RFE practice (87)

On Valentine's Day no less  My Sweetheart Gimme was amazing.

Arms as distractions video - This session I focused on click/treats for ignoring my arm movements. I needed to experiment to know how much distraction I could throw at her. It wasn't perfect, but we made progress so I think I'm on the right track. I threw in some up-touch and only rewarded her if I gave the verbal cue "touch". These are all big changes for her to learn. Swinging my hand forward was really hard, because she was sure I was tossing a treat. I had to teach her it only worked if I said "get it". This is as much learning for me as it is for her. Naturally the next step with the "get it" game is to make the motion without the verbal cue part of the time, so there's no treat out there to get. And, of course, one can never offer too many "otto".

"West" & "East" video - I thought her parallel alignment was better. She did a better job of sidestepping to move forward with me.

"Leah" & "Diss" video - Gimme does pretty good at this, though I have to watch to make sure she doesn't move over to "Center" when I start moving backward.

Sequences video - She actually did better with the first one even though it's not her best side - possibly because she's not as eager to throw an "Izzy" at me as she is to throw in an "Otto". Any possibility of an "Otto" is good enough reason to stop listening.

Backing "Heel-Side" video - While my goal was to do the backing, I changed gears as needed to maintain better heel position. I think we are ready to use a smaller foot target. I need to take just 4 steps; so much of this is overkill.

Backward weaves video - Gimme still lacks confidence on "Beep", but you can see the improvement and the last time she realizes to actually turn her butt, so she's not jamming against my leg. I do see I'm rewarding her with the wrong hand much of the time - I'll have to work on it.

Center front pivot video - She continues to over rotate going counter-clockwise, but it seems to be improving slowly since I started spitting treats to her. She has to be directly in front of me or they don't come.

Sidepass into dog video - I didn't have my list with me or I would have started with a sidepass into her, with Gimme in "Heel", since it's her more challenging direction. I need to print the list on a 3x5 card and keep it in the car. She's getting really good on the other side.

Sidepass away video - It just so happened I started with her more challenging direction, even without the list. She's getting better, but it's slow work.

All in all this was a very good session. I was really pleased with her efforts.

TDX Seminar

This is the seventh seminar I've done with Sil Sanders and the third time I've taken a TDX level seminar. It's great for me to get the refreshers, but I won't repeat much of the material, which I've posted in prior seminar blogs. The fields were great and easily accessible. It was verrrrrry cold and this is the same weekend Snowmageddon 2019 hit western Washington.

One thing which was a challenge was the field type. They were almost all seed grass fields, which meant strips of vegetation, with 18" strips of mud between them. It took a bit for some dogs to get used to this. Gimme picked it up fairly quickly, since she tracked in a field just like this for her TD test. For us handlers, it was challenging because of stepping over the vegetation and between them in the mud OR stepping on the vegetation and balancing, with an awkward stride length. I basically blew out my foot on the first day and then continued to tramp around on it for five miles a day, so it's still bothering me.

Saturday

Before the seminar started I talked to Sil about two issues I've noticed.

• I've noticed in our tracks when I have her searching, saying the cue "search for it", she seems to continue searching until I give her the next cue "track-on". Sil suggested I simply modify my search cuing to include instructions to track. So I did and it worked brilliantly.
• I've noticed a tendency with some challenges for her to search and then line out, either straight ahead or slightly off straight and pull really hard as if it is the track, when there was actually a turn. This is something I wanted him to watch for, acknowledging the possibility it was caused by something I'm doing or not doing correctly. Sil said he was certain it was something I was doing.

"M" over "U" crosstrack exercise video -

We've done this before, so if you are a long time reader, you may recognize this diagram.

• Gimme had difficulty getting started. I had unintentionally brought our peanut butter go toob and she found it distracting (note her mugging me), so I handed it off to someone. The other issue was the scarcity of vegetation at the start, because the tracklayer got confused and laid the track backward from what Sil intended. I was doing the dreaded line circling over my head, which I never do. I helped her by following before she was committed and it worked to encourage her.
• You can see a bit of snow on the ground and it was bitterly cold. My fingers were so cold I could barely handle the line, which affected how I handled her throughout this track. You'll note Gimme doing a serpentine on her track in the beginning, which she commonly does.
• You can see in the video, which Sil commented on, how I am stopping Gimme's investigation of the cross tracks well before the end of my line. My hands were so cold I was worried about losing the line if I got closer to the end - that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it. When I stopped her, she'd search in a circle and then line out on the track.
• There are four crosstracks on each long leg of the track. Gimme checked out all four on the first long leg. On the second long leg she noticed all of them, but discarded them on her own. This is a substantial improvement over how she did last June at the seminar. Then she tended to find the crosstracks more and more attractive. Sil thought it was mental fatigue. And, it took a bit of encouragement to get her to finish the tracks. This is not usual for her, thus the determination of mental fatigue.
• This time she got better as she went along, even though my handling wasn't very good. Note at 9:45 where she goes a few feet down the crosstrack and then just takes herself off it and returns to the track. You'll see this again at about 14:10. Beautiful!
• Twice I tried to talk her into "articles" which weren't. The first one was a plastic bag and she dutifully indicated it for treats (possibly dropped by the tracklayer). The second one was a clump of colored string and she refused to indicate it (where I back up at about 14:30).

Sunday
 
This was a day we were not scheduled for a showcase track, so I laid a couple of tracks for others.  There are some especially nice dogs. In particular the big male German Shepherd and Mollie did a great job. He has a lovely temperament and is very fast on the track. He also likes to express his opinions about things. I hope to see them again sometime.
 
Our first group exercise of the day was the tracklaying exercise. Sil gives us small pieces of paper with a number on it, then we go out in a field and lay a track with 4 corners and place one of the numbers (mine was 7 this time) at the start, each corner and the end. Then we go show Sil our map and describe/explain the triangulation markers we used for each. Then we go out in the field again and using our map and triangulation, find our markers. I had one of mine blow away before I could get it pushed into the mud, so I'd picked up a bit of orange plastic for my last marker. Happily I found all my markers. Yay for me.
 
At the end of the day we laid out Sil's contamination exercise, which we've done twice before. The black line is the track and blue dots are articles. The black dashed line is our exit path to leave the field. The red lines (and variations of red) are the contamination layers paths.
 
I was really tired from carrying around an extra 5 pounds of mud on each boot all day and didn't want to do it. Gimme really wanted to, saying she'd been cooped up in the car "for a week", so we did. By the time we got to the start, it was dark and I couldn't see a thing. Gimme had no trouble and basically wanted to do the whole track at a run. It was a challenge to find my way off the track in the dark - we lucked out since someone brought their car close to the end or we might have spent the night out there. Seriously, I'm sure Gimme would have found the way to her peanut butter jar without those stinkin' car lights.

 
Monday
 
I was torn for our second showcase track as to whether we should do the crosstrack exercise or do something different. I always see other people get to do cool extreme obstacles and I wanted the chance. On Saturday I'd watched as Sil did a track at "the triangles" where he had to throw Twizzle across the ditch and I wanted to try something similar. So I opted for extreme obstacles. Initially Sil thought I meant compound/complex obstacles, until I clarified, saying I was looking for a truly physical exercise. I forgot to grab my camera, so I wasn't able to get a video. <pout>

This is a rough drawing of the track. The black line is the track and red dots are articles. The red-dotted line is where Gimme went. Each of the three short red-dotted lines are places where Gimme went on a walkabout. The one at the bottom was where she was drawn to the tree line.

• Gimme did a great job on the extreme obstacles. Between the time Sil crossed the ditch and when we did, it filled up with water from the run-off of melting snow. The first place we crossed, it was running really fast and although Gimme was sure the track was on the other side, she was having none of it. The was a clump of grass in the middle and I tested it to make sure I could stand on it. When I did, I encouraged Gimme to "jump" and she did, landing on my feet and then on the other side.
• There was a steep uphill climb on the other side and I figured it was going to take a long time for me to get up there, maybe on hands and knees in places. Gimme was not about to wait on me, so she quite literally pulled me up the hill. I commented in the debrief how surprised I was when Gimme hauled me up the hill. Janet, one of our barn hunt friends, replied "I don't know why you're surprised, after all she is a weight pull champion." I hadn't even thought of it.
• The next obstacle where we re-crossed the creek, it was wider and the water wasn't as deep and Gimme just splashed through on her own. I was so proud of her - water is definitely not her thing.
• Now for the bad news, Sil got to see Gimme take me on a walkabout several times - all but one corner. He confirmed it is indeed caused by something I'm doing. He said every time she'd find the corner and start in the direction of the track, I didn't believe her and stopped her. So her response is to try some other direction until I follow her. Imagine her saying, with attitude, "Fine! We'll go this way, but there's no track here..."

Sil said I really need to do all marked tracks for awhile and work on our corner communication. He believes when our corner communication is in place, Gimme will be able to communicate to me better and I'll believe her more.

All in all another great seminar. Gimme is so glad we have Sil, otherwise she might have given up on me by now. Just sayin...

Urban Tracking (125)

Nadine and I met at Game Farm Park on Friday, February 1st. She laid a track for Gimme, which should have been entirely doable, and we aged it for 2 hours. It was cold and dry, with a slight breeze.

Gimme started well and ended well. It was just the middle part where she got creative. The track starts in the center of the upper area of this picture and heads toward the walking/wall, then turns about 80º to the right. She did this leg well and found the article easily.

The trouble begins when she overshoots the corner and then angles 45º right (red dotted line). She goes a short bit and then makes a hard right turn and pulls forcefully to the article you see midway up on the left side (at the end of the red dotted line. While she did get back on the track at that point and worked flawlessly through to the end, this may not have been a qualifying track at a test. It most certainly would have earned us the dreaded-whistle if there was an article at the beginning of the third leg as there was on this track.

What you can't see from this picture is the elevation and slope of terrain. The large light circle at the third turn is the highest point in the park and the ground slopes sharply down from it on all sides. Gimme's line of travel straight to the next article is working along the bottom of this slope to the article. Gimme is normally so keen on articles, I can only surmise what happened - thus I believe the slope made the article on the fourth leg smell stronger than the much closer article on the third leg.

This is a puzzle I surely want to do again, but have Nadine mark the turns.

BTW coming soon to a blog near you - our report for the 3-day TDX seminar with Sil Sanders and the Trainers to the Rescue group near Yamhill, Oregon. This was the same weekend as Snowmageddon 2019 in Western Washington. What a big surprise I came home to.

RFE practice (86)

I am so far behind in blogging. Been very busy dealing with "stuff". This blog is from practice two weeks ago. We are in the midst of Snowmageddon 2019, so there may not be a practice tomorrow. It would be okay with me, since I hurt my foot during the first day of the tracking seminar and then spent the whole three days tramping around doing exactly what injured it in the first place. Got it adjusted on Tuesday, but haven't been able to stay off it, so a day off would be good. Friday will be very long.

Java Jive doodling video - I started out just moving around with Gimme to the Java Jive music. I was trying to get a feel for what I could do to look dance-like and yet work with Gimme. I discovered quickly how distracting this is for Gimme. She's used to my movements making sense and these were nonsensical to her. Clearly *I* need to do a lot of work on myself. My movement is passable, but my arms look like broken wings. We did about three times as much as is shown here. Once I decide on a choreography it will be easier to figure out what to do with my body parts, eh.

Arms as distractions video - I did a little work trying to click and reward Gimme when she was closer to "heel" and "side" positions despite my arm movement. I saw a little improvement. I think I can make it clearer for her when I have a plan and know what arm movements to work through.

"East" & "West" videos - Ray Underwood led our January MDSA workshop and the second thing he had us teach our dogs was the positions behind us. I named them "East" and "West", to reference the way Gimme would be facing, assuming I was facing North. Based on his video, I decided to use our existing cues, "Otto" or "Izzy", followed by "Halt". Then I'd name the positions while feeding treats. It worked amazingly well. I hadn't realized how turning my shoulders was affecting my body all the way down to my feet. I need to work on rewarding her when she is better aligned. But, I don't want to have her leaning into my legs as Ray prefers. Clearly I need to get my mirrors out and could probably use the couch as a guide. I might even try it with my platforms. The refinement I want to concentrate on is getting her to square up perpendicular to me. Getting her into the position was really easy.

Center sidepasses videos - I worked some sidepasses with distractions. I was trying to time rewards when she was better centered. She was tending to let her heiney lag, but got better as we worked.

"Boop" and "Beep" videos - We've been practicing our backward weaves at home, concentrating on "boop" from the right "side" since its her less comfortable turning direction. Gimme has gotten more comfortable and often has trouble waiting for the cue. It doesn't seem like she's gotten the point about turning her heiney to back through, not consistently, though sometimes it looks good. She was so sticky about doing it from "heel" I put my foot on the wall to help her get started. Clearly it's time to start doing both sides.

Nosework class (1/36)

We started class with an exterior search, then two interior searches. Gimme had a great time.

Exterior search video - There were five complicated hides in a large area. She had the first hide right off the start line in less than 7 seconds; she almost overran the hide, but pivoted back to it in an instant. All the dogs checked out the area behind the first hide and as Gimme left it she stuck her whole head in the pipe where the hide was. She was very direct to hide number two. She went into the area where the third hide was and got the hide there (one dog missed this one). I think scent from this hide may have drifted up to the area behind hide one, explaining why the dogs were all drawn back there. Gimme had the first three hides in 1:15. She found the fourth hide quickly (one dog missed this one). I never have any idea how much time has passed - so "a couple minutes" defined as "more than one, less than five" is pretty accurate. Initially she passed hide five, but turned back to it when she got in the scent plume and had it quickly. She had 5 minutes to complete the search and finished it in 3:45. Gimme was the only one to find all five hides the first time, so she didn't get a second search like the others did.

Interior 1 search video - Gimme did a good job going for the threshold hide right away; she usually blasts past them. She was held at the start a bit while I fumbled with the line, which probably gave her a chance to catch the scent of it. There were two hides near each other and on the same plane, creating a converging odor puzzle. I notice on the video she leaves the plume, then comes back, a tactic she often uses. When she came back, she quickly got the hide on the stack of chairs. She really thought they should have put hides on the shelving. She normally goes high very readily and didn't this time, which makes me wonder what was happening for her to keep checking low. In any case she finished in 2:38, which is a good time.

Interior 2 search video - This time the hides were similar, but moved. She never forgets where the hides were the time before. Gimme got the chair stack in 16 seconds. From there she scanned where the hides had been and then she got the hide on the back of the chair. She quickly got to the hide in the wheeled cart. This explains why she was drawn left at the start, but it wasn't strong enough to draw her all the way to the cart.

Gimme thoroughly enjoyed class and was excited when she solved puzzles. She's going to be sulking tonight - class has been cancelled due to the snow and very cold temperatures this evening.