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>>Yes! Can you imagine how good our human educational system would be if we rewarded effort – especially when that effort is based on information that the student relies on from US HUMANS in order to be correct? That is why I reward effort in dogs a LOT because a) they are learning and b) they have to sort through my trashy cues LOL!!!!<<
Sooo true! I hope that one day this will happen and it’ll really transform our society. I won’t get into things lol but I’m sure I was pretty messed up as a kid in many ways because I never did things good enough. :p
Yesterday morning I kept things really short and he did great! This was before we went out and did anything else and had a Big Day.
At the barn later on he also did really well. I also kept it really short and mostly he ran around with Dreamer in the building. When I was ready to leave and let them out of the building to go to the car, Kaz just kept running back to the building door, he wanted to go back in!
This morning we also did a little work at home, and I thought hmm this is a lot of video to put into one post. LOL. And… Kaz thought it was too much training! He did great at first when I did some barrel wrap. I tried to get some turn n burn and blind crosses in but I think I need better coordination myself! I need to go back and watch the videos.
Then I tried the tunnel and wraps again and he did not want to go into the tunnel. There was a little water in the bottom and he doesn’t like stepping in water. Which doesn’t bode well for dock diving LOL. I do have a kiddy pool set up outside now and my other dogs love the water, so hopefully he’ll learn it’s fun. So we gave up on this exercise LOL I did straighten the tunnel more after I stopped the video and threw in a bunch of kibble which he went in and ate, but I figured we just needed to give up on that today. 😀
We did some super easy through the tunnel for the Manners Minder and he was okay with that, but also stopped pretty early. I have an agility trial this weekend so he’ll get a big break from training. I will bring the lotus ball and get him used to that, and walk around and probably do some resilience games again. 🙂
I went out with him again after it cooled down and we both did better! I need to get out the short tunnel and work the tunnel games from MP1.
Yeah he’s a good boy at 9 months old. And I think he has the potential to be speedy and quick! I have lotus balls I used for my older Farmdogs so I will get some out for him. Sounds good. Connor and Jet love those!
I he really is starting to mature so we can do more things now. Which is always fun.
I set up the smiley face game and it gave me a ton of information! 😂🤣❤️. Most useful really I think was that I can’t work too long. Especially when it’s hot. They are saying is in the mid eighties today. And last weekend at dock diving I swear Kaz was saying… It’s never been this hot in my whole life! Which really it hasn’t been. Since I got him last October the world has been pretty much frozen. And when we tend to go right from cold to hot all the dogs have a hard time adjusting.
So this also tells me he doesn’t understand sending to a tunnel yet. Nor wrapping a jump stantion. Which just made me laugh. Lol. When I was setting up the tunnel and the bags he was zooming through really fast on his own!
One thing you said in a live a while back when you were helping a young girl really sticks with me. You asked her how cool it would be if in school she gave something a good try and the teacher always gave her an A+. And what what we want for our dogs. They always get a A+ no matter what! I just loved that. ❤️❤️
Oh that’s good I’m not the only one who took a break from training. 😊. I can’t believe they are already 9 months old! Kaz definitely needs a lot of maturing lol. He still can’t play with toys outside of home. But treats work well for short training sessions.
I looked at the smile game and that looks fun! I will set that up in the next few days. I only had a little time this morning so I threw out the barrel in the back yard and he had a blast! I should probably move further away. 😊
Gaaah. Between overbooking April, and feeling horrible for the last 3 weeks, I haven’t trained at all. So I feel behind (again) and need to pick a new starting point. I’m looking over some of the lessons to see what we can do. I should be able to get something going today and in the next week or so.
Thanks for your feedback! I can get a pool noodle but he tends to think they are great toys and will run off with them. 🤣 So I may need something he can’t carry. I can recruit the husband for the same jump game again… I am so hoping the snow is done for the year! But we just never know. It can blizzard in May too.
Anyway, I’m still around, and reading up. 🙂
Good to know I was doing things right in the trailer. 🙂 I was parked away from others, and I had the blinds closed so he wouldn’t see many people or dogs going by. I also usually have white noise (well I’ve been using brown noise) at night, but he was actually quiet at night when we were sleeping, it was when we were awake and active he would bark. And it wasn’t full-blown barking like a mad puppy, just some woofs. He’s super quiet in his crate at trials, which is fantastic. Well, except now when I get Dreamer out and Cas knows he’s missing some fun, he’ll bark and yap. 😀 I don’t leave him in the trailer unsupervised yet. He’s too destructo. :). He loved the chews I gave him, which kept him occupied in the trailer.
I also did some nosework training at the trial and he did great! It’s so cool to see that he can work at trials. He’s still not able to play with toys, so I’m waiting for that to come back at his own speed.
Yeah, he doesn’t like being picked up at all. A friend recommended that maybe I have him jump on me from a chair, or even from the ground. When I get him out of his crate in the truck he jumps on me. He’s pretty high up but he’s gotten really good at jumping on my shoulder. Dreamer does that too, which I started as a puppy, to help him feel safe. Dreamer still jumps on my shoulder, which he really doesn’t need to do anymore, lol, but it’s fine. He’s not too heavy. So I definitely like recommendations about how to make picking him up more comfortable. If I just pick him up from the ground, his legs flail all over like he’s really insecure, so I’ve been trying not to do that anymore.
On to training! I thought I’d see what he’d do over a couple of jumps like in the live, and he is just silly! I don’t have jump bumps so I just used bars on the ground. He’s almost 8 months and still has no idea what to do with his feet. I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t do this with him for a while until he gets more coordinated. I was trying to ask him to sit, but apparently, he doesn’t know what sit means in the backyard. Oops. So I had my husband hold onto him and release him to the Manners Minder. He looks pretty awkward to me!
I also tried some basic barrel wraps in the backyard because I haven’t ever done them in the backyard! We’ve had too much snow. We had rain today but it cleared up a little. I’m just excited to train in my yard!
Awesome! We are doing some here in Boise this weekend. He is getting a ton of stimulation. First trip since last October. He’s actually barking in the trailer if people or dogs walk by so I’m just trying to keep him calm and give him treats for his diligence. It seems to help. Any advice you have for keeping him calm and quiet is appreciated!
The first time I did this resilience game he was distracted but I forgot to hit record on my phone 😜. After a couple hours we did it again and I think he did wonderful! Agility is indoor and this is a little space outside away from the action.
Edit… And you can still see how he shies away from me at the end when I touch his harness. When we walk around I call him to me often and give him a treat then let him go. On leash of course. And I’m occasionally touching his collar too so he doesn’t think it’s a bad thing.
We are still working on some of the resilience games… Should I post those here? Or should I just post the current class stuff here?
I haven’t started the regular work for MP2 yet. I’m on the road this weekend and didn’t really bring much. 😜
Whew! I’m so glad that I don’t have to do boring crate games! LOL Yeah, I like some basic manners in and out of the crate, but beyond that, I don’t really care. Casper is so awesome crated at a trial. He’s quiet and relaxes, chews his bone, or sleeps. Doesn’t cry at all. He reserves the crying for the mornings at home when he wants to get up and I do not. :p Or when I pull Dreamer out at training and Casper knows he’s training, then there is also lots of screaming. 😀
I love the resilience games for trials. I don’t think or train well at trials, but I do want to do something with Casper while we are there. So this will be perfect. Yeah looking at my video, I should have just let him look at The Thing right at the start. It looked like a wrap someone had been wearing around their wrist, so I’m sure it had some weird smells. And yup, third day, really tired puppy. I do want to bring him, though, because if I leave him home with the boring spouse he is so energetic when I get home, and I want to sleeeeeeep. 😀
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I agree! By allowing him to feel happy around bar setters, etc – he will have MORE focus in the ring. The dogs that are stressed or uncomfortable are the ones that tend to “visit”.
<<<That sounds so awesome! Yeah, I don’t want him stressed or uncomfortable. And I love that he’s happy and friendly and wants to say hi to people and friendly dogs. 🙂
Oooo but I’ve had it drilled into my brain that I’m supposed to really do crate games from when they are little puppies. I actually don’t do that, lol, I’ve kinda considered myself lazy. I’ve done a little work having him wait to come out of his crate at home, but not much. So if I ask him to wait at home he will. But he doesn’t really like to! So maybe it’s okay that I haven’t really been working it. So today I made sure he wasn’t going to leap out of the crate, but didn’t really ask him to do a hard wait.
Thanks for saying that his brain is still growing and things will go up and down with him for a while. I need to hear that! He’s a smart little guy and I want him to enjoy just being a puppy too. At trials he gets to say hi to lots of people and friendly dogs and I don’t mind. I don’t worry that he will cause him to visit jump setters in the ring. I think we’ll work out a good working relationship when the time comes.
Today the environment was too hard for him for the resilience game. And there was a weird thing in the corner he had to check out. And I wasn’t using as high value treats so this session told me all those things lol.
Thanks for all the input! I’m looking forward to max Pup 2.
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They will all be in the 7-8 month range in that march time period. What happens in that time span is they make massive leaps forward in transferring the concepts and they are not yet fully in the throes of adolescence – so we might start them all with a puppy-version of the game then build it up
++++That sounds really good! In looking forward to him having more of a brain. Lol I’ve been so busy the last couple of weeks I haven’t had time to do much with him. Today at agility I was looking through the resilience games progression and thought I would see what we have. I think he did really good. Though we still need to some basics. It’s a super hard environment. I picked a low traffic area but people still walked by. And he was really interested in the bleachers. So after we did this he got to walk up and down them and check it all out. And he found an errant piece of popcorn 🍿🤣
Anyway this is what we have at trial. And it took a good five minutes to get out of the crate in the car today. He gets sooo excited. And I want him to wait before I let him out. As food motivated as he is, he still isn’t super interested in treats when I have him wait to be calm and not burst out of the crate in the car. 😛
Thanks! Haha, that’s the nice thing about dog training at home, jammies! 😀
My bad thing about teaching Woof and Quiet is I’m super bad at putting that into a behavior chain. They woof, so I can say quiet so that I can reward for quiet. So I kinda teach my dogs to woof when I’m teaching them quiet… LOL. Bad Trainer! But I’m sure he will learn it quickly!
Yeah I’m happy that he’s not running off with the toy! This boy has the attention span of a knat. LOL. Like 5 seconds. 😀 but it’s something to build on!
I will do some more of the arm/leg send to the target too, and the barrel, to help him understand. Not only does he have a short attention span, is just so immature too. So I’m trying to enjoy the cute puppy age. But sometimes he tries my patience! He was chewing up the rug this evening so he was put in the crate with a bully stick instead. He’s so busy!
Teaching the bit cue sounds awesome, I’ll work on that too. 🙂 And I like the idea of tossing the cookie to the opposite side for the perch work. 🙂
The platform… I was being lazy and didn’t want to go in my car and get the bigger one I had at the trial. So I used the smaller one I had at home. I totally agree that the smaller one is more difficult. I had started him on that when he was little but quickly went to the bigger one so that he could more easily get his four feet on. So… I will get the one out of the car. Sooo hard. LOL
I did get a working spot in Max PUp 2, but now I”m not sure if he’ll still be too immature for that class. Think he’ll be okay? I figured I can puppy stuff down for him if needed.
Today at flyball practice he LOVED the circle of love and seeing All The people and getting treats and then chasing me for a toy. That pretty much burned up all his brain cells. LOL. But we tried some counter motion… and I put a harness on him for the Super Fun Place and he didn’t even seem to know it was on. But All The People are SO COOL that he couldn’t really do anything but be a puppy. Which is okay, it’s all fun! Man he LOVES that training barn!
Thanks for the reply! Yeah fortunately my dogs don’t body slam play like other breeds. However, my Kromis have taught Casper how to bark. LOUD. UGH! And with all Casper’s energy, he thinks barking is super fun now. Oh well. :p I think that’s an issue that is more than my little training brain wants to tackle. haha. He is still quiet in his crate at trials, which is the most important thing. 🙂
Instead of letting him chew up the couch, we did some training this morning. He had a little toy so I put all the other dogs away and tried a little play retrieve with him. I don’t think he really likes the hallway because it’s tiny and weird. So we just did the front room. I think I see teeny tiny retrieves. 🙂
( and I bet you are saying, wow, she has new jammies pants! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 )
And since he has so much energy in the morning I continued with the toys. This barrel video is a bit long, but most of it is me being too far away and him jumping to grab the toys. :p. I want to get to the barn again and work this some more on my own, I think he’ll be a lot better there where we have room.
Also worked the perch box a little, and yup, throwing behind me so he approaches differently definitely helps him put his feet on first, then moving his rear around!
Last we did some baby platform stays, and my husband came up and talked to me, but I figured whatever, it’s a good distraction. LOL
I did have a great couch day! With a long nap too.😉
That makes sense that since he wasn’t feeling well he was more aware of everything going on around him and the food didn’t keep his attention as much.
I do think I have chained together coat, harness, car. So hopefully that will fade since I won’t put the stuff on anymore. I can put some super yummy freeze dried liver in the crate when I put him in the car so hopefully it’ll get better.
That’s a great idea about having something he really loves after I put his harness on. I can do that at the training barn and then let him chase Dreamer though the tunnels. He would think that’s awesome fun!
I am bummed that this is the first year in years that we have so much snow and I can’t work on the backyard. But then again it’s a nice excuse to veg in the winter lol
Yeah, I also would prefer laying on the couch all day! That is my goal for tomorrow, Monday. LOL.
Thanks for the feedback. I did a little bit more today (Sunday), but Casper had diarrhea last night. I gave him the ham off my sandwich yesterday… that is what I trained with in the video; it was really high value. Last night (Saturday night), though, he woke me up at 3 am and 5 am with diarrhea. And today he threw up in his crate a couple of times so he wasn’t feeling very well. So, I mainly did let him sniff and check things out when I had the platform out. Whatever was on the far right corner in this video was very weird for him, and he did the stretch to sniff and see what it was. As well as some silly woofs. When I watch the video I really hear all the different sounds. I tend to tune them out when I’m actually there, since they are so normal for me I just consider them background noise. I’m sure they are very strange and distracting for Casper.
>> Was someone trying to talk to you while you were trying to train him? People are not always good at reading the room LOL!! You were great to just pay attention to your pup 🙂 <<
Yes someone did start to talk to me. :p I usually don’t mind, it happens a lot, and I just work through it or stop the training session. 🙂I like the idea of cookies on my shoe! I didn’t do it but I will in the future. 🙂 This video is more sniffing and walking around than platform work. But he was able to work a little, which I think was pretty good.
Later when I tried the barrel wrap he was really distracted. His girlfriend Jilly did walk by and by then he was done. So I figured I wouldn’t push it and let him be done.
Back to the harness and coat issue… << Interesting! Was he always hating this, or just started? Or just at the trial and not at home? >>
He hasn’t really liked coats or harnesses and I have had to put food in his nose and let him eat when I put them on. But only in the last couple of weeks has he gotten bad. I can still put them on, but at home, once they are on he runs into his crate and doesn’t want to come out. I was thinking he didn’t like the car, but he’s never been car sick so I think it’s the coat/harness he doesn’t like, not the car. Since it’s winter, it’s coat, harness, then car lately. And it could transfer to the car too if the coat/harness happens preceding the car every time. I’m sure he will like summer much better. lol.
My other Farmdogs like their coats and harnesses because it means something fun will happen. My Kromis tolerate coats but aren’t crazy about them, and love their harnesses because also they mean something fun will happen. Like Dreamer doesn’t care for his coat when I put it on, but then once it’s on he’s fine and acts normal. Most of the time I just have the attitude that, well, they can deal with and tolerate it because it’s part of life. But Casper is totally sinking and doesn’t get over it until I take everything off him. And while usually, I’d just try to let him deal with it and get over it, I think his reaction is more intense and he totally pouts, and I don’t want severe of a negative reaction. And it could potentially transfer over to other things and make them icky, too.
My parents always just wanted me to deal with stuff when I was a kid, but then they could also put me in situations that were so uncomfortable (mainly social situations I hated and couldn’t handle when I was very young) that it was pushed too far. So I want to be aware and not push things too far to make life more difficult for him.
<< I will keep pointing it out and delivering cyber-click-treats to you 🙂 It sounds like you are rewarding loose leash walking, and you are making the trial a good place to be (COOKIES!) without introducing any potentially sad-making outerwear 🙂 >>
aww, thanks so much! I could use chocolate with my clicks lol. And yeah that darn sad-making outerwear! 😀
<< (Bear in mind that Farmdogs tend to not freeze like a whippet would, so coats might not be needed LOL!) >>
Actually, Farmdogs can actually get super cold! Jet and Connor will shiver when it’s under 50 degrees. :p For a breed that originated in the dark cold north, they easily get cold and don’t have that super thick coat of nordic breeds. Which is good, because I don’t like long hair. When I was looking for my small dog I wanted Small Dog, Short Hair, Not a Terrier. 😀I will get him a sight-hound martingale that is nice and wide and will be easy on his neck. I will also keep working to make the harness a good, happy thing. I’ll keep clicker training it to get him to offer to put his head in with super high-value treats. Then after he’s getting it on, I can combine it with a super fun thing that he will love.
<< That sound you hear right now is the sound of my two pointy dogs knocking at your dog, so they can come live in the land of personal propane heaters LOL!!! Lucky pup!!!!! (And I would do the same LOL! >>
LOL yeah, when I got him out of the crate he was so toasty warm! I did steal the heater a couple of times to warm my feet that were wet from walking in foot-deep snow. 😀
Thanks!
