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Got it. Thanks! Will do all of the above. Wager was inside today. 🙂 I did the third exercise today.
Well, that tunnel back in the back had bags in the mouth – we just got my equipment out and hadn’t set it up to use yet, but Spot had other ideas. LOL!
I had to change from using a push (back side slice) cue to around (back side wrap) cue. I think that’s why the bar came down when we were practicing the back side because he was expecting a different line.
I was having trouble connecting after the blind cross and got the front side. I hear myself say ‘ooooo’ and need to stop that. But once I heard myself I realized it and tried to treat him a lot to let him know he was a good boy.
Anyway, I’m not sure how to tighten up the wrap at 2. He usually will wrap tighter when I use his wrap cue, but consistently on these he was wide there and I felt like I needed a name call to get him coming toward 3.
So here it is..
OK, better late than never. Finally got my equipment out and my course cleared of weeds. Wahoo!
Here’s my first challenge exercises. I did the first two without and then with the jump added. I was going to say you won’t see Wager in these because he’s had a partial CCL tear, but he lost control, left his cot and came to do the course with Spot on the last exercise so you get to see him after all. LOL! Hoping i can catch up a bit in the next few days. Wager and I have a big trip to get a new type of stem cell injection next week and will miss some time then.
Anyway – I di-Greg…(do you know that guy?) Here’s the first go round…
Ex 1 no jump
Ex 2 no jump
Ex 1 with jump
Ex 2 with jump
So, I’m at a training clinic this weekend. I took the opportunity to tape the games there. He did great! But I have to say I would expect that. All through his agility training and trialing it’s been a struggle to work on his over stimulation because he does really well at home and at clinics where I can actually correct things like bites or whatever. He’s not biting anymore and hasn’t for a couple years, but he still gets wound tight at trials at times as I’ve shown you before.
I taped a couple of runs also, but the wifi here is so slow I will have to wait until I get home to get any trial videos added here.
I did some of the games with no dog running, then with a smaller less stimulating dog then with a fast bc.
I emailed you a couple days ago.
As far as the type of play, I’m assuming it doesn’t matter if you use one type in one environment and another in the next environment, right? It’s just about getting them to a higher level of arousal? At home, Wager isn’t a tugger, at an agility setting he very much is. It seems to be about all the activity going on around him vs being more quiet at home. I can find a game to play at home and will switch at trials to tug if that is within the parameters of the game.
We were at a trial last weekend and he was able to play the find my face and do shadow handling next to the ring. I assumed that would work fine but now have confirmation that it does.
No, not on medication. Unfortunately he does struggle. As years have passed some things have improved but you saw the videos of him being left in the car and him getting closed in a room with me and our other dog. Those kinds of things have not changed. His reaction in the car and when I leave the house is better if I scatter treats or give a chew, but the being closed in a room thing is so stressful he can’t eat sometimes. Sometimes it works.
With the withdrawing, I just let him have his peaceful time while i do the things that make him leave, then when the coast is clear I call him out. Tonight i”m folding laundry – he stays in the other room till I”m done then he’ll come back out. It’s sad to know how these activities affect him, but I think it’s a pretty good coping strategy to remove himself from things that are difficult for him. I’d worry if he couldn’t come back out after but since he’s able to come back and interact normally when the scary thing is over I’ve let him deal with it that way. I have no idea if that’s a good choice or not. I can take a video of what he looks like as he leaves. He seems subdued and uncomfortable but not terribly frightened to me. Again, I”m not an expert.
If he didn’t have issues in other areas of life I might consider it only a build up/history of frustration during trial runs. Almost every day he has to go find a quiet place to have time without stimulation or interaction. Usually he’ll go lie down in the bathroom. He has a bed in the bathtub because he’s in it way more than I am. Lol. He has found ways to cope, but he seems to take in way more info from the environment than any of my other dogs have. When we first started agility training I would lose his attention with him leaving and barking if my neighbor came out on his upstairs porch which was more than 2 football fields away from my field. As I get ready in a hotel room he will smash himself between a chair and the wall to avoid my moving around and folding or putting on clothes. Same thing when I clean house or fold laundry. Just some examples of how he’s affected by his surroundings and my movements.
I’m hoping the things we are working on in this class will make him more comfortable in life and hopefully help him continue to improve with me in agility.
Before I got Wager I watched people running dogs that would turn and bark at them and say to myself – you know if they would tell that dog earlier he wouldn’t do that. Once I started working with Wager I started to realize it’s not as simple as being on time with cues in order to fix those behaviors. I’m sure that helped for some of it though.
A lot of it was just working on handling with very direct connection. Running shoulders turned toward him, eyes on him instead of ahead. We worked on ‘volume control’ before the start of a run – so instead of trying to keep him quiet before going out we tugged and stayed connected that way before his turn and as we went out to the line. We worked on lazy handling – at home where I didn’t give him that kind of connection on easy circles of jumps and tunnels. We did Find My Face. Kathy Keats suggested the acting lost back then. Honestly, I get confused about what we did all those years ago and what I’ve done since with my young dog beyond those things.
He would bite several different times. It almost never happened at home or at clinics in those days, so it was very hard to work on. We train alone so I don’t attend classes. It happened a lot at change of directions – like here with the front cross on a wrap, sometimes when i would send him to a jump and turn to leave he would pull off and get me. One time I remember blocking myself from him as he left the dog walk but that was less common to have it after a contact. He came at my face at the start line a couple of times but I blocked that. Several times after he went around a jump and I did a circle to get him over it he would come in at me. Sometimes it was as he came by me (drive by bite like this example in the clip) and sometimes he wasn’t by me and he’d come in to get me. Once he had enough brain to listen to me tell him to sit after a mistake or a pull off a jump that helped. We both had a chance to collect ourselves and start again. Over time this has gotten a ton better with no broken skin, torn clothes or bleeding in several years – a lot of that is due to Tracy’s instruction and her emphasis on more direct connection.
I gave the ‘find my face’ a try with obstacles. When we first went out to the jumps Wager didn’t quite get that we were going to play this game. Once he understood he was on it. I put a cropped/so-mo piece in where he put his mouth on me. He used to flat out bite but now he doesn’t bite down, just puts his teeth on me. Anyway, here’s the clip…
I had intended to do the shadow handling as instructed but apparently I didn’t have any leashes in my car – still unpacking our stuff and don’t have all the dog gear out yet. I tried it without a leash – just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to work on it while I was out there. We’ve worked on this in the past, both leash on and off but not recently.
Thanks! He’s figuring it out. 🙂
We tried the shadow handling. The young one was in my fenced area right under the camera. It wasn’t quite as loud where Wager and I were. I didn’t have much time today and took them both out. Sorry! You’ll see I dropped a treat in the middle and Wager stopped to find it.
We worked on Find My Face again. My course is not in shape yet for the winter season. We just got back from CO where we spend the summer and it takes a bit to get it ready to use. But, I thought it would be easier to throw treats on the dirt instead of in the grass outside the course. We’ve actually worked a good bit on me pretending to be lost or stopping dead on course or tripping so he doesn’t get all worked up with it until we get to the higher stress level situations like trials.
Once i get some equipment out I’ll up the game.
LOL! Quick question (please see above also). My young dog played the find my face game last night, then when I tried the relaxation conditioning on the mat I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was staring at my face between eat treat. I”m assuming he’ll eventually start to chill out again, right? Any way to help him understand that these are two different games even though they both have me disconnecting with him? (looking away from him)
Did a quick Find My Face. Wager has played this game from a young age as far as me turning away and him finding my face. The cookie toss pattern in conjunction to that is new for him – before it was just turn away and have him find my face then reward from my hand, then turn again.
I’ve actually practiced getting lost on course, tripping, having to stop and listen to the imaginary judge and then go back and set up at the start, and all kinds of interruptions of flow on course. He has done well at home with these. Will add the ‘extras’ next time I work it. I just wanted to remind him what this was about and introduce the pattern with it in this session and also make sure I”m doing it correctly.
