustrated (she is, after all, still a baby) by being "made" to stay by the search stuff (vehicle and container searches is where this comes up).  Yet, if I let her squirt off and quickly investigate something that catches her attention and then gently reel her back in, she isn't frustrated and goes right back to work.  If she gets to snoop briefly, then she is satisfied and able to turn her full attention to what we are doing.  Given how enthusiastic she is about her nosework and how incredibly fast, I don't think there is any reason she can't have a few seconds to check something out.  I believe she will grow out of it.  Even if she doesn't, with her speed, I can readily afford a few seconds rather than frustrate her.  I've already seen what she does when frustrated (our first ORT attempt) and that is not an experience I want either of us to repeat. 

I wish could make this clearer to Joyce - perhaps I should remind her of what I'm doing before we start vehicle or container searches. 

Nosework (5/3)

Class tonight was very interesting. I realize now that Joyce doesn't quite "get" Gimme. She talks about her reactions as if Gimme is a sensitive little wilting flower, instead of a tough little tomboy who is also the Empress of the Cosmos. She is sensitive, but to frustration, not other stuff. She doesn't get her feelings hurt, she gets annoyed (read that royally p.o.'d). We talked a lot as a class about the ORT.

Joyce was much more focused on handling and teaching our dogs to commit to odor and stay there until we get there and pay up. She hasn't pushed that in the past.  I wish we had worked on it sooner - especially before the ORT. She did say that her students that failed all had fast dogs and/or were testing two odors. So tonight we did a lot more moving around the dogs and were not quite as fast to pay up, letting them wait a second first.

So while we were working things, I kind of did what made sense to me based somewhat on Joyce's comments mixed with my own understanding of Gimme.

For instance, Joyce commented that when dogs hit the end of the line it feels like a correction, so we should be going with them. Of course, even with my longer than usual line (25ft), Gimme can hit the end in a nanosecond. Joyce is always saying I have too much line; yet, I find it very useful because I can play it out to let Gimme check out something briefly and then reel it in as she turns back to me. I looked at the video again and each time when she snapped at the line was just after she'd hit the end. Joyce thinks the unintended "correction" hurts her feelings and undermines confidence... my take is that it annoys Gimme and is frustrating to her. Snapping at the line is her way of telling me to get with the program.

The other issue at the ORT is that Gimme wanted to check out the room and I stubbornly stayed near the boxes and wouldn't let her go. Joyce still thinks I should keep her near the containers and not let her snoop, and kept telling me to move her back tonight. Given how easily frustrated she gets, I've decided to use that long line to give her more freedom, and then gently keep reeling her back to the boxes.

So tonight I really focused on my line handling. I let her have more freedom to snoop around the perimeter even though we were set up for a container search and when she'd turn back in my direction, I gently reeled her back. I also made it a point to keep tension on the line as much as possible, so if she did try to squirt off in some direction, she was getting the sensation of a steady pull as the line slid through my hand, not a jerk when she hit the limit. My impression was that Gimme seemed more content with this way of doing things.

When we had the threshold hide, I let her go a bit further past it and then gently used the line to encourage her back toward it. She did a really nice job.

I also talked to Joyce about how much freedom I have at an ORT or a nosework test to do management things once we enter the search area and before the search starts. Turns out I have more latitude than I'm used to from other sports. As long as I don't hold up things, I can use the time walking to the start line to play "whazzat" with her and I can be rewarding her as I go. So that would help to prevent a buildup of frustration and perhaps lessen her need to snoop once the search starts.

We can hold them behind the start line for up to ten seconds. Before I've just been holding her for a good long pause and then letting her go. Tonight I counted to myself "one-banana, two-banana, three-banana..." I couldn't stand it and sent her to search after six-banana. Ten seconds is really a very long time.

After class I explained to Joyce what I was doing and why I might have seemed to not being paying attention to some of her direction during class. She understood and said it was worth a try. In an ORT I could certainly let Gimme snoop, realizing that I'm on the clock and eating up time. Which, fortunately isn't an issue with Miss Gimme, the Nose That Knows...

A funny from class - Gimme's nosework search cue is "wherezit". So tonight after she found one of her hides and Joyce had set another, I gave her the cue and one of the girls in class started telling me where it is. We've been in class together all along, but this time I happened to be pretty close to her - I guess she'd never noticed our cue before. We all got a chuckle.

We came home and did a nice session on some skills. I am still seeing that Gimme just doesn't want to give up control of behaviors. Once they are on cue, she still wants to get paid for offering them and finds it very frustrating that I'm so obviously failing to live up to her understanding of how the world works.

It must be hard to be a genius surrounded by such gross ineptitude.

Bummer ORT

As you may have gathered from the title - our ORT attempt was not successful.  I am soooooo glad that Susan brought a friend who was able to tape our run, since reviewing it multiple times makes things clearer.

What you will see is that Gimme was distracted throughout.  Early in her search she does sniff the correct box three times very quickly (the third one on the line closest to the camera position), but then immediately moved on.  I wondered at the time if that was it and almost called alert, but then she moved on so quickly I thought maybe she was just catching a breeze of scent.  You will notice that she never goes back to it.  Later in that search as she is moving down that line again, she actually steps away and avoids that box.  If I had called alert sooner we'd have gotten our ORT, but I don't think that would have benefited us in the long run as we moved into trialing... since this has pointed out some holes in our training.

Anyway, she finally goes to another box and is all over it, pushing it around the floor like she usually does - so I called "alert".  That was incorrect and we are then directed to the correct box so she can be rewarded at it.  You'll see how excited she gets when she gets rewarded there.

BTW in NACSW lingo, this is not called a "false alert" or a "failure", but rather a "miss".  Ya gotta love politically correct stuff - felt like a failure to me.

After looking this over (several times) and reviewing recent events, I have some ideas about what went wrong to conspire against us here.

First, we've never done a blind hide (where I don't know the correct answer).  I don't think I did anything wrong in my handling to pull her off and I don't believe I'm helping her in other instances.  What I do think this shows is that Gimme has a different idea of what she is doing.  When I didn't rush in to tell her that she was right, she moved on.  She is normally more persistent in class/training and I think I need to build on that persistence.  In class and training I am there very quickly (as fast as I can be and yet not so fast that I'm coming in too soon and not waiting for her indication).  In this case, with the distraction and my not being there instantly, she decided that wasn't it after all and moved on.  I think the fact that she tried showing me a box that was obviously not right, shows that she was toying with the concept of maybe just acting like there is scent there would work. 

Second I do think she is experiencing some frustration now that things are a little harder, though certainly not too hard for her.  On Wednesday our first hide was at threshold and Joyce wanted us to keep them on leash and in the vicinity until they found it.  Because Gimme was persistent in her interest about the food kept there, Joyce moved in and stood there blocking her access.  That put Joyce really close to the hide - adding social pressure.  Gimme wasn't concerned about Joyce, but I can't help but wonder if that experience paired the feelings of social pressure to what was already a frustrating experience for her.  Thus when she was frustrated by my staying close to the boxes today... perhaps it just added up.  Three times I saw her turn her head and snap toward the leash (only one of which shows up on the video) and that is something she has done before when were are working on LLW and she gets frustrated.

And last, this was not a great week for our walks.  Our last two walks (last Saturday and then Tuesday) were shorter than usual because my knee is giving me problems.  We would normally have walked again on Thursday and Saturday.  Thursday I ended up working an extra long shift and Saturday it was raining.  Besides which Tonya didn't wanted her to have some rest time for a few days after her treatment yesterday.  So that adds up to her being more restless than usual and thus more subject to distraction.  She was more distracted this time than she was when we were at this location for the match early last month. 

So this shows us training holes: 

• I've got some ideas of how to set it up so that Gimme learns to be more persistent, demonstrating the courage of her convictions, until she convinces me that she KNOWS she is right.  I'll also talk to Joyce about ideas she may have. 
• Also we need to do some blind hides.  Susan said she'd be willing to do them with me.  We can set them up for each other and videotape each other as well.  So I'll contact her and start adding a few of those into our training.

In the category of lessons learned:

• I need to be certain that Gimme gets enough physical outlet in the days leading up to a trial/test so she can be at her best.
• On a positive note I did remember to park further away and was able to get Gimme to do her business before her test.

I'm trying to have a positive attitude about this "miss".  Still feels like a failure to me, but at least I have a fair idea of what went wrong and a training plan.  I'm going to enter her right away for the ORT on April Fools Day in Oregon City, Oregon.  If we don't pass that one, we have to wait until September for the next one.