[agilitywawa]

Question about the assignment – since Didi’s issues are purely fear driven, I do not intentionally put her into a place where she’s going to have the kind of reaction it seems that we are looking for in order to assess how long it takes her to recover. If she trains at home, she’s fine. I can note if things that might distract her in classes or at what point I reach an issue if we are out in the world, but I am trying to avoid creating a reaction by keeping an appropriate distance and working incrementally on her big trigger (strange people). At times, objects in the environment might worry her (trash dumpster for example) and then I can gauge her willingness to interact with the object and how her body posture is at the time – is she stretched out long in a fearful posture or is she more relaxed and how her recovery is from the encounter.

I guess I’m not sure how to go about the assignment given that I am trying to work under her thresh hold and not elicit a huge fear response in her. Or am I reading too much into it and I can note things like how she behaved at her new barn hunt class this week in a new place? And how she did at agility class this week.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

We are working with Dr. Jennifer Summerfield (remotely – she is working with my regular vet on the prescribing). Didi’s on 5mg of Fluoxetine once daily. Didi weighs 11 lb. We have worked with Sharon Carroll on the behavior mod work.

She has also been taking Purina Calming Care for months. I don’t really think it does anything but I’m afraid to stop it. lol.

I have started doing Fast Cat with Didi as a confidence thing – being able to work with people in the area. I have seen a lot of improvement – she basically runs straight now instead of veering when she goes by the lure operator. She seems to enjoy doing this. At the last event, she was able to do her end of run procedure that she does in agility class – she heard her remote reinforcement marker (“candy”) and as part of that, she was able to present herself and jump up to be picked up – then we get the cookies. This was a first in this environment. She does not run off, but this was the first time I got full buy in from her at the end. This is how I would want our agility runs to end if we can compete.

It has also been suggested that activities that involve using her nose could be beneficial, so I signed up for a 3 week intro to Barn Hunt to see if she enjoys doing that.

[agilitywawa]

Hi Bobbie,

No, I no longer live in NY, but I remain devoted to all their sports teams. LOL (Go Yankees! – Didi was named after Didi Gregorious who is sadly no longer a Yankee).

Didi and I started working with a Veterinary Behaviorist about a month ago and we all believe that Didi’s fear of people is a genetic thing. We started some meds 3 weeks ago and I may be starting to see little glimmers of them helping although it’s still early (and there’s room to increase the dose too).

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Continuing on the decel games – I did a few sends. Then worked again on the FC/turn and burn but focusing on not taking a step back to make sure I have those mechanics cleaned up. on one side of the turn and burn, the house is there, so no real estate for her to take off running to.

Then a little of the sequence. On the “go” I should have had the toy out as a target, but forgot.

As to the resilience piece – interesting stuff.

You wrote: “have you taught her the pattern game/coping mechanism that you taught Didi? I can grab some video of it in terms of how we are doing it recently, but it helps the dogs explore the environment, breathe… and also offer engagement with you with a specific framework for doing so. I have expanded how we use it a whole lot since we last looked at it”

I have not specifically taught her that, but I have used treat tosses on occasion if she has had “a moment” in the basement training area. Sometimes chasing the treats will get her up and running around again. It’s harder with her since she does not share Didi’s love of cookies over everything else. But maybe I should try this in more of a pattern game when nothing is going on?
If there’s a new way to do it, I’d be interested to see video too.

I could certainly try the come to my side, throw toy too and work on a loop. That’s not too dissimilar from some of the toy work we have done.

Thanks,
Joan

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by agilitywawa.

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Been gone camping and then to a UKI trial.

Finally got to look at Week 9 and start the deceleration exercise. Baby steps – in front of tunnel to FC, then turn and burn. The added the tunnel to the FC.

We did our first 2 NFC runs this weekend and she handled the environment really well – perfect start lines (at start and in middle of course), able to play with her toy, looking for her jumps. She had a lot of fun and the course had a few places where rewarding was obvious and easy. It was speedstakes, so I got to us “GO” quite a bit! She did an end line of 3 straight jumps out on one course with me in the dust. Great first show experience.

Decel video:

Thanks,

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi!

Thanks so much for doing that! Looking forward to hearing what they say. Dellin is interesting because changing things in training can blow her mind if I go too fast, but she can take all of her skills to new places and be fine. She has been to a couple of seminars and other new places to work and she translates her max puppy handling skills brilliantly – no problems. So, known things in new environments are ok.

Today she happily got back on the teeter for her 4 reps and I had the cone to wrap. Way more animated than the first video. So I did not wreck all the previous work. I was relieved anyway…

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

I would be interested in hearing more about the resilience conditioning – it’s not something I am familiar with. I’m glad I had that on video – when I try to tell people how sensitive she is, it’s hard to really convey it accurately and without me sounding like I’m overreacting to a minor sensitivity. You are right – I am very careful about how her training progresses, but I can’t control everything.

As it turns out, she is having a massage later today, so we’ll see if anything is off there.

Thanks!
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

The game where you go up and the board does not move was the one that caused the meltdown. All the games with tables have been fine.

I know she does not look super enthusiastic, but for her it was good. I would not say she’s super enthusiastic about anything. I think she likes the cone wrap after the best, so I should not go out there without the cone.

You said – Toys as the target, meaning she would not do a 2o2o? What if you used a toy between cookies, to keep things more interesting for her? I am not fully convinced the food is a great positive reinforcement here so a little excitement will help with that.

Correct could not do 2o2o with toy as target.

This afternoon I put the cookie down first then just let her go on the board and released and threw the toy and she had a total meltdown – would not chase or bring the toy back -acted very suspicious of the whole set up, like I had muddied the picture for her. She initially goes after the HR, but won’t pick it up, bring it to me, catch it when thrown to her or tug on it. Then she flops over and does all her appeasement stuff, so I quit. I’ll be lucky if she even gets back on there tomorrow. I have noticed with her that if I take too big a leap and the picture changes too much that she will tell me she’s confused by quitting. I left that in the video so you can see what I’m dealing with. It seems like if normal dogs can modify a piece of training in one step, Dellin needs 3 steps. Just an observation I’ve made with working on heeling. And once she knows what is going on, she’s happy to work, but my path looks a lot different from everyone else’s.

Here’s the teeter video:

In an effort to get her back to some sort of happy place, I went back to the sequence to work on the turns at 5 with RC or FC. She got back on the HR there and was acting normally again.

The RC is hard to see and some of it gets cut off because the turns are super wide. I’m really horrible at those.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

I’m guessing the arm is why it was so uncomfortable on the lead out. I don’t find it bad when moving.

The teeter – no issues with the end games – bang or the noise. In between Max Puppy sessions, I was going to do the Independent Study teeter class. I did the elevator up to nowhere and she does not like that AT ALL. She would not get on the board again. I had to go back to a flat board in the basement and work my way up to getting any incline – it took a couple of weeks. I went back to using 2 tables – a 24 and a 16 and initially, I let her go back and forth since she was offering going up. Then I got to a 24″ table and like an 8″.

To work on the going up piece, Nancy suggested that I work on getting what had been the 24″ table lowered. We did 16″ and now we are lower and she’s going to the ground. As you can see, she thinks quite a lot about it. I use food at the end. Toys were too much – she could not stop. To keep a clean loop, I either circle her back and run or send her around a cone and run back. I only do 4 reps per session. Some days I get 2 sessions in. For her, this seems to be about right. I am trying to vary my position, but not be part of the cue (like me moving with her).

Then we started the Big Lines games from the live class. I only did the 1-3 both ways (blind cross before or after #3). She had already done the teeter and some weave work and the grass was really wet (but we have storms forecast for later, so wanted to at east start this).

On the first rep, I forgot to tell her “left” out of the tunnel so she went super wide. Fixed that on the second rep 🙂 I think I’d almost always choose the BC on the landing side of 3 or I’d likely end up in the dust depending on where the course went.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Haha – they all were forced FC or throw back. Somehow I thought using my threadle word, somehow turned it into a threadle. LOL. I think I tend toward the FC most with the dogs that have rock solid start lines (Mari) or throwback if I need a tight turn.

Did a bit of the threadle with Dellin today. It felt really uncomfortable for me for whatever reason. Maybe because I was not moving.

We made the big move of entering 1 speedstakes run each day at a UKI trial over Labor Day weekend at 16s to do NFC and play around.

I have been working on the teeter with Nancy at my private lessons – I need to catch up on the homework and see if we can get on track there. Dellin is making good progress, but she definitely has opinions, so we’ve been respecting that and working with her. I keep every session to 4 reps and that seems to be working for her. Would you be open to seeing a bit of teeter video?

Here’s the lead out threadle:

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Last week was nuts – thunderstorms almost every evening, a lawn treatment, grass that grew like a foot after all the rain, blah, blah, blah.

Happy to be back at it on a gorgeous afternoon.

I did a couple of the lead out FC/threadle exercises. I did 2 different sequences from the homework sheet. Left it all on one video.

We’ve also been working on grids and her confidence is growing. We’re no at 18″ for jumps that have height. For the sequences, I have the bars at 16″.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Tried out the lead out using the threadle word (in). Started on one jump, then went to 2 jumps and did the threadle, throwback and LOP to end. I realized I was using a lot of arm at the start and tried to dial that back and rely more on the verbal. Now that I think about it, my feet are pointing the wrong way for a threadle (which is why all of them felt like throwbacks – because they are). I knew something was off when I was doing it (and I just figured it out). OOPS. so there are a lot of reps of the same thing but sometimes I used the threadle verbal and sometimes I did not. Well that was silly. Sorry about that.

I was minding the start line and making sure to pause. She was a little twitchy at the start when I’d move my arm, so a good reminder for both of us to pause. I always pause with Mari, so not sure why I feel rushed with Dellin.

Looks like we have good weather staying for the next week, so I hope to get back to the homework. I’m a bit behind.

Thanks,

Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

The hot weather broke and it’s gorgeous so trying to DO ALL THE THINGS! This should be a good week to get some homework done.

We started the lead out to the backside with throwback, FC and the lead out push. I did put a leash on the ground to help me, but things still look a bit late on my end. The mechanics for the throwback were hard since I did not want to show her the “cookie hand” with toy, so I had to switch hands to make the toss going the correct way.

Am I standing too close to the jump? It felt a bit awkward. Dellin was brilliant at reading which side of the jump to take. Even when my set up on the second side was causing her to zig zag a little.

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi,

Trying to improve on yesterday, but hit some snags. The BC – maybe I was too early – she was skipping jump 2 consistently. I was trying to keep the WINGS DOWN, but may not have succeeded! May need to duct tape my arms down. LOL. Reminds me of training my first service dog and we were all in wheelchairs at class, but still using too much unconscious body language with some cues. The instructor tied me into the chair so I could not move my upper body – certainly gave me a new perspective on how it was for the recipient of the dog.

The throwback “now with less throw” worked well, unfortunately it’s impossible to see my right hand (so maybe that means it’s in the right place 🙂

The FC was fine – tried to focus on doing it earlier.

She was dropping a lot of bars this morning – they were at 16. yesterday at 14.

Enjoyed zoom class last night – I swear my other dogs never learned those skills this young. Excited to get to that after the weekend (going to a trial). Will also add the tunnel into the sequence like the Wednesday zoom – that looked like a ton of fun.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks,
Joan

[agilitywawa]

Hi Tracy,

Like everyone- it has been hot (not as hot as a lot of you) so have not done as much. I watched class last night which looked super fun, but did not play along. And we’ve been working on weaves (inside) and some grids too – long list, short outdoor season. We have 2 huge grids in the yard, but I was able to squeeze in lesson 1 from week 7 – lead outs variations. It was a gorgeous cool morning.

We did the BC, throwback and FC. I did not drag a tunnel out like the set up last night, but at some point I will.

Dellin seems to be one of those dogs that finds her own set up spot and I don’t mess with it too much since it feels like something that could cause her to melt, so she’s happy, she seems to pick a good distance and she does not move on the start line, so I call it good.

I threw the toy a couple of times and after that it was placed on the ground after jump 3 (except for the throwback).

Thanks,
Joan

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