What Does It Mean?

Yesterday we went to DaPaws to practice, getting ready for the upcoming RallyFrEe video event.  I have a video partner who will meet me at Pawsabilities next Thursday so we can video each other's submissions.

 

During the last two practice sessions there, Gimme didn't do as well as I expected.  I'd give her a cue and she'd move forward as if to do the behavior, but then she got "distracted" or "got stuck".  It looked a lot like she was distracted and unfocused, but doing focus training didn't seem to help. 

 

While yesterday wasn't our best practice, at least I figured out what has been the issue recently.  Now I know it wasn't a focus issue, it was her not knowing what I wanted.  She knew I wanted her to do something, moved forward to start, but then didn't know what to do next.  What I discovered is, basically Gimme needs me to "remind her" a couple of times what each cue-behavior is, then she is good for the rest of the session.  "Reminding" consists of cuing the behavior and then helping her do it (usually luring).  When I started by reminding her about each behavior a couple of times, then she went right to responding on her own and correctly to the verbal cue for the rest of the session.  This morning, of the behaviors I cued from the session yesterday, she had "forgotten" again.  So it seems this will be a need for each training session, at least for the foreseeable future.

I don't know what is causing this; I just know its not the way she's been before.  Interestingly, its behaviors she's learned over the last year which are most affected.  Stuff from before then seems to still be very solid.  For example, she aced weave poles on the first cue, even though we haven't done them in nine months.  

 

I don't know if this is from the seizure, her medication (Keppra) or a combination of both.  If its a side affect of the seizures, hopefully when Tonya has done enough energy healing sessions this will start to get back to normal.  If it has to do with Keppra, then I hope it will get back closer to normal when we start tapering off her dose.

In my online research focusing on seizures, I found interesting stuff - though I would have expected changes related to damage to be more immediate.  Her best session of the 4 we've done at DaPaws was the one 3 days after the seizures.  Here are the applicable (edited) notes:

• memory may be adversely affected by a generalized grand mal seizure
• may increase ADHD, which Tonya thinks Gimme has
• may increase inattention and impulsivity
• inattention includes: being easily distracted; forgetfulness; and difficulty following directions
• tasks that were previously routine may become more difficult
• it may take longer to process new information or to complete tasks - I am teaching her a new behavior and we have had to almost start over at each session
• seizures disrupt connections between nerve cells, which may make retrieval of memories and information difficult and may also inhibit the formation of new connections
• re-learning process takes time
• diminishes "working memory", which is the ability to access information previously acquired and to make generalizations about this information, most likely because seizure activity disrupts the storage and/or retrieval of information

In my research about Keppra I found interesting stuff as well.  There is commonly a short term period of drowsiness when one first starts taking the drug.  While the whole list of potential side affects is extensive, Keppra is well tolerated by most individuals.  For those with side affects, some are simply tolerated, some get better results with a higher dose while others have to go off the medication.  Here are the applicable (edited) notes:

• Applicable side affects include: aggressive or angry outbursts, anxiety, irritability, quick to react or overreact emotionally, rapidly changing moods, mood or mental changes, problems with memory, and/or trouble concentrating
• Wording from reported experiences: 
• "feel very tired and spacey. I am having trouble remembering what i've read and giving feedback to my professors." 
• "mind was in a total fog, I was easily confused, I couldn't read because I couldn't comprehend what I was reading!" 
• "spacey, foggy feelings went away after a while" 
• "hard for me to remember what I read and studied"

So, there is a whole lot of "don't know" and "time will tell" in this, which is starting to feel very familiar.  <sigh>

Nosework (3/10) & Practice

We had an interesting nosework class last night - as always. 

The first search was a group of a 9 file boxes, four were up on chairs, with one odor.  I thought Gimme found the odor right away (a box on a chair), sniffed it, but didn't indicate and continued searching, paying no attention to it.  There were two times when she actually arced away/around it, while tipping her nose toward it.  She does this sometimes, because even with a peanut butter reward, she still sometimes prefers hunting over finding - especially when there is only one hide and more likely for the first search.  I don't know why about the first search, since she knows we are at class and she knows there will be more searches.  

I commented about her pointedly ignoring the hide and both instructors pooh-poohed what I said.  This is really the only thing I don't like about training with Dorothy and her co-instructor.  After all this time (17 months), they still don't think I know my dog.  I guess they don't ascribe any significance to when she arcs away from odor, even when she does it twice.  After checking all the boxes three times, Gimme finally went directly to the odor box and indicated.  She clearly knew where it was, because she went directly to it from several boxes away. 

For the second search, they moved the odor box to another chair and then put food and toy distractions in all the other boxes.  Gimme enjoyed this challenge and sniffed each box briefly (did not get sucked in by any of the goodies) and then indicated on first sniff of the odor box.  Gimme has always liked a good challenge

For the third search, there was one table, a bunch of chairs, three wheelchairs, the red wheeled cart, a toy wagon with a lot of other stuff in a smallish area.  Three odors were set on a diagonal crossing the area.  The hardest one was under the large table at the very center, with a wheelchair pulled up to the table on one side.  Gimme worked very steadily and found two right away.  When she was trying to access the one under the table, the wheelchair was there and she did quite a bit of detailing on it.  Then she whined briefly.  I don't know what the whine was about - she could have gotten under the table next to the wheelchair, so I didn't think it was really in the way.  But then she came around the other side on her own and quickly sourced odor.  Possibly the whine was just frustration, because she may have thought odor was somewhere on the wheelchair and she couldn't find it.

Our last search was just one hide under the toy wagon.  Gimme found this really fast.

Seizure update:  Gimme is doing fine.  We did an energy healing aimed at repairing any damage to her brain and resetting any seizure pathways.  We'll be doing a few more.  Initially I noticed she was pretty clingy, following me every moment and this has returned to normal over time.  During the first week, her responsiveness to cues was slow, but then it seemed to gradually get back to normal.  The lasting issue has been a loss of impulse control when we are walking.  This puzzled me because even when her responses were slow, Gimme was still able to ignore distractions and work with me.  Then yesterday it occurred to me - loose leash walking is really a very different task.  She's allowed to sniff and snoop and pee and poop, but at the same time, she's expected to pay attention to me and not pull on the leash.  Essentially, its a multi-tasking behavior, which of course would be harder than a single task behavior.  So we're working on it and taking our time and I'm sure it'll come back.

Tonight we did go to DaPaws to practice RallyFrEe.  Honestly, I felt like our practice just 4 days after the seizure episode went better than tonight's practice.  Gimme just seemed unfocused and we had to drop back to basics in a couple of places.  I'm not sure what to make of this.  It could be because we just recently changed her false pregnancy support package, reducing a number of things.  I'll recheck them tomorrow.  She could simply be having a bad day.  Or it could be something else entirely.

Meanwhile I've noticed her ability to ignore other dogs has gone downhill, but this actually started before the seizure episode and I suspect is related to the false pregnancy.  Its a little loss from where we were, but nothing like prior false pregnancies, so I'm still really happy with our current support package for the f.p.   Gimme is fine when they are approaching, playing "whazzat" for cheese, but as they pass, then she wants to whip across in front of me and lunge at them as they are moving away.  Some dogs she wants to lunge for sooner.  I've been trying to catch a moment when I could pay her with peanut butter as they go past, without luring, but it hasn't worked.  

So now I'm going to try a different approach.  We are working on our emergency u-turn "let's go" (sometimes without a u-turn) and with a new twist, always paid with peanut butter.  Its a game cue of sorts and Gimme thinks its lots of fun.  We've only used it once for real, when a lady let three dogs out of her car without leashes and they were running in our direction, paying no attention to her attempts to call them back.  (some people shouldn't be let out in public)  We ran right back to our car and Gimme never knew there was an issue.

My plan is to use the "let's go" in conjunction with what I call, the paperclip turn.  Its where you see someone heading toward you with a dog and you turn 180 degrees and walk slow so they catch up to you and just as they do, you again turn 180 degrees and then walk fast.  We'll do the second 180 as a "let's go".  At some point I want to morph this to walking straight and then suddenly dashing forward in "let's go" mode for a few steps.  Of course, this does require careful assessment in real time, since I don't want our "let's go" dash to be a trigger for the other dog to behave badly.

I'll let you know how it goes.  Meanwhile the couch beckons me and my girl for a 007 movie...

Practice & Tracking Genius (9)

We are getting ready to enter the Western Regional RallyFrEe video event, so I'm trying to get in some practices.  On Sunday when Gimme had her seizure, we were at DaPaws intending to practice, which obviously didn't happen.  So Wednesday (yesterday) after work, I hustled us over to practice.

I set up a course of 10 behaviors and just worked them with a variable reward of 1-4 behaviors.  I also set up her special bowl, then whatever the number was, if the behavior was reward-worthy I gave her the cue "yours" to run to the bowl and self-serve.  Then I'd walk over and put treats in her special bowl.  From there we'd walk back to where we left off and continue through to whatever number of behaviors was next on the random number list.  Gimme did so well at this and was having fun.  When I was sure she'd be okay with it, I did all ten behaviors,  two-thirds of a novice course, and had already set up the special bowl with a lot of extra treats.  Then went back to random with 1-4.

We took a break from course work to work on some other behaviors and played around with some other things.  We ended with some more course work, going back to the 1-4 list.  Our last behavior was one step of perfect off-side heeling.

Gimme was really trying hard and was eager to get back to work.  I did notice she wasn't as quick to respond.  It seemed to take her just a tad longer to respond to a cue.  I've learned it can take 2-5 days to fully recover mental sharpness from a seizure episode, so I was aware I might see some evidence.  I just encouraged her and rewarded a lot.  I was most pleased to see her trying so hard even though she was having to put forth extra effort to stay focused.

Then last night we worked on her “one” behavior.  I started awhile back with naming her paws 1-2-3-4.  My goal is to at some point be able to cue a paw and add a verb to it.  So “one paw” would mean to put her right front paw on whatever was presented, such as my foot or hand.  Or “two high” would mean to lift her left front paw high and “two lift” would be to lift the paw off the ground, but not necessarily high like a high-five.  So while this is the end goal, I realize we may never get there – verbs may simply be too advanced of a concept, even for my little genius.  So for now “one” means the same as “one high”.  I need paw raises for level one courses.  Gimme thinks its just too easy.  Tonight we’ll work on “two”.

I’m behind on reporting our tracking training, even though Nadine and I get together almost every week.  Part of the reason I fall behind is because I want to show the map where applicable and it takes time to create it.  Y’all would likely live without the map, but my blog also serves as our training record, so I'm making a special effort to get caught up.

I set up a practice track and Gimme did well on it.  We are still having difficulty at this point trying to get her head down.  Her tendency has always been to air scent and this will just not work well for tracking, whereas its fine in nosework and barn hunt.

This course was 505 yards, 4 articles on a sunny, cool day.  Nadine laid three sharp turns as shown.  Gimme had no trouble taking the sharp turns, but I did notice on the first and third articles, she tried to cut the corner and go directly to the nearby article (from the green dots).  It was more noticeable for the third article because the direction of the breeze made it obvious, which was when I realized what was happening at the first turn. 

Gimme sure loves tracking and I love watching her do her nosey thing...

Tracking Genius (8)

It has taken me nearly two weeks to blog about this track.  It was our most audacious track yet and 490 yards long.  It really isn't a track we expected Gimme to be ready for, but Nadine wanted a more advanced track for her dog.  I was prepared to pull Gimme off if she had big problems, but she did surprisingly well.  Plus she can be rather tenacious about solving challenges.

The darker grey is a paved road, which we crossed twice - a first.  The light green backwards L shape is some very short grass.  The two clumps of green squiggles is a bit of woods - the track went up a dirt path through the woods - another first.  The thinner line of grey is a mixed dirt/gravel road we went on briefly as we came out of the woods - another first.  And a challenge we didn't plan - the dashed purple line is another tracker who came into the area right behind us, crossing our track in two places and completely overlaying our track on the dirt path - a huge first. 

Gimme went first, because Nadine had dropped treats for her every 10 yards.  She did well up to the road, but then wasn't sure about crossing the pavement.  I encouraged her and when she got to the other side, there was a treat waiting for her.  She did really well in the short grass, just charged down it, barely a blip when she hit the cross track and then nailed the right turn.  Gimme had a lot of difficulty deciding to turn up the path into the woods.  Since the other tracker had gone up the same path and right over the top of where Nadine had gone, this wasn't a surprise.  The next difficulty was making the left turn onto the mixed dirt/gravel road, because the other tracker had gone straight and Gimme seemed to get confused about who she was following, crossing into the grass path.  I encouraged her to come back to where we had sliced off to the left and then she did good following our track.  The second road crossing wasn't nearly as challenging and the rest of the track was pretty simple.  There was a bit of notice given where the tracker had cross tracked on the last leg, but no inclination to follow it.

I followed Nadine a couple of times and on her last track, I dropped treats for Gimme, with extra ones to help her with the areas which had been most challenging.  By this time the other tracker had gone by again with another person and a dog.  Gimme did very well the second time around.  The road crossings didn't seem to bother her, though she was off to the left of the track.  She went up the path through the woods more readily and there was only a momentary casting about when the two tracks diverged again at the dirt/gravel road.  

So I was pleased with her efforts on a track which is far advanced for her.  Since she was in an early part of her false pregnancy when it was most intense, I was especially pleased with how well she did and her level of focus.

Speaking of the false pregnancy, Gimme continues to do well.  I've been working in the yard a lot for the last few days to keep it from turning into a jungle.  I leave the door open so Gimme can come and go from the house.  She stays with me pretty much the whole time.  She will bring a "baby" out and have it out for awhile.  Sometimes she carries it around, sometimes it lays by itself.  About every half hour she carries it back in the house and within minutes she comes out with another "baby".  I guess she thinks they need the fresh air. 

We've been walking a lot and there is a section where I can have Gimme off leash.  The other day she was walking along and then all the sudden dashed ahead.  Out of reflex I called her back and she turned on a thin dime to come back.  It was just then when I saw what she was dashing toward - a bunny on the side of the rails-to-trails paved path.  I was awed to have her come back to me from such a huge distraction.  Needless to say she got a LOT of peanut butter for being such a good girl.

We have nosework class tomorrow night.  Thursday morning I'll meet Nadine for tracking.  On Saturday afternoon we have a level 1 vehicle element trial.  On Sunday we have two level 2 element trials - containers and interiors.  We are lucky to have these so close to home with just an hour drive each way.  So we can come home to sleep in our own bed each night.  Do cross your fingers for us.

Tracking Genius (7)

We met Nadine at our usual place yesterday at 9 a.m.  Since we were early, we used the remote airplane field, since they can't start until 10 a.m.  We didn't really expect them at all, since it was raining when we arrived.  It stopped raining and went to a soft drizzle right after we started laying tracks and we even had a brief bit of sunshine.  It started raining again just as we were packing up to go. 

Nadine set the track I've shown here - 340 yards, three articles.  We set food drops at 14 yard intervals, with two at 7 yard intervals after turns.  For one turn, Nadine set an article instead of the second post-turn drop.  Gimme did well with it, but was not as focused as I know she can be.  

Gimme really seems to need a practice track to get her mind fully focused on tracking.  I was contemplating how I would ever work in a practice track when we get entered for a trial.  Then I remembered how I used to have to set up a practice search off-site before nosework trials and now I don't even worry about it.  I'm guessing as Gimme gets more experience/maturity with tracking, then she'll be able to get to work faster.

While Nadine was setting the big track, I set a shorter article training track.  It was four 30 yard legs, with 6 articles.  The idea was to get many chances to train the article indication with a small amount of tracking.

Gimme did very well and was very focused right away.  There were only three food drops, but each of the articles had cheese in them.  Nadine had selected a wide variety of articles, so Gimme wasn't sure a couple of them counted, but was happy to receive pay nonetheless.

I'm happy with her indication overall.  She always stops.  I'd like her to lower her front end, but she can keep her butt up - like a bow.  As often as we train in the rain or on very wet grounds, I have no desire to battle over whether she wants to lay down in wet grass.  I don't even care if she puts her elbows down.  We are working now on getting her to stop and hold position with her nose pointed down track.  Her initial tendency is to paw at the article, so she turns her butt around until she's facing me.  So for now, I just encourage her to get into the correct position and then I metronome feed.  

This week I was able to stand up straight between treats.  And by halfway through this track I was able to remain standing and just drop treats in place.  It was as if she was applying what she learned in the new nosework game - where she learned to keep her head in the box and wait for treats to get tossed in.  Maybe there is no relationship, but I noticed she didn't lift her head up to look at me or try to catch the treats, which is what I expected.

Tonight we went to DaPaws for practice.  Out of 30 minutes, we got 27 minutes training time.  She got two very brief breaks to get a drink of water while I was setting up props.  She did really well and was very enthusiastic about working.  It was a good session.

I just got an email from Kathy about class tomorrow.  She wanted to know if I'd ever figured out how to stabilize our pretty can for the free choice behavior I want to teach Gimme.  She wants to have each of us select a free choice behavior to work on for the six weeks.  As it turns out I had just gotten a detergent bucket from William, which is nearly the perfect size.  It needs to be washed and modified slightly - otherwise its just right.  So this is my project for the evening.  

Being a socker-Mom to Gimme is a lot of work...  with a ton of love and joy as my reward.

Practice and Tracking Genius (6)

Gimme was overdue for a long walk, an important part of her regular mental enrichment, so it was very high on our list of things to do today.  On the way over I decided to drive by the tennis court.  I thought I was being foolishly optimistic to think there was any chance it would be available on a weekend, but since its only 1/2 mile from my house, driving by for a look-see is a worthwhile effort.

Amazingly it was vacant, but I almost kept going.  There was a lady outside and just behind the courts, throwing a ball for her Golden.  My initial thought was it would make it impossible to get any valuable practice in.  But at the last moment my trainer brain kicked in and I decided to at least use the situation for distraction training.  I took Gimme into the court and kept her on my 15' leash.  We did a bunch of perimeter walking, clicking for offered attention.  I usually just start at the gate and keep walking around the inside of the court, but this time I kept to a "C" pattern using the part of the court away from the distraction.  We gradually got closer and closer.  

Much quicker than I expected, we were able to work along the side of the court closest to the dog, within 15-20 feet of it running back and forth and Gimme was able to stay in her thinking brain!  She was able to look and then voluntarily turn her attention to me.  I was so proud of her.   I could have left then and been completely satisfied with the session.  However, the lady chose this time to leash up and head off... so I decided to see how much brain Gimme had left.

We did a bunch of "heel" and "side", along with moving "spin" and "turn" (she still needs a refresher before she can do it without me pausing).  Then we did our variation of what I call "the move" (something I saw on a Julie Flanery video).  It is: "left" "around" "thru" "right" "behind" and "thru".  Its a cute little sequence I can start with her on either side and either end up with a side transition or back where we started.  After this we did a 360 degree center front pivot, in both directions.  She had plenty of brain to work with me, so clearly she was doing even better with the running dog than I thought.  Yeah Gimme!  

Afterward we went to the place we've been walking lately, for a 4 mile walk.  We met a number of dogs and were able to manage space well enough with most of them to just keep walking by.  For the one where we couldn't, I just lured her past with her peanut butter go-toob.  After all this, she is contentedly snoozing.

I promised you a report on Gimme's tracking last week.  She did nicely.  Keep in mind our big focus right now is to reinforce nose-down tracking.  She's always had a tendency to air scenting, so we'll need to really reward this to make it a strong tracking behavior.  This week we did our drops at 12 yard and 6 yard intervals.  Its 12 yards most of the time, with two 6 yard interval drops after each turn.  

I got there early, so set a simple warm-up track (180 yards).  Gimme seemed confused at first and I thought it was because she was unaccustomed to following my scent, though she'd done it when she was still a puppy.  She got over it by 1/3 of the way down the first leg and then did very well afterward, finding all three gloves easily.  When the other dogs worked this track, they also acted distracted in the same place on my track, so it may have been caused by previous visitors or wildlife passing through the area. 

Once Nadine arrived, she set another course of 300 yards.  We alternated back and forth between the two tracks, so Gimme got to run Nadine's track twice.  The first time it was with the 12 and 6 yard intervals and then the second time it was a little bit variable from about the same interval.  It seemed to me she paid closer attention and kept her nose down better with variable drops, but it could just have easily been because it was her third track of the day and she was getting more focused by then.  

Gimme is a good tracker and really loves it.  She spends much of the time waiting, whining in anticipation.  When one of the other girls is out and tracking - Gimme steps the whining up to a proper screech.  She does not think she should be kept waiting.  And she especially doesn't think she should be kept waiting while some other d-a-w-g is having fun on the tracks.  Just sayin...

Practice & RallyFrEe (5/3)

Wednesday night we went to DaPaws for a practice session.   I had one big goal.  Gimme has this thing where she sees Chris and she can't really think until she's greeted her.  Chris is a friend Gimme met when she was a puppy and so there is a lot of love between them.  Chris is also the person who ran Gimme in a couple of agility classes last year when my hand had me out of commission.  I've basically ignored the issue, but decided recently it was time to address it.  So I emailed Chris ahead of time and asked her if she had time to be our big distraction.  

Initially Gimme was so distracted we had to sit Chris in a corner (she brought a book) so we could be far enough away for Gimme to offer me snippets of attention.  We needed 3/4 of the arena length to begin with.  We worked the basic plan from the distraction class Kathy taught us last week.  Our order of progression was: 
1 -- Start-work cue, then walk Gimme around from far away (3/4 of the arena
       length) and letting her look and sniff toward Chris and click/treat any
       offered attention.  End-work cue.
2 -- Start-work cue, cue “heel” and walk nearer and sorta toward Chris, still
       with enough distance so the Gimme could work (about 1/3 of arena width).
       If Gimme erred, I gently moved away (no leash correction) and restarted.
       Gimme could look, but needed to stay with me.  Click/treat for heeling,
       aiming for a steady stream of treats.  End-work cue.
3 -- Moved Chris to center of arena.  Start-work cue, cue “heel” and walk
      closer to Chris, about 10 feet.  If Gimme erred, I gently moved away (no
       leash correction) and restarted.  Gimme got clicked for staying in heel
       position and maintaining attention.  End-work cue.
4 -- Start-work cue, cue “heel” and walk ever closer to Chris.  Moved away as
       needed and click treat for staying in heel position and maintaining attention.
       By this time Gimme was totally into the game and I was able to heel around
       Chris, with just inches between us, with Gimme on both the outside and
       inside.  End-work cue.

As I said before, Gimme really likes the challenge of distraction work.  For her its one big game and she knows she can win.  I really should have been working it all along.  Now with this pattern to follow, I plan to do a lot more of it.

After Gimme showed she could work around Chris, I let her go off leash and she greeted Chris as her long lost buddy.  Then we did some easy stuff, to give Gimme a mental break.  At one point I sent her away to take a complete break and she sniffed briefly and was back in 30 seconds, demanding to work.  So I decided to work on a recently discovered flaw in her generalization of "spin" and "turn".   It seems Gimme believes you can only do a "spin" or "turn" from a stationary position (after all, its how I taught them).  She was adamant about it.  So, we decided to work on it.  

I'd forgotten my target stick, which I wanted to be able to "lengthen" my arm.  I originally taught it with luring, but figured this would work better, since I'd need her to move further away from me.  Chris found a 2ft length of PVC and I quickly showed Gimme it worked just like a target stick.  I tried clicking this myself, but it was just too awkward.  So Chris did the clicking for me and things went very well.  Basically we used it 3-5 times to get her doing the "spin" or "turn", then she'd start doing them when she saw my hand starting to move to bring the target stick down.  Chris has excellent timing so we made great progress.  Once Gimme started anticipating based on a hand twitch, I reattached the cue.  In 7 or 8 clicks total, Gimme was doing the behavior on a verbal cue, even with me moving.  Its so much fun to work with a genius.

I've noticed recently - Miss Gimme is finally getting verbal cues more readily.  Perhaps she is matured enough and has decided its okay to let me drive the train some of the time.  We are doing a lot of training now with the RallyFrEe class and this may make a difference.  Also it could be partly because of the flower essence formulations for her ADHD and stress.  It may even be partly because of the MareMagic (raspberry leaves) she is getting every day.  I'm sure all these things are coming together now.

Our RallyFrEe class last week was not as good as past ones.  Kathy had set up a short course and the second exercise was a side-step and neither of us had mastered the skill.  So we spent most of class trying to get it.  Kathy had us trying to capture/shape sideways movement with our dogs beside us, but we didn't make noticeable progress.  So Kathy removed the station from the course and we worked the course without it before the class ended.

I came home with the idea of using platforms to get the side-step.  I got Gimme doing it, but she always moved her front feet first, then her back feet.  I made sure to only click the back feet and thought she might learn to lead with the rear, but it never happened. Remember we want them to lead with the rear so we don't end up with a dog who follows your side-stepping at a 45 degree angle.

I checked on the internet and every link I found showed teaching side-step in center-front position.  It might help a dog learn footwork and I'll probably teach this using the platforms.  But I don't think it will translate well for side-step at "heel" or "side".  So I went back to the original way Kathy showed us to teach side-stepping several months ago. 

I found by focusing on this and clicking when Gimme moved her rear, she quickly started moving the moment I turn my foot.  This is great since it will work naturally as a cue for a side-step where my foot action is in grapevine style.  In the blog I noted Kathy showed us four different ways to move sideways using this foot cue, so I want to ask her to show them to us again. 

Anyway, I did it with the pivot platform until Gimme was moving her hips in on just the foot cue in "heel" position.  I repeated the lesson in "side" position and she did very well.  I want to repeat this once more, then I'll try it without the pivot platform.  

Gimme is standing beside my chair heaving ginormous theatrical sighs of impatience, so I better get off this computer.