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Thanks again. I’ve been thinking about how to use water in the manner that you’ve described. She also loves sprinklers so I could setup a sprinkler and then reward her by releasing her to it. I will try this now that it is warmer.
Here is a video from tonight’s class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=das6FXrps9A
*First section, I focused on rewarding her more. At about :45 seconds you can hear a dog barking in the background. This captured her attention which become apparent around 1:15.
*2nd section starts at 2:21, I have a few people with distractions.
*4:52 – here we put both parts together. At the end of the dog walk, she is focused on something that she sees outside. So I restarted and then she was fine for the rest of that run.
First video from our trip. Practicing 1-2-3 walking besides a stream. You can see she is having a hard time focusing on me. She has spots where she stays more connected.
At one point I waited to see if she would look back at me unprompted but I had to call her name to get her attention. This trail was about 1.5 miles but we only did half of it because I thought she needed a break. She was working hard to stay connected but the temptation of the water was big https://youtu.be/g441sNH4bZMYes. I’ve tried of a few different natural supplements in the past. I asked my rehab vet about Solloquin and I’m willing to give it a try!
I’ll video some of my at home training sessions later in May once we get back from vacation.
Here’s a video from tonight’s class. I took Raven in to visit my rehab vet prior to class. This facility has a swimming pool. Raven gets super excited about the pool, she loves water! So she was pretty amped up both from having the pool in use prior to class and also since she has been resting her hip for the last week or so.
On the first run I was concentrating on rewarding her more often. Right out of the gate we had a moment of disconnection, she came down the Aframe and ran towards the back of the arena where the pool is. Thinking back on this, I should have rewarded her right after the Aframe. I kind of suspected that she was going to do this. A good learning point for me!at 1:32 we redo the beginning of the course. You can see she is still looking down towards the end of the arena but she doesn’t run off this time.
The second run start around 2:04, we did not get the whole run on video. On this run, I had two people in the ring with distractions. The one girl is bounding a ball by the Aframe.
Thanks! Yes, it makes sense. I’ll definitely keep working on adding social pressure during our training sessions as you mention above.
Question, What can/should I be doing when I train in my yard? I’m fortunate that I have a large yard and have a 80×100 fenced in space that we practice in. I was thinking about having my husband walk my mother-in-laws dog outside of the fence while I train with Raven. I would start by having him pretty far away from the fence and then gradually move closer depending on Raven’s comfort level. I’ll also see if I can recruit any friends to stop by for a few minutes to work on the social pressure exercises as well.
Also, last night in the house Raven got spooked by a sound and I happened to be sitting on the couch. She came over and laid down between my legs and the couch (which is the position that we’ve been practicing the relaxation protocol in).
Hi Bobbie, One question about some of the latest content.
“I brought him into the training building only a few minutes before his turn so that he didn’t have too much time to notice what was going on around him.” – Question, I have also heard people talk about acclimation and they recommend allowing the dog to walk around inside and outside the building, sniffing and just getting to know the space so they can become better ‘acclimated’ to it. What are your thoughts on this especially in a new building that you have not trialed or trained at yet?
I should be on this Wed’s call but wanted to let you know that I’ll be on vacation on Wed 4/27 and most likely will not be able to dial-in.
Raven is feeling much better but we are still probably going to skip classes this week so I’m not sure I’ll have any videos to share. I’ll try to take some videos while we are on our trip in various locations and settings.
Thanks!
Will do! It looks like we will be practicing more of the shadow handling and relaxation protocol vs distractions during agility for the next few weeks. Raven started limping yesterday. I have an appointment this afternoon with our rehab vet to get her looked at. I don’t think it’s anything major but it’s better to be safe and take some time off. Also, we will be taking a 10 day RV trip at the end of the month with the dogs so it will be a good time to practice all of our exercises in new locations.
To answer your questions. yes, I’ve been practicing shadow handling and/or 1-2-3 walking with Raven for the last 4-6 weeks in various locations. I’ve been taking a Saturday ‘assistance skills’ class with Raven. Before that class, I stop by a large and very active park to walk Raven around. Specifically through the playground area as well as over by the skateboarders. She does really well. I also have her ‘relax’ under my feet while we sit on a bench. I try to find a bench that is not too close but not too far away from distractions.
I’ve also been doing the relaxation exercise in class and at seminars. We will keep practicing and I’ll let you know how it goes!
Hi! Here a vide from tonight’s class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNYkdc-mdrU
Round 1 – We had a new person and dog in class tonight. She was a little distracted when I sat her at the start line. She looked over at the other dog and then back at me so I rewarded her by throwing the ball.
Round 2 – I had some of the classmates out as distractions. The one women had a bag of treats that she was rustling and the gentleman who you can’t see was sitting behind a tunnel bouncing the squeaky ball. She started by running over to the guy. I went over and gently grabbed her collar. I threw the ball for her and then she dropped the ball in the tunnel. I thought it was interesting at the end when I threw the ball as a reward and it went by Rosanne, Raven would not go over to get the ball until she moved a bit.
Is this the thread where I am supposed to post my homework and questions? Some quick notes from today.
• Sun 4/9 – I took Raven to a nearby park. It has a large dog park (small dog and big dog sections). There were only 2 people in the small dog park section, so I took Raven in and kept her on leash. (Just a note, I wasn’t concerned about her with the other dogs but what she does is the ‘fence chasing’ with the large dogs on the other side of the fence). We practiced our shadow handling and worked our way over to where some of the bigger dogs were playing on the other side of the fence. She noticed them but always looked back at me even when there was a bit of excitement on the other side. She did not pull on the leash or try to run over. We probably did that for 5 min or so. Then we left the dog park areas and walked up towards the playground area. I practiced some ‘Ready’ (Fiesta) on the way up.Question – What should you do if your dog does not respond to the word in a new setting? She didn’t respond at first but then got back into it. I think I needed higher value treats. I took out her ball and she was more interested in that. When we made it to the playground area, I sat on a bench and had her practice her relaxation protocol while laying down under my legs. We were probably 30-40 ft away from the playground. There were some children and adults using the playground but it wasn’t crazy busy. She seemed to relax pretty well and we stayed there for about 10 min before heading back to the car.
Another question, do you use shadow handling different from the 1,2,3, treat walking that we practiced at the seminar? I have class tomorrow night so I’ll get some video with 1) more reinforcement throughout the run and 2) more distractions during 1 run. LMK, if I should be doing anything else at this point.
I hope you are feeling better!
Is there a group call tonight? I thought I saw something about a call on 4/6 but I can’t find any information about it. Thanks! – Melissa
Unfortunately, I don’t have any videos of her disengaging and running off. This happens <10% of the time. Another 10% of the time, I will get some stress related disengagement behaviors. (a few videos below). I will be more diligent during training to see if I can capture this behavior. We are not trialing right now. At the most recent trial in Feb, my husband could not attend so I did not get any video of that trial which was the most recent example of her running towards the fence behavior.
https://youtu.be/Yqf5a0-WrJw – This was at the end of the day. I think she was somewhat tired and you can see from her startline that she wasn’t in the right frame of mind. Before the 1st set of weaves, she sniffs that number cone that was in the dirt. After I ‘restart’ the 1st set of weaves, she seems to get herself settled.
https://youtu.be/tF6cfEZf11E – This one is hard to see because it was not all captured by the video. There was a course worker who was exiting the ring as I was leading out. Raven noticed him and was unsettled by his presence. It was a really easy weave entry but she ran right by it. It took about 1/2 of the course before she got back into the right frame of mind.
I really wish I had a more concrete video of the running off behavior. While I really don’t want it to happen again, if it does, I’ll try to get it on film so I can share it with you.
