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Hi Bobbie, thank you for taking time for my lowly auditor questions 😛 … so, by “not quite right” I mean either that the dog is not *as* okay in the environment as you’d like him ideally to be after doing some stationary and moving pattern games; or mainly that the dog *was* okay, but now that you have moved near the gate because he will be running very soon, he relapses to being more worried or shut-down again.
I am thinking in particular of my little dog at one particular site here that is, unfortunately, often used for regional or (next summer) national-level competition but it’s a giant 3-ring indoor agricultural arena with bleachers etc that the little dog finds very worrisome. Over the past couple years I have managed to get him much more ok about *being* in the building, to the point where people watching him bopping around in the warmup and spectator areas do not think he seems worried at all… but when you get near to the in-gate to get ready to run (and he can tell, from us I suppose, when it’s “to run now” as opposed to “just visiting the area”) he still starts to get droopy and frozen and then has problems in the ring. Not sure how to tell whether to go the relaxing-stuff route, or the more-fun-and-well-loved-moving-activities route, to try to get him into a better frame of mind for going in.
It is such a specific thing, and events there happen only a couple/few times a year, so it is hard for me to figure out how to work on the issue per se (we HAVE done the “only FEO all weekend, with partial runs or just start-lines and then hug and big party outside ring” thing, but it seems like we’ve kind of maxxed out the benefits of that). As I say, we can get him playing around and seeming happy *until* his run, it is the ~two minutes immediately *preceding* his run that remains a challenge and really affects his runs, and I don’t know if we should be concentrating on relaxing type things then, or cheering-him-up-with-movement things, you know? (“We” because my son now runs him)
Does that make sense?
Is there any kind of rule of thumb or criterion, though, as to WHICH I should be doing at any given moment? I find it hard to choose sometimes… Especially if dog will be running soon and is “not quite right”
Auditor question here — could you share some wisdom on the topic of how to decide when (in real world, like at a trial) you should concentrate on things to get dog to relax (such as RP or snuffle mat) vs when you should concentrate on happy-movement stuff (such as circle work or happy tricks/play). For instance suppose I am at a big event at the kind of large indoor space that my little dog finds really intimidating. I assume (?) that I should start with relaxation type thing and then progress to moving fun stuff once he seems cool with it all. But, if he still seems a bit daunted (or if he relapses) how do I choose whether to go back to relaxation stuff or whether to try moving/engaging stuff more or differently?
By the way I have been doing RP with the crazy young BC at fun matches (well, obviously at home too!) and it has made a huge difference in his ability to remain calm in the ring and regain calmness (real mental calmness, not just the stillness of an unexploded bomb) in between sequences in the fun matches and in training!Thank you, but was hoping you might also have some ideas for doing some of the stuff in this course WITHOUT (or with minimal) food? (Small partly-hairless dog in Canadian winter, can eat ONLY kibble or cooked potato or white rice, cannot cut mealtimes back beyond 50%)
Auditor question – something I struggle with w/ my two smaller dogs – there is a real limit how much they can/should eat per day. Neither will really do toys off my property, and hugs etc only go so far, and with the chiweenie, if I seriously short his breakfast or dinner on trial days, he barfs or starts eating inappropriate things. I do often break kibbles in half, but even so… Half a breakfast plus half dinner does not leave all THAT many kibble pieces available for doing these kinds of exercises!
And the chiweenie’s issues are mainly at the sorts of big competitions whose physical and social dimensions I have not had much luck in finding ways to substitute locally for doing regular training.
So any suggestions or alternative ways of doing things that do not involve shovelling millions of treats into the dog would be appreciated!! 🙂
For my especially-mentally-challenged dog, who when through a couple yrs of doing the same thing (great first run, then wheels would fall off his brain either gradually or all at once) I had to enter him in at least 3 runs per day: the first run we’d enter FEO (saving me a whole three dollars Canadian, but if your organization doesn’t offer that then you can just enter “for real”) and do only 1-3 obstacles before I’d ask him to jump up into my arms and then thank the judge and run out of the ring to party. Second run would be the “real” run”. Then the third run would be like the first, entered FEO and with no intention of doing more than one or two obstacles. (As time passed, I varied the number of obstacles and the number of pre- and post-“real”-run runs). It’s an expensive way to work towards titles LOL but it has been the only way to trial at all with this particular dog. He can now do a couple of real runs per day, but is still best if they’re interspersed with go-in-do-nothing-much-then-exit-and-party). More than once, I have paid $20 to do nothing but a startline <rolls eyes at self>! But this way, he is *happy*. So that might be something to try?
If it’s ok for me to comment here – I have had two dogs with excellent solid weaves in training but a lot less reliable in trials, and for both of them the missed or popped weaves in a trial were TOTALLY just a barometer of their stressed-Jess at the time. (Also, with one dog, sometimes stressed-ness in training). In both cases it was completely counterproductive to try to redo or fix the weave mistakes… It just upset them more and I would get worse problems on the rest of the course. I had to learn to trust that it was a happiness problem, that could only be solved by addressing happiness issues. It got so much better when I quit trying to fix weaves in competition! And improved their runs overall, because I was no longer making their existing stress worse and worse! Including in training… If the dog couldn’t weave at some particular point, it was telling me I had to go back to fix the happy. (This assumes the dog really does understand weaving… But personally I think people often overestimate how hard weaves are to train, and underestimate how much handler behavior and dog state of mind affect a dog’s weaving)
So, if the dog (in all three sessions so far) progressively relaxes for the first 6 min or so, but then remembers he is a young border collie and starts getting antsy and moving around to offer behaviors… do I just ignore it and continue as per instructions, or do I shorten the sessions to try to end before it happens?
By the way, thank you for clarifying that the treats are to be delivered to the towel not the dog, and not to have eye contact… those the things are making a big difference from the previous times I’ve tried this sort of thing!Sort of adding to Margaret’s question above… is there anything you can use *instead of* food? My dogs are all really really food-motivated (no kidding… they routinely work for a half a piece of kibble) and altho I have tried Dr Overall’s Relaxation Protocol in the past it has always ended up with them getting more and more excited, so I am kind of at a loss what to do here?
