Still working on the blind search

Let's start at the beginning. At practice on May 3, we tracked a 80-30-80 track with 2 corners, food in every 5 steps and 5 step corners. This time I had brought a rock to drop at my first corner. I noticed that as I get nervous about not knowing where my corner is, Kane feels it and gets flustered by me and so he messes up. I absolutely have to get better at reading my track. Luckily Sean is an expert at tracking wildlife, so teaching me how to see my own stomping shouldn't be a problem. :-)

So....with me knowing where the corner was....Kane did an excellent job. He vacuumed through the corners like he was on a rail, and only once did he go slightly off track but found it with no encouragement from me. I'm so happy.
Obedience was good as well. We showed Richard how far we've come with calm holding of the dumbell in front and he said it looked nice. It's aggravatingly slow though, but I'm determined to stick with it. It's one of the exercises he doesn't exactly enjoy.
In protection we're continuing with blind search as an obedience exercise. My friend Julie has been gonig out on the field with me to help coach me. It's working great since I'm so into what I'm doing that I don't notice the little things. Today we worked Kane a little harder than we had before, because now we're seeing that he's in this for himself and not doing it because I ask him to. It needs to be a mix of the two, but he needs to do what I ask him to.
When he goes into the blind, I call "Kane, come" and immediately after "heel" and I'm standing still with my back towards him. If he goes past me, he gets a correction and continuous command until he is in heel position. As soon as his butt touches the ground I point and say "revere."
I also stopped grabbing the leash as Richard pointed out it may increase his drive with the little tugs he gets. It's better to use it when I really need to.
In the end, I think he caught on to the message, so now we have to continue to enforce it and we should be good. Thanks for the help Julie! And thanks Richard for being patient with me and Kane!

Wallace Payne Seminar - Obedience

For the obedience "show Wallace how you train" part, Kane and I did heeling, corners, about-turns, walking sit, walking down, recall and we also showed how we have started with the dumbell. We did ok, not great, his attention was not always on me, and he missed the first walking sit, instead he went into a down. I corrected and redid it.

Wallace's feedback for us was that I was the only one that trained, but only 75% of the time. I was one of two people that used food. Why weren't there more? Wallace told me I do not reward very consistently, nor very fast, and I need to do so more often when Kane gives me good reason to.
He recommends that I do not train out of sequence - meaning in trial the walking down comes immediately after the walking sit, with no turns in between. This is also how I should train, some would call this "pattern training" and it's a personal choice. "Let your dog know what is coming." He also in general recommends that you master something before you go on to the next thing.
Wallace says he understands what I am trying to do with the dumbell retrieve training. He thinks it's going to take me a long(er) time to do it this way. He uses forced retrieves. He also recommends that I use the clicker for rewarding the bring and hold of dumbell training.
Wallace advocates precision, accuracy and attention for a short period of time in the beginning, and he uses the clicker as a "non-emotional" marker for correct behavior. He says other schutzhund trainers are astonished to hear of him using clickers, but he says it works well for him. Here are the top 5 things I learned in obedience:

• Corners in obedience should be 5 step corners. This is fine for trials as long as there is a distinct change of direction.
• Use clicker to mark correct behavior
• Kane should be able to handle distractions during heeling now.
• Use leash for corrections, not hands
• Rewards can be playing (no ball) or ball. Stay in one spot

Kane and I bumping trying to do a 90 degree corner, notice his attention is not on me...

Since Kane has a long body, 5 step corners will be better for us than 90 degree turns. Wallace feels that I will not loose points for this at trial, but I will definitely loose points for loss of attention which is happening now. Corners are trial must have a distinct change of direction.

Me calling out to Sean as a distraction...

Kane knows heeling well enough now that he should be able to handle distractions during basic position (sit in heel position) and also during the heeling. To increase difficulty, you increase the length. We tried this with me messing with my hair, calling out to Sean, Wallace touching his ear and other things. If Kane moves his head or does not look at me, he gets a leash correction.

The leash is held with both hands fisted at or slightly below chest level. No tightness in leash, but short enough to be able to give a correction. Wallace used the clicker for me to mark good behavior. I think this worked very well, and I will ask my friends at practice and my trainer to help me with this. They can see if he is forged or lost attention and help me reward more consistently. I really like this idea.
When I'm by myself, I can hold the clicker with my right hand with the leash, click as a marker and then reward with my left hand - ALWAYS with the left hand.

Wallace advocates using the ball as a reward, not to just play. For this, he holds the ball up in front of the dog, or on the side (arm straight out) and tells the dog to "get it." Tug lightly on the ball to get the dog to pull back - that's what you want. Not you pulling but your dog pulling you. Use the OUT command and train again.

I think these obedience sessions gave us some great pointers on how to sharpen our performance and how to focus Kane's attention on the field. I will start to increase distance and distraction as we get better and then add in the about turns, walking sits and walking downs again. Group would be a form of distraction so we'll add that now as well.

Nice heeling, Kane!

Tuesday April 14, 2009

I've decided to post more about our day-to-day training as well, to make this more of a log than it is now:

Tracking:
To the left of the driveway. 75 paces, food in every third step, 5 step corner, 20 paces, no food in last 5 steps. Poor entry because I was waiting for Sean, entry needs to be more one thing after another and no wait. Good track on first leg, turned around once for missed food. Kane did the corner correctly. Tracked fine on last 5 steps.
Correct corner: 1 out of 5 more. (Before we do food in every 5 steps)
Next track - increase length of first leg to 100 paces, do 2 corners, no food in last 5 steps.

Obedience:
Worked on calm bring and hold of dumbell. Using clicker after he outs correctly.
Had to place dumbell in his mouth since he goes into avoidance, turns head or looks down. If I put some excitement into it and move back a few steps, he is more likely to reach for the dumbell himself. Small amount of mouthing. I only hold a finger under his chin now, none on top. 5 strokes on his forehead.
Next session: Same for this entire week.

Wallace Payne Seminar - Tracking

Kane, myself and my fiance spent the weekend at Metrolina Hundesport Schutzhund Club in Wingate, NC and attended a Wallace Payne seminar. It was great, and I feel like I learned a lot. I really enjoyed how the seminar was structured, and although we never made it into protection, the pointers that Kane and I got in tracking and obedience will really help propel us forward. Wallace's seminars are laid out very well, and he takes care that everyone shares their experiences and it's not only a one-on-one teaching. He first lets you do your own thing, be it tracking or obedience in this case, then he critiques everyone, people ask questions, and then you do it a second time around with his pointers, help and suggestions. The next day goes the same way. Here are the top 5 things I learned about tracking (in no particular order):

• Make corners 5 step corners. That is fine in trial and how most track-layers lay tracks.
• Stop marking corners, remember where they are (ugh!)
• No need for long line, 6 foot leash ok until your dog can track with no food
• How to properly approach and ready your dog for the track
• How to correctly hold the leash, position my body and how to move with my dog when he moves

Since tracking is one of the things I have trouble understanding, I really appreciated the feedback and the chance to learn.

Ok, remember where you made that corner....

Wallace told me that 5 step corners is how tracking is done at trials. Hardly ever do you see a 90 degree corner. Wallace starts corners immediately when teaching tracking, no need to wait until the dog can do a longer straight track. While using food, there should be no food at the apex of the track, only right before and right after. When I make the corner, I should remember to make the corner on the inside foot, so that I don't confuse my dog with an outside footstep and an inside corner. I need to get better at remembering where my corners are. I am not good at that, and I think I confuse Kane a lot at the corners because I'm unsure and he can feel it through the leash/line. More practice, I suppose.

The approach is handled with leash near collar in a fist in my left hand. Approach at slow to normal pace (for me...lol). Stop right before your scent pad and slowly pull up on the leash to make the dog sit (without command).

Transfer the leash into my right hand, while keeping the leash above his head so that he does not drop down (to scent pad). Grab the dogs right leg (above ankle) under the leash, and wrap the leash around the leg. Keep the head up. You can verbally give an "ERR" if the head starts to drop. As soon as the leg is let go of, and hits the ground, give the command. "SEARCH." This seemed to calm Kane, and gave us a much better start, he went right into it and there was no need for whining etc.

The leash should be wrapped around my right hand and held in a fist at the end of the leash/line. The fingers of my left hand should rest on top of the line, sort of as a guide, or to feel the tension and make sure the tension is correct. The left hand should NOT press down on the leash, since the dog can feel that and can subsequently pull back.

While tracking, I should move when my dog moves. When he stops to eat (later on he won't stop of course), the leash should have no tension at all, let it hang loose. Then when he starts moving, the leash will tense up and I should feel it in my hand that he pulls me forward. My shoulders and elbows should be relaxed and my left shoulder should be in front of the right one

If Kane leaves the track, I can give a verbal "ERR" and then the "SEARCH" command again. If he fumbles around too much, starts spinning etc., then I can hold the leash in my left hand near his collar, point to the footstep with my right hand and give the "SEARCH" command, wait until he sniffs and moves forward, let the leash run through my hand and correct hand-position again.

At the end of my last track, I had 5 steps with no food. If he did that well, that's an indication to start leaving food in every 5 foot steps. This is how you progress.

I'm excited to start this new tracking routine, and now I need to find some good tracking fields!

Tomorrow I will post about the obedience part of Wallace's seminar. If you have the opportunity to go to one, you definitely should. It is worth the money and so much more. Thanks to Jeff Rentz at Metrolina for organizing this.

Turning Blind Search into an Obedience Exercise

Ever since we started having practice at the new field, Kane has been having issues with the blind search. At the old practice field, we only had 2 blinds, and we always ran them the same way (there's our problem, I know!!!!).

Kane got used to the helper being in the blind that was closest to where all the people were. Now, the people hang out near blind 3, with the helper in blind 2, so when I send him, he runs around blind 1, hears my call and next command to "Revere!" starts going towards blind 2 and then he turns back towards blind 3 (where the people are.) This results in a down and we do it again. We've tried with the helper popping out of blind 2 and slapping with the stick, and when he hears/sees that - he goes full speed for blind 2. Then we do it again and he goes for blind 3. I asked Richard if he thought my dog was stupid (lol), and he said no, he's just "being stupid." Well, we can train past that!

Enter the "retraining the blind search" session. A few of my friends already do this from scratch with their dogs, and I think that is a great method. Their dogs learn to run blinds with rewards and positive motivation. The idea is to get the dog to run around an object (be it a tree, a blind (if you have one), a cone, a barrell, a garbage can....whatever ya got) that is indicated by the handler pointing and issuing the command. We are doing this at practice as well, but I wanted to reinforce it by training it at home (where I don't have access to a trained helper), so we're using positive marker training instead. Here's what I'm using to start with:

A tree.

A tug.

A ball (= reward)


A dog that wants to train. :-)

Kane likes the ball A LOT more than the tug, so my proposition to him for this exercise is " If you go around the tree and bring me the tug, I will let you play with my ball." We started out just a few feet from the tree, we heeled to our starting point and I made him sit while I went around the tree and placed the tug where he couldn't see it.

Then I went back to him, pointed my arm like I do on the field and said "Revere!" The first time wasn't all that great. I could tell his brain was going "But where's the blind, mom?" I ended up grabbing his collar and running with him saying "Revere, revere, revere!" until he saw the tug. Then I quickly backed up, said "Kane, come!" and when he saw me and was running towards me I threw the ball behind me.

The second through eighth time were much better. I even increased our distance from the tree a little bit. We've been doing this pretty much every day in the past week.

At practice, I am using the "Kane, come!" command as he rounds the blind, and then I make him come to me before continuing on to the next blind. I use the remote collar if he does not listen to me. It went pretty well this past weekend, but I need to make sure he comes and sits in front of me before the next step. We stepped it up to 3 blinds at practice and only once did I have to put him in a down.

Kane's impression of NASCAR - rounding the blind at a 15 degree angle!

Eventually he will come to me, sit in front of me, and I'll give the heel command to turn towards the next blind and send him to that, call for him to come to me, sit in front, heel around and send again.

I think this is good for him. Whereas previously he has seen protection as a big game being played on his terms, he is now learning that he must do what I ask of him. It's noticeable also in how he carries the sleeve all the way back to the car and even doing a victory lap around the car with the sleeve. He has never done this before - choosing instead to drop the sleeve as soon as he gets to the car. Now I have to tell him Out! to get him to release the sleeve. It's almost as if now he feels like he did the work, and he earned carrying the sleeve - it's his price!

Oh and this week I got a nice bloody lip courtesy of my beloved dog. We did a recall from a walking down, and I placed the ball under my chin, intending to drop it as a reward for a correct front sit. Well, Kane decided himself that his front sit was pretty darn good, and he went for the ball....I'm sure to all the onlookers it looked like he was going for my throat....lol. Anyway, he bumped my teeth and created some internal and external holes in my chin. Nothing that needed stitches, but made for an interesting conversation. :-) I can't whistle!!!

We've been tagged!

Kane at 7 weeks. Hard to believe he was once this little....

Warning: This post has (almost) nothing to do with schutzhund training. :-) We were tagged by YD over at YD's A Little Bit of Everything blog and her doggie girls Samantha and June to do a "Doggie Bucket List" - meaning everything Kane would like to do sometime in his lifetime.
So here it is - after all, it's good to take a break from training every now and then, right? Right.

Kane is now writing the rest of this. Pretty good typer, he is.

Things I have done in my lifetime:
Bitten Richard (our trainer) numerous times.
Been used as crowd control by a police officer (I was 1 1/2 but apparently already intimidating enough)
Gone down the road with my head out the sunroof (I do it all the time)
Bite holes in tires (wheelbarrow, now we have one with solid tire)
Peed on every tree in the yard (yep, and they're ALL MINE!)
Swam in the lake (didn't really like it)
Bit a hole in mom's exercise ball (she let me play with it!)
Chased deer
Chased canadian geese
Chased rabbits
Chased cats
Chased anything small and furry that moves fast
Slept in a tent
Gone hiking and carried my own backpack
Snuggled with mom on the couch
Licked away mom's tears when she cried


Things I'd like to do:
Sleep upstairs with mom and dad in their bed.
Lick Stars and Stripes, mom's cats. Oh, come on....one little lick wouldn't hurt them??!!?
Chase a squirrel up the tree
Eat that stick of butter of the counter.
Beat up neighborhood chiuaua that pees in our yard.
Catch one of those pesky deer.
Get a Schutzhund III title (that one was from mom)
Prove to mom I can do the long down (hers too)
Go with mom and dad to Sweden to meet everyone there.
Convince mom and dad that I NEED MORE CHICKEN!!!!
Raise mom and dad's kids when they have them

Have a baby sister or brother so that I can show them all the trees to pee on.

Walk mom down the aisle when her and Sean get married in October (I can't wait!)Leyla, Mom and Me. Leyla belongs to mom's exbf.

No right turns allowed

This past Saturday we had practice at a temporary new field in Morrisville, NC. A new field near Claremont is in the works, but they have just cleared it, evened it out and seeded it so it's not functional yet.

In obedience, we first did a long down while Mike was working his rottie Jazz. I used the remote a little heeling onto the field, but then not at all. Kane did well. He had a line on which I was loosely holding about 10 ft away.
He looked at me most of the time, unless Jazz was running and then he looked at him. Yeay! :-)

On our obedience, the feedback from friends was that during our turn on the field, Kane was very forged. (This means that he had his head and front wrapped around me, resulting in his butt being swung out and not parallell with my body.) This also forces his body into my every time I bend my left knee.
The suggestions were to only do left turns for a little while when working obedience during the week. Left turns will force my knee to bump him HARD and eventually he will stay away from it.
Another suggestion was to use a long stick and lightly smack his left back flank to make him straighten out more.

We did a little heeling during our walk on Monday morning (@ 5:30am), and he was not forged at all. So I wondered if the stress of having the remote collar on, and the stress of being in the long down, makes him forge because it's a way for him to have body contact with me as much as possible??

I posed this question to some good friends, and here's a collection of their answers:

C: Hey, just because you’re awake enough to do OB at 5:30am doesn’t mean your dog is! He was probably in correct position because he was tired and wanted to go back to bed, poor Kane. You’re never going to ask me anything again are you?
I know when correction comes with my dog he does in fact want more body contact with me. This became very apparent when I was correcting him for crowding and it produced worse crowding. I had to use the prong collar very gently and correct him straight away from my body and even give a light verbal ah-ah as I corrected to help him get the point. The forging baffles me a little, but you seemed to relate it to his way of having more body contact, so that would make sense. The only other time my dog will crowd and actually will forge is when he’s in very high drive and doesn’t want to contain himself. This is a very different picture than when he’s leaning on me because of corrections. Can you tell the difference with Kane? Is he more or less drivey on the SchH field or at home? As for a solution, I agree with the left turn theory. You can also take your right knee and raise it, cut across your body (left leg) and knee Kane in the chest/under the chin. Just whatever you do, make sure you get the desired response and then reward for it quickly. Make the left turns, sudden halts, or knee kick a game so he wants to fix himself and get a reward. If the problem is stemming from the e-collar correction, it’s all the more important that your “fix” be a game. Even slowing down your walk and givingvery gentle prong tugs while saying ah-ah might do the trick.
J: . . . you know how dogs revert to old habits that you've fixed when they're under stress? Maybe whether from the long down or the new field, Kane was going back to his old bad ways because he was less comfortable than he was on your walk this morning?

J: (after many e-mails back and forth asking questions about whether I had a ball in my vest-pocket at practice (yes) and whether I had a ball on Monday morning (no) and whether I was wearing the vest on Monday morning (no)
You could try practicing on your walk with the schutzhund vest and ball in it and see what happens. I'm sure he can smell the ball

L: I would try what Carrie and the people at the club suggested to you but would also teach a side heel and a backward heel so that he doesn't anticipate the heel as always a moving forward or a turn but rather he thinks where your left is and what it is doing.

I don't know Kane well enough to say whether a nick from an e-collar would make him forge or a strange place would affect him.

Some dogs will touch you on the heel to avoid loosing your leg from being corrected until they figure out that it doesn't help them as you turn into them and bump them as you move your leg up and over a little.

I would also let him know maybe a command to fix it. I use close with mine and usually start that as I move to the side or step backwards and want them to follow that leg. I would reward right away for the position as soon as he came into it.

When you heel him and have the ball have you taught him to work with proper heel position with the ball in front of him? Where he can see the ball and still hold eye contact on you.

He shouldn't break a heel position even if the ball or other distraction is in plan view but be focussed on you.

If that's the case I would go back to teaching him a "game" that the toy is yours and he works for it while it's in his view. That way regardless of what you are wearing or where the toy or food is his attention is on you.

Don't I just have some awesome friends with great advice?! Without them, I'd be so lost.

On another note, we (well, Kane) ran three blinds at practice which was new. Here's a small pictorial of that. Up until now, we have only been running two blinds so he's gotten used to the helper being in the second blind. It was amusing to see his face when he came around the second blind expecting the helper. :-)

Here we are at the start. Me pointing out the blind.

On his way into blind # 2...See the excitement on his face?
"I'm gonna get this guy......"

Still excited....coming into blind # 2

"Where the heck did he go????!!!???"

"Aaahhh....there he is!"

"I'm coming to get you, Jack! Just you wait!"