[Colleen Meacham]

I will look at the Brain Camp info. Even when we do FEO, Rebel is too high to take toys, which are her absolute favorite.

I haven’t run AKC Masters in almost a year, and I’d guess it will be maybe a year or so until I get Rebel there. I can’t imagine what new challenges there will be. We mostly do AKC (except premier) and the occasional UKI when it is close. Rebel and her dam loved the UKI trial we went to. I just wish we had more close UKI trials. 

When do you use your look command? Is it at the start line? It’s a good skill for me to learn to teach for many reasons. I don’t think I waited for her to look at the cone. I rewatched the training video and saw a definite look at the cone. I got rushed and excited. 

I have not noticed any sound sensitivity yet. I can take my lower wobble board and put a blanket underneath it on pavers or concrete to start. It is the same diameter as the square one but round with a shorter base. 

Today’s videos -Plankarobics. I am a big fan of teaching this, as I’ve had 2 Dobermans fall off the dog walk and 1 Vizsla as well. My last two Dobermans could not/cannot turn around on a board. I started early with Rou and then forgot about it. It helps Rou to do some position changes to see where her feet are. I was using boring kibble, but she was very animated. She didn’t care when her feet came off, and didn’t care when I tripped and almost landed on her. I added a slow hoover to try to get her thinking a bit before turning again.

Wing wrap sends. She likes moving. It took me a bit to get coordinated and send with the correct leg. I probably overdid the reps because we were having fun. 

[Colleen Meacham]

Rebel, the high arousal Doberman, is 3 now. Ginger and I train together. She recommended Max Pup to me years ago and also recently recommended I reach out for privates with Rebel if we can’t get this resolved with her current class. She can do most of the arousal games at home, in class, and at seminars. She’s been running off-leash since she was a young puppy and has the best recall of any of my dogs. At trials, she gets into a headspace and can’t think.

You mentioned moving the bowl so she has to pass it to go around the cone. This is the exact skill I’ve struggled to teach and often give up on. As a result, I can’t leave toys or rewards on the ground during training, and I’d really like to change that. I didn’t use my hands during the session because when I do, she tends to focus on my hands instead of the task at hand. In today’s sessions, she wasn’t looking at the cone at all; I believe she was just fixated on her toy. I wanted to wait for more feedback before submitting another video.

I’ve never used a “look” command before and don’t necessarily plan on using it. But I do think it’s helpful to learn how to train it. I’ve taught her to focus on her bowl or the reward in front of her, so I’m unsure how to communicate the switch to looking at the object or obstacle instead of the thing I’ve been rewarding her for looking at. It’s possible that I moved too quickly in this process.

Today’s videos:

Wobble board – oh my she loves this.
Prop Send – I am still figuring out how to do a little play/engagement before we train without looming over her. When any props are out, she’s less likely to do personal play so we’ve been working on it away from specific training sessions.

[Colleen Meacham]

Oh yes arousal is a good thing. The problem I created was arousal without the ability to think. It’s a huge obstacle with her Aunt because I can’t even get the leash off at a trial without her flipping onto a non thinking zone.

For forward focus I think I can stand and use a toy. I’ll see how hard she pulls my back.

For the wobble board I’ve named it her teeter command since I’ll be doing a 4 on. When we play games should I just be silent and have her get on?

Here is our toy races game. I was happy she didn’t target my feet at all. I used a second toy in case I needed to do a two toy game for her.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by Colleen Meacham.

[Colleen Meacham]

Yes, I have a perfect solution to have her out of the room when I am stepping, which also fixes the current “chewing tornado” situation. I have started giving her something delicious to chew in her crate that she doesn’t get at any other time. 

Arousal – I am so scared of that word at the moment. I will focus on Rou being Rou and not her Aunt who simply cannot trial because she loses her mind. 

Markers – yes, Tug is for something in my hand. I like the “backwards thrown” cue, but I haven’t trained it yet. 

Today’s videos:
Movement. This is where we are with a wobble board. We started with much smaller movements, to a small puppy wobble board, to a big board with less of a tip, to my big giant board with a big tip. We have only used this one on grass. I was willing myself to take a break a tad sooner than I did. In my current training, I am working on changing my position and her staying on the board. At this point, if a foot accidentally comes off, I am still rewarding. 

Foward focus, I think she was looking at me on the 3rd rep and not the obstacle. We did work on the other side with a tug and her ball. She is also very hard to hold back with one arm so she kept creeping forward.

[Colleen Meacham]

I originally streamed my training to the TV for conformation to see what I was doing. And then after 4-5 times of getting myself outside the view of the camera, I realized I can use it for other types of training. I have a nice little inside area to train, but the challenge is getting the camera in the right spot to get a good view.

In June, we lost Rou’s grandmother tragically to mismanaged spay complications. We were on the list to get a granddaughter next year. At 10 weeks old, Rou’s original owner had their own life crisis, and Rou became available. Tada, she ended up here. Normally, I’d have more insight into puppyhood, but it’s a weird situation. When we picked her up, my breeder told us to watch our feet because she loves to run in between legs. When she got home, I realized she also liked to bite feet and target my fitbit which is on my ankle. She’s pretty good about stationary feet now, and my Fitbit. Sometimes she will nose poke my ankle instead of the Fitbit (which she was rewarded for). That said, movement triggers her. Every morning, I do a YouTube step video, and if I don’t keep her busy (fetch, bone, etc.), she will stalk my feet. We have gotten to a point where she won’t reach in and grab my feet, but she’s aroused in a stalking position with her head down by my feet. She’s in a state of arousal that I would like to avoid. I haven’t quite seen this when doing agility or training yet. She’s over 50 lbs, so she can easily knock me over now. So I don’t sound entirely crazy, this is my 4th Dobe from the breeder, and I own the littermate to Rou’s dam. Her play style may be totally different from the other Dobes I’ve had. I’ll keep a close eye. My vizslas will quickly let me know that ” hands in face is RUDE. SO RUDE. Game over. So I am familiar with trying other play styles.

Sorry for the long post. Back to our current video. We worked on Resilience Games 2.

My markers are:
Yes or clicker – universal reward marker
Good – I bring the food to you, and ideally, you don’t move (we are working on this part)
X – you come to me for the food
Hoover – several treats on the floor. I try to use this one to lower arousal.
Floor – food brought to you on the ground
Get it – tossed food
Pounce – dead toy
Chase – thrown reward
Tug
Dish – food in dish

Here is our resilience game 2. She did not sit fully when I asked for a sit, but I made a mental note for future training to let her arousal come down a bit.

[Colleen Meacham]

I’ll make sure to add the object first. She checks EVERYTHING out by nose poking it. EVERYTHING. She could have worse quirks but the number of drinks she spilled on us! Which leads me to the other quirk of biting feet and running between legs. I may have put too much emphasis on it when she arrived as my husband was recovering from ankle surgery. I think that may be why her personal play is tentative.

For the blind crosses do you want me to do a double blind so she ends up back on the same side? And should I still run a straight line?

Here is some collar grab fun. It went amazing with the food toss. Then I grabbed a ball that was apparently a top notch high level reinforcer and she struggles to bring it back. I grabbed an identical ball to work with. The last time we just played ball, she could return this one easily. Interesting to see how a little arousal can tip things a different direction.

[Colleen Meacham]

The beauty of video is we catch everything. Thanks for noticing the play behaviors. We ran off leash today and yesterday so we won’t be training per se. It’s a good day to work on play skills.

Here is some stealth game with a novel object and then some blind cross work and I kept the object out.

[Colleen Meacham]

This is the exercise that just keeps on giving the laughter. I mentally ran through our training and I FORGOT to teach her a release word. We played the two toy game, and I was shaking the other toy for a release. We skipped a few steps!

Here is another session on the prop send. I noticed that our personal play is very lacking. But she did much better with the sends. Or I should say we did much better with the sends. 

[Colleen Meacham]

Today, I began a new journey that I have been putting off since I got my toy-driven dogs: teaching toy control. This isn’t my area of expertise, and I usually shy away from it. However, I decided to dive into the wing wrap field guide. Compared to her grand dam and Aunt, Roulette has impressive toy control, so she’s a good starter dog.

We used two toys, and I was on the ground with her. I forgot my marker word. I am changing it to “tug.” She seemed to respond well, so we introduced an upright. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and we shared plenty of laughs. I tried to use my marker word correctly, but we definitely need to work on that more.

It’s been a rough week—one of my dogs got skunked, and my husband’s truck and trailer were stolen. Those giggles during our training really made my day. I think she may have nose-poked my lens as it’s a bit blurry.

[Colleen Meacham]

Rou did great with the novel object but it wasn’t visible in the video. It was a T-shirt and too far away.

Today we did some shaping games. We’ve played this game a lot and I could not think of much we haven’t gotten on. She has always loved getting on things I accidentally left a kitchen chair and she gets right on the table, or she’ll jump onto a crate to get on the kitchen island.

[Colleen Meacham]

Hi Tracy,

For the wrap exercise, when we move to standing, can we toss a cookie, or should we still use the dish?

Here is the stealth recall game. I used food and a tug toy for this since she’s just coming into me, and I don’t have to bend down to get the toy. I added a novel distraction but you couldn’t see it in the video, so I deleted that part. I’ll pick a better object for the next one.

[Colleen Meacham]

Thank you. I definitely need to start ramping her up a bit. I’ve been playing it safe after getting a few good bites with sharp puppy teeth.

She is much better at bringing the ball back to me. We will use that for now when we can. We practiced a bit more last night.

Here is her wing wrap. She’s never done this with an upright. We’ve used a small cone, big cone and jump wing. Halfway through I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to mark her food dish. This is the 3rd class we’ve done it and each was slightly different.

[Colleen Meacham]

To be honest I wasn’t sure how well she’d get near me with it. We’ve mostly worked with balls with my back lately. Tug is a little higher value. I’ll give it a go in the backyard. The tug is a bungee type but it’s a short bungee. I’ll see if I can find my longer one.

Here is some work as follows
1. Decel to handler
2. Decel with turn
3. Sends to target. Ok this is where we need help. Send to the paw target. As soon as I add a hand, she checks my hand – provably checking for a cookie? But she also nose pokes EVERYTHING when she’s curious. I played around with different hand movements.

I’ve had treats in my hands a lot due to my carpal tunnel but I’m working on getting them in my pockets.

[Colleen Meacham]

Hi Tracy,

We are so happy to be back. I hurt my back about month ago picking up one of the dogs. Our play skills are rough because is that and you can see I’m still not very flexible. Roulette was very happy to see a tug again.

[Colleen Meacham]

We’ve both always had a side. My side is “weird” – from direct right to in front of me the right side is easy, but doing say a blind the left side is easy. Two herniated discs make things a tad difficult.

Today we practiced the zig zag games after introducing the tunnel and it was hotter than I anticipated. We’re also working on leaving me to get the toy and not running away with the toy.
Video is the zig zag game. I’m a bit of a dog geek and always find it fascinating to see how each puppy learns ever so slightly different than others.

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