The Mock BH - We passed!

It wasn't extremely pretty - but we passed! (insert happy dance here)
The BH is a temperament test that is rated either pass or fail. First you go through a pattern obedience session, on and off leash, and you need to accumulate a certain % of points to be allowed to continue and take the traffic part of the test.
Here's a summary of what went well, and what did not go so well:

Good Things:

• Kane did not break the long down while Nobi and Julie were doing their routine. I so badly wanted to turn around and look at him, but he was fine. Sean said he flinched a little when Julie did the recall with Nobi, but he stayed put.
• We did not mess up any of the pattern - we did the correct turns at the right time and the correct number of steps for each section.
• Did I mention that Kane did not break the long down?
• Kane also did not break the long down.
• I was extremely happy to see that Kane did not break the long down.

Checking in - I already lost his attention...

The not so good things:

• Nerves. I have them.
• The judge asked for a microchip scanner, which of course I did not bring (it IS the handler's responsibility). He told me that this is needed for a real trial, just so that I know, but it made me (more) nervous nonetheless.
• In turn, my nervousness transferred to Kane and he sniffed the starting point flag (rookie mistake on my part - set up at least 2 feet from the flag!)
• During the entire first leg of the pattern (50 steps straight heeling) Kane was next to me, but NOT heeling (see picture below). He was looking around for the bad guys that were making me nervous.
  

Oups, that's not exactly heeling.

Oh, we're heeling? Hey, I know how to do that!!!

Forged heeling.

• The heeling was extremely forged at times, and even more so when Kane was off-leash. Proper heeling means his front shoulder is aligned with my hip. He's about two steps ahead of me in the picture above.
  

Group Heeling Exercise.

• During the group heeling exercise, I did not pay attention to who was in the group and I stopped next to a tall, new man (bad move). Kane leaned over to sniff his pants (obviously "breaking" the heel eye-contact). I made a correction which is so NOT allowed. It's better to do a second command.
  

Kane (left) being good while Nobi (right)
does the down out of motion exercise. Good Boys!

The recall was nice. Actually it was perfect. :-)

I don't have any pics of the traffic portion because my photographer had to ride the bicycle around us. :-) Kane paid no attention to car, biker or the jogger. Then the judge had me bring him in under the carport (our shade) where there were lots of people, chairs and noise. He had me put Kane in a sit next to a group of people, shake hands with them and talk with them. Then I put Kane in a down position and walked away outside of the carport. They talked for a few more minutes and then the judge said to call my dog. I did, and my little boy took the shortest route to get to me, which involved a huge leap over the chairs, and almost over my mom who was sitting in one of the chairs. It was awesome!

Now I have a great big list of things to work on in obedience, especially correct heel position, my nerves, on and off leash obedience and distractions. We've already started.

I'm thinking about doing the real BH on July 18-19 when there is a trial down at Myrtle Beach, but we'll see. We are dog-sitting for another GSD, Sebastian, that weekend, and I'm not sure if that will bring too much stress in addition to the travel etc.

We're Ready!

Thanks to some good friends' advice and an excellent obedience practice on Saturday morning, I was able to get rid of my nerves and Kane and I will be entering the MOCK trial this coming Saturday for the BH. We will be doing the BH with Nobi and his handler Julie, which is the team we have been practicing with the most.
I wanted to do the long down exactly as in trial, so it was only done with a fur-saver collar. Up until now, we have always used a long line and the e-collar. I also made sure that I walked about 30 paces away and kept my back turned (most of) the entire time.

I'm happy to report that Kane was a model long down dog. Julie and Nobi put him to the test, running close, catching the ball nearby and Nobi even did one of his signature victory laps near Kane and Kane did not move. :-) Yeay!

The mock trial doesn't count, but we are still putting the final touches on a few things such as off-leash heeling, about turns, sit and down out of motion and pace changes. I'm memorizing the BH pattern that we have to do, first on leash and then off leash.

Our club, Piedmont Schutzhund Club, now has a logo, courtesy of yours truly. Nice, isn't it? :-) Website coming soon!

This past weekend was spent cleaning up the training field, adding crush and run to the entrance, tearing down the old lattice in the blinds, painting posts and putting up new lattice, weed whacking, putting the roof on the carport (the "gondola" as we call it). Mike and Jack have built a brand new A frame and fixed up the jump. Everything looks brand, spanking new.

On Saturday, I was also asked to hold one of the Konfederate Kennel bulldogs during puppy tugtime. This is done with the beginner dogs, usually as a group, to get the dogs as excited as possible. My pretty brindle guy, Mandingo, did awesome and almost knocked me off my feet a few times. It was fun to go back to this stage for a few minutes! Be a tree, Lena. Be a tree.

Oh, and Kane had an excellent protection session as well. We are running 3-4 blinds intermittently stopping and not stopping. Now we just have to keep at it for a little while, but Kane is doing great. I can tell that the obedience is having an effect on his outs as well.

4 blinds!

Woo-hoo, we're running 4 blinds!

Well, technically I'm not, Kane is. :-) I'm so excited!

Now that he runs four blinds with a heel and sit in between each, we have started alternating with no heel and sit, just a direct send to the next blind between 1 and 2, then a heel sit between 2 and 3, and a heel sit between 3 and 4. So far so good.

We have finally also formed a REAL Schutzhund USA club: Piedmont Schutzhund Club. We have our affiliation trial on Saturday June 6 and we hope to have a real trial in November, maybe. The affiliation trial is a mock trial, so Kane and I have entered for the BH which will be a practice run before the real thing. I'm getting a bit nervous, I think. The BH is obedience and "temperament" testing only making sure Kane is not nervous around other dogs, people, cars and bicycles.

I still have to learn the pattern for the obedience - guess what I'll be doing this weekend????!!!

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.