Clove ORT

We awoke at the crack of dawn (mostly because of the tree removals and resulting sun shining into my eyes)...  I puttered around the house and tried not to get nervous, then we headed out.

Naturally when I went to put Gimme in the car, she was limping on her left front.  I almost didn't go, but rationality prevailed.  I figured it was only a ten minute drive, so we could easily bail out if she continued limping and didn't want to play.  Where the yard-guys have been removing the blackberry overgrowth, there is still a lot of bramble pieces on the ground and that's right where she goes to watch me put stuff in the car.  So I was hoping that she had just stepped on a thorn.  As it turns out, when I got her out for a potty break 30 minutes later, she was fine.

We got to the site early enough to get one of the very few shady spots.  The grounds layout was nice and they had set up two canopies for queuing up, with chairs, water, shade and visual blinds.  From the time we arrived until we pulled out was less than 90 minutes.

Gimme didn't seem very interested in the practice boxes, but finally deigned to indicate one.  Once she realized that I had really big hunks of juicy beef heart - then she was more motivated.  As we walked in the search room, she looked around and then strained forward and I let her go.  She trashed the second box and looked up at me to see if I would call it and pay her, but as I stepped past her to start my walk around her she left it - so that told me it was a fake-out.  She stepped on several boxes in passing; she just likes doing that.  Then she trashed another box in the right-hand row, but quickly left it.  She went down the left-hand row and paid almost no attention to any of the boxes.  Then from there she went back up to the end and demolished a box, sticking it while I walked around, so I called "alert".  All that sounds like a lot of stuff, but it only took 20 seconds!

Demolition Gimme Strikes Again!

Peggy was the judge and commented that I "need to work on that", referring to the serial trashing of boxes.  Actually we have been working on it and she is getting better.  At her first ORT she killed six boxes in addition to the odor box; at the second ORT she killed 4 in addition to the odor box.  So only killing 2 extras is a huge improvement.  We are continuing to work on modifying her alert so that its a little less "vigorous", with more of a paw-and-hold rather than scratching.  I'm ready to start working with some boxes, but held off on that until after today.

I was going to take Gimme out to the fort to run, but forgot to take my cellphone with me.  Then we got home to find a full crew of guys continuing the work on the yard and they had a gate open to load the brush for removal.  So, that means Gimme can't even be out in the yard and she's not too happy about that. 

Attention & NW (6/14)

I decided that I want to walk all the rails-to-trails in both Thurston and Lewis counties.  So, yesterday I started with the beginning of the Western Chehalis set.  We didn't get very far because Gimme was so distracted and unfocused.  She just had the worst time even trying to do something that resembled LLW.

Partly I think that has to do with two things that happened at home.  First a deer walked through the yard, hopping over the 4 ft fence like it wasn't there.  So I'm sure Gimme smelled the intruder and possibly it made her more intense about the rural smells.  It probably doesn't help that she hasn't been out to the fort to stretch her legs and run around in a week and was very cooped up for most of the weekend.

Then before we left, Ted came over and was working on some of the projects I have going on.  I don't think I've mentioned that I'm having the house painted, along with a lot of other exterior work.  The power washing and house painting hasn't bothered Gimme, probably because it is so quiet.  But the tree removal and tree topping are pretty noisy. 

In any case, practicing attention exercises is our big focus right now.  Tomorrow I plan to do another Attention O.T.R. to see if she is getting it.  Some things she seems to pick up pretty quickly - others seem pretty sketchy.

Since the last class I got in a late entry for an ORT this Sunday.  I wasn't originally planning to do it, but its right here in town, so I figure I may as well.  We do need to get Clove out of the way.

Tonight was our last nosework class for this session. Joyce set up a container search using clove, an exterior search with three hides and a vehicle search with one hide.

Gimme did very well with the container and clearly knows what to do when she smells clove.  I feel really confident that we'll get the ORT.  She did bust the stuffing out of several boxes.  I have been working on moderating her paw indicator, but its just in the beginning phase.  I realized that the "paw" cue is not specific - sometimes its pawing (repeated strikes) and sometimes its paw and hold.  So if I'm going to use it as a part of a behavior chain for an indication, I have to be specific about what "paw" means.  So we're in the process of redefining "paw" before going any further.

Our second search was the exterior and while Gimme found the first one very quickly, she dithered all over for the other two and then peed and I walked her off the area.  She was repeatedly distracted by playing-people sounds out of sight, which she's usually better about.  Also, that's the first time she has peed in an exterior in a very long time.  Later as I watched others try to find the odor, I understood why it was so challenging for her.  Joyce had placed the three hides really close so it was essentially a three-way converging odor exercise.  Only two dogs of the 6 got it and Joyce was helping them.

Our third search was a vehicle and while it wasn't a particularly hard challenge, Gimme was taking her time about it.  Since she wasn't getting it fast enough to suit Joyce, she stepped in trying to "help" her... but her idea of helping was essentially getting in Gimme's space, which then Gimme would back out to let her have the space - being a polite girl.  When I told Joyce to back off and let Gimme solve it herself... she got back to work and did solve it.  She was positively strutting her stuff on the way back to the car.  She always gets really impressed with herself when she does something challenging.

So not our best class, but I do feel really good about the containers and the ORT this weekend.  Cross any body parts you can spare.

3 For 1 ORT

What a day!  I entered Gimme to get one Anise ORT and came home with three ORTs.

Gimme got hers without too much problem, though she did still give me the whole attitude thing.  Sometimes I think she does this to make the "fun" last longer.  Basically she stepped on or pawed all twelve boxes, then did several more, crushing one, on her way back to get serious about the real box.  Still its better than what she did for the Birch ORT where they had to replace 5 boxes and the odor box - this time it was only 1 box and the odor box.  Susan's husband was nice enough to video it for me.

While you are viewing this... if you really watch carefully, you'll see Gimme tilt her nose toward the correct box between stepping on the 4th and 5th boxes.  So she knew it was "over there" that soon.  I have to admit that I didn't see that nose tilt in real time, though its very clear in the video.  And lest you criticize me for not calling alert the first time she scratched the correct box - I've learned that when Gimme is searching with the multiple hits like she is here, to make sure she is more specific in her alert.  So I wait for her to "stick" the box, which means that she stays with it even though I move past it.  The first time she didn't stick it and the second time she did (not to mention she got more serious about demolishing it).

Nova arrived with her dogs just after I finished with Gimme.  So we didn't have to take any special measures to ensure Gimme, Empress of the Cosmos, didn't get her nose bent out of joint.  Within a half hour of her arriving, we went in for Freea's first run of the day on Clove.  It occurred to me that we could have someone in the room to videotape, so decided it might as well be Nova, so Freea would be happier.  She's still a Momma's girl, and you can see where she wants to go to Nova in a couple places, but I was able to get her to work again and she did a good job.

After that we had two hours to waste, so Nova took me Ridgefield for lunch.  Found a sweet little Mexican restaurant and pigged out.

For Freea's second run (Anise) I had Nova go into the gymnasium ahead of us.  That way, Freea could see her and then move on without looking back to see where Mommy was.  As you can see in this video, it worked very well and she got it in 8.5 seconds.  She's a good girl and it was fun to play with her.

Gimme is miffed at me right now.  She was just sure as soon as we got home that we'd have a training session - and yet, here I am, on the computer.  So, I better get off the computer and get on to doing the things that SHE deems important...

Demolition Derby

Gimme passed her ORT!!!!

Not before she alerted on ten boxes, a couple more than once. After she was done, they had to replace five boxes, which may or may not include the one that had the odor in it.  Thank God we've got that behind us.

She started well, carefully sniffing the first and second box. Then she lightly sniffed the third box and stepped on it in the process of stepping over it. After that she alerted on every box on her way down that line and back up the other line. She went back to a couple of the boxes, but didn't stick with them. When she finally stuck with one box, despite me continuing to move past and then around her --- then I called "alert".  She accomplished all this in just 44 seconds!  I think I've mentioned before how FAST she is...

I was getting quite anxious about this. How on earth could my brilliant girl be so good at finding odor and still not be able to get past a simple ORT? I wasn't any calmer about this ORT's prognosis after yesterday's class. Class started out well with a simple container search and Gimme found it in good time. After that there was a three hide exterior search, in the rain, and Gimme found all three quickly. Then we returned to the building for a blind search in containers and set up just like an ORT. Gimme then decided to alert on several different boxes and finally got the right one on the fourth try. Needless to say THAT didn't inspire confidence.

Joyce was so good about letting us have another turn. This time she said to not call alert until she told me to. Gimme again alerted on incorrect boxes, but was "stickier" on the correct one. So Joyce had us run yet again with the instructions to keep moving whenever Gimme alerted and see what she'd do. That turned out to be the key to knowing when to call "alert" today - waiting for her to stick a box even when I moved a bit past her.

For the time being, it seems Gimme is willing to alert on anything to get the good stuff. Almost as if she thinks she is being rewarded for alerting, not necessarily being right. We KNOW she knows how to find the right box.  Possibly she is just going through a phase and we'll have to work through it. Joyce and I have devised a plan where we'll use signals so that I don't verbally call alert unless Gimme is on the right one. I'll cock my head if I think she's on the right one and then Joyce will nod "yes" at me, then I'll call it.

So basically we are conspiring to outsmart my conniving little genius. Scary, isn't it?

Girlie Brain

Third time was NOT a charm.  Gimme just never really got into searching; she quickly whacked a box, but it wasn't the right one.

Thinking they might forget and not have practice boxes available for Gimme after all the anise and clove searches, I decided to set up three boxes for her in the living room before driving over to the test.  The first time she assaulted all the boxes without even checking, but finally settled on destroying the correct one!  The second time she again assaulted all three boxes, destroying two (including the correct one)!  She really wasn't making any effort to sniff and find the odor.

I set her up two more hides that didn't have boxes and she did much better for those, finding the hides neatly and pawing at them for an indication.  I was thinking that since the ORT was going to be in boxes (container search) that it didn't bode well overall, but hoped she would pull it together.  I made it a point to get to the site early enough to take her for a nice long walk.  Even during the walk I could tell she was mentally all over the place. 

She's been hit and miss on focus for a week... and even Wednesday night wasn't as focused as usual at class (though I didn't credit her condition for that at the time).  She's two weeks into season, so I think she might have found it if they'd mixed some testosterone into the birch oil...  Seriously though, she wasn't flagging when I got home, but has since started, just a few hours later.  

 

I thought it was interesting that Dorothy, the person who hosted the ORT, made the comment that "there must be something going on with that box", saying so many dogs had alerted on it - which makes me wonder if they got a dirty box in the layout.  Or, as often happens, a dog will follow where the others went, since they leave a scent trail as they move around.  Since Gimme wasn't searching in any intent way, maybe she caught where they'd been and just followed what others had done.  She did go by the correct box, but barely paid any notice of it (or any of the others, for that matter).  

I was contemplating why I didn't notice this banzai brain in previous seasons, so went back and checked what was going on.  During her first one she was just finishing a 6 week rally class during the first week of the season and had several weeks off before we started other classes.  That first time she had a false pregnancy which presented some unexpected challenges in our classes with Ursula until we figured out what was going on.  She didn't have a false pregnancy last time.  The second season she was a few weeks into nosework class, but at that point she was still finding food in open boxes.  So this is the first time she has been presented with anything particularly challenging. 

Clearly in the future we won't schedule anything during her seasons, even if it is a sport that allows us to play.  Fortunately she has proven to be on a very regular six month cycle, so it'll be easy to predict from now on.  Her first season started on April 20th, 2011, and the third season on April 21st, 2012.

There is another ORT in Sumner next month, so I'll get us entered and hopefully the fourth time will be a charm.  Its killing me that my girl with all this raw talent can't get past a freakin' ORT...

Carla Fails the ORT

I failed our ORT today.  This one is totally on me - I called "alert" too soon, misreading her nose bump of the wrong box.  In hindsight, I think she was in fringe scent and bumped the box accidentally while trying to see if that was where the odor was coming from.  So frustrating for me.  I'm sure it was frustrating for Gimme too, having her search ended when she had just started.

However I did get to talk to someone before things started and got some great advice.  So nice to have someone who will listen to the issues we are having and respond to that.  She suggested I needed much higher power treats because from what I was describing, she thinks Gimme enjoys the hunt more than the find - at least when rewarded with her regular treats. 

This I think makes perfect sense in terms of not-persisting, in two different ways.  If its the hunt she enjoys then stopping the hunt when she finds it to reward with ordinary treats is somewhat punitive.  So to counteract that effect, we need a reward that is bigger than the hunt.  As I've said a hundred times here, Gimme is CRAZEEEEEEE about peanut butter and will definitely work harder to get it and has been known on many occasions to mug me when she thinks she's due and I'm not paying up.  So peanut butter will be more important than continuing the hunt AND it will be of such high value that she'll demand she get it, creating persistence when she finds a hide.  So its just a matter of her knowing that PB is the reward she gets for nosework from now on and I think the persisting angle will fall into place

After getting home from Oregon City, using peanut butter for a reward and several small plastic containers, I got Gimme giving me a pretty persistent paw whack on a container with odor in it.  I considered going for a nose touch/hold or a sit, but then decided to go with the paw whack, since that comes naturally to her.  Its also what I'd been training her to use for an article indication in tracking.  I have to remember not to do too many repetitions at one time, since she gets so excited she stops using her nose and starts whacking everything in sight.  I'm going to play with this game for a week or so and see how it evolves.  I may consider taking a private lesson from someone else at some point if I don't see us getting there from here.

At the very least, it will be helpful to get her persisting in place and with luck I can start getting a solid indication style.  Part of the problem is also that her search style may be evolving, which makes reading her harder too.  She used to wag her tail faster when she found it, but in the videos from the match, that wasn't the case.  I think she is getting more serious about finding odor.  I know she did pass up the opportunity to steal a cardboard middle that the odor was hidden in during one of our recent classes - she loves cardboard middles a lot.  So I was happy that she was able to focus like that.  Or, possibly the silly-fast wag may have gone away as part of her maturing, she's not as puppy as before.

I went out to a movie yesterday to distract me from my failure and after I got home again, I did one hide for her, to see what might have stuck with her from earlier in the day.  She knew I had the peanut butter and when she found the hide turned around and jumped on me.  I just waited her out, while she was spinning and carrying on right there (persisting doncha know) and just as I was deciding I'd been a dumbass by putting the hide in a place that was "hard" to paw at, she turned around and gave it a good solid whack.  I "yessed" strongly and gave her a huge jackpot of peanut butter. 

           

Now I'm going to resist the very strong inclination to do anything more with this for a few days.  I'm going to let her percolate on this experience.  It'll be interesting to see what she does in class on Wednesday night.

There's an ORT right here in town on 5/6 and I've printed off the info and form.  I'll get it filled out tonight.  Right now I'm going to take some drugs for a migraine and then Gimme and me are going to go join Mary and Grafton for a long walk on the fort.  I'm taking my camera and hope to get a video of the game they invented. 

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.