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On day 6 of Covid 2.0, I got outside to train
Really good effort from him here. Most mistakes were mine.
His weaves have been quite a pickle for me. I have put a ton of time in them and they still are iffy. He will give me one really good set in trials and then misses entry or won’t make the bend. I had been thinking it was related to footwork but not sure that’s it. I do think they use a lot of his mental energy. I haven’t really worried too much because it’s not the most common reason we don’t Q( although he’s staying on course better so it may be soon 😂)
Ahh I posted a reply and it’s gone
For the outside arms, hold it up like large jazz hand style? I’m having a hard time picturing.
We didn’t have any 💩 moments that unedited out. His focus has been better and I feel like I’m jumping through significantly less hoops to get him working. Im probably being too critical about speed because I just want all the things 😂
I’ll work on trying to put the toy in a different hand but it usually makes my brain glitch. In the pants might be better.
Happy Tuesday! Fever will likely spend the evening in a Xanax haze so I’m not sure we will get anything in today but here’s yesterdays session.
The heat really is slowing him down. He worked probably less than 10 minutes yesterday and I put him in the pool. I figured this layer would be hard for us.
<quote> How did you feel about this session, in terms of motivation (his and yours too LOL!) I really liked it 🙂 The pool might be a happy-making factor here!</quote>
I was fairly happy with it. Obviously I’d love no sniff breaks but he’s coming back and working hard.<quote> Is dig dig your turn to the left? If so, then yes, it is appropriate. I use a switch verbal, which is specific to the context of turn away from me and then ignore my physical cues (but listen for verbals)</quote>
Dig dig is my left wrap cue. My left and right turns are just left and right. I was starting to use a rear cross switch but he was taking it quite literally on the flat instead of with an obstacle so I felt just verbals relative to obstacles were helpful.This was a better training session than the first. I do think the pool is helpful but he does get super obsessed with it so we shall see how this develops. But it felt like 106° yesterday and I wanted to be soaking wet too so he’s not wrong.
Raise your games!
We started with the pool. I didn’t do it for the second session and we got a couple of sniff breaks but he came back and worked.
I realized for the flip away at 4 on the second wrap that I don’t really have a word for it. Because it’s more of a slice than a wrap, I wasn’t sure if my dig dig would be appropriate… but also this really isn’t a skill I’ve put work into.
I have not been using the pool as a reinforcer or to increase arousal because it’s a double edged sword. He snuck through the fence and got on the stairs of the pool and was like “whoops I fell in.”
Since it has been helpful in the past, should I go back to using the pool as a reward or pre run tool?Handling challenge 5
He did so well for the first two and then brain exploded for the 3rd.
I knew I was in trouble when he grabbed the frizz because we can lose a little thoughtfulness. He told me he wanted to switch to food and killed it!
Have I again mentioned how wonderful training has been for us lately. Not that it wasn’t good before but we really aren’t fighting and I’m really not having to beg him to work all the time and it’s so so so nice.
We worked in a seminar over the weekend. We had one small reactive moment where we ran to the fence and growled at another dog outside the ring. The fence was only 3 feet so he could just step over it if he wanted. He called off and lied down when I asked him to and went right back to work after. Initially he was like I don’t want to have anything to do with that area because mom fussed me but then was able to right back to weaving- which was great because of the concentration needed.
Thank you for your input! We have cooling coats and fans that we use regularly. He gets to get wet via stock tank, pool, or bird bath. It just seems to take much longer to come back compared to my others.
I’ve tried to build love for the hose but he thinks it’s a border collie torture device 🤣Yeah I got a lot of push back from my regular vet asking for the full panel 🤷♀️
Range is 1.0-4.0 so he is low end. The lab even notes “ hypothyroid dogs can have a low normal T4 (1-2 ug/dL). Hypothyroidism may be further assessed in these dogs by adding a free T4 and canine TSH.” but I was told no further work up needed 🫣He did have electrolytes checked too. He had a mildly low K (3.9) and normal is 4 but we were dock diving the day before so I assumed that was dilutional.
We are seeing the new behaviorist at the end of March and I plan to explore the thyroid more, but do you have any suggestions (other than moving) on helping improve his heat tolerance or resources for that? I feel like he gets hot super quick and our working time is very limited. He loses responsiveness and interest quickly. It’s not even summer yet 😖
Switch away…
Note to self, watch video or read field guide before attempting exercise
My handling isn’t clear and he’s really hot so I almost lost him and brought him back 💪🏻
He burned all his energy blasting out of the tunnel and screaming in the car 🤣Handling 4
Really loved the work he gave me here. I did the 4th set up twice trying to tighten up his turn out of the tunnel and added a directional verbal, but didn’t get a tighter turn. I wanted to know your thoughts there, although we might lose speed tightening the turn
Verbals around the clock.
Mirroring is hard for my brain. All mistakes were handler driven 🤣
I’m really happy with the effort he gave me here. There were some scary pow pows here but we killed it anyway.Handling Challenges 3
I’ll admit, I just used the field guide and didn’t watch the video until after so it’s not fully done as prescribed and I missed a step or three but strong work here!
We had a brief period of thinking about how it’s been MANY months since we swam and we fucking love swimming but he came back and worked harder than ever.
