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Ha! Yeah, actually Wager had to wait his turn and Spot had just finished the exercise. Wager looked just about the same while he was waiting. 🙂
Unfortunately, we don’t have any classes where I live. I train alone, but I can find kids in school, go to a park, etc. Maybe I could trade a free lesson to a student with a calm dog to work on this while they did agility on my field – that would be like a ver small class setting.
I ordered a snuffle mat today. Not sure about taking the snuffle mat to a trial – can try it in the car for short stops, but I’ve worked super hard to decrease Wager’s reacting in his crate to other dogs going by and I’m a bit afraid of having food in there beyond the handful of treats I toss as I cover and walk away from him. Am I correct in thinking it might undo the improvement in resource and crate guarding he has done in the past? Recently I left him in the car while Spot took his turn at a friend’s agility field after Wager had already run (hoping to help him chill with some activity). Came back to find he had pulled the sun shade into the crate and destroyed it. Hasn’t done that before – but the point being I”m not sure I want to leave something he might tear up and swallow while i”m gone. Do you think over time I’ll be able to do that or should I just plan to always be present or only gone short periods while he uses it?
Edited this post after the chat. You answered my ? about using a mat where other dogs are in the chat. Thanks!
Thanks! I wasn’t sure if I could just grab him any time and work on it or if I needed to wait until he’s a little more intense.
Sounds great to me. And Yay! on doing the exercise correctly. 🙂 Will continue daily at least.
I did my first set of the ‘get it’ exercise.
I almost always drop treats for them or give them munchie sticks when we put them up. My husband is another story, which is why i know when I”m in with them and he just shuts the door it’s really hard on Wager. Most of the time when I leave the house I make both boys sit/stay and scatter treats in all directions. That seems to prevent the reaction at least as long as i’m in hearing distance. Same with the car. Definitely different with a treat and without as I leave.
Start line routine… over the years we’ve gotten to the point we can be near the ring waiting and he can keep his back turned to the ring. Sometimes as we wait we play IYC, sometimes I just take a step away and I toss treats from a distance for him to catch. he gets lots of small treats before a run, medium value, then after the run high value outside the crate. If I get a chance to go in early (setting bars for our height or whatever) we play with the leash on the way in. If we have to wait once in we play with the leash. When we are in more of a tighter time, I give one last treat and we walk in. If there is an exciting dog leaving then I try to keep his attention on me more calling his name, etc, otherwise I just try to be calm and act solid and steady. Sit, remove leash and toss it to the leash runner. Repeat his stay, walk away looking at him and telling him to stay. As he gets up I stop and ask for a stay. Rinse and repeat until I get out far enough for him not to leave me flat-footed and behind then release. It’s not pretty and it’s engrained in both of us.
Occasionally he will stay. When that happens I give a happy ‘good stay, good boy Wager’ and keep saying a calm good stay as I walk out. I haven’t found a pattern to why we occasionally get this. His scooting starts when I am a couple feet past the first jump – that is pretty consistent.
Here’s my first attempt at the relaxation exercise. I know you asked for us to crumble treats, but I”m in the process of moving from our summer place to our winter one and I did this after packing everything up, so I used his kibble. It’s small and I dropped 2 or 3 each time. When I watched it it looked like I was watching him at first from the angle, but I wasn’t looking at him. I didn’t notice much change, but toward the end he didn’t flop his head down on a couple reps.
OK, a couple of high stress moments. First 2 are in the car with me leaving to go in the store. When the car stops he starts to get concerned, but the big trigger IMO is when I roll the window down a little. At 3.5 minutes he licks his lips. At 7.5 min he lays down. I fast forwarded the part where they were howling once you saw what that looked like and again when they stop howling and look around till he lays down.
I stopped at the next store and did what I normally do the take his intensity level down – give a treat as I leave. He eats it super amped up, but it’s enough to make some difference.
I used to think this was just separation anxiety, but even when I’m standing with him and my husband shuts the door to keep him in our bedroom for any reason he reacts the same way. I asked Ron to shut the door like he normally does and he kind of overacted it. lol! Still get the idea but normally he just says ‘you stay here’ and shuts the door. I left the part after he settles where Spot gets going on playing – picking up Wager’s energy I think. When they aren’t in a higher arousal state they play nicely, but in times like this Wager just looks stressed – but I”m not an expert for sure!
Please see question above. 🙂 Well, yikes!! I just watched the relaxation video. I think I might be your worst nightmare – older dog, and teaching this wrong in the past. I had taped a couple of high stress moments of Wager and then taped what he does when I ignore him – which i use at trials. Basically, it’s what you are asking us to do here but really really not relaxed. I had a friend who worked with Wager one night at a trial. Wager was taught a ‘flat’ where he drops and puts his chin on the ground so he would stay down on the table for the full count. When Donna started trying to teach him this exercise, she was in a quiet room sitting in a chair with low value treats. She put a towel down and gently dropped a couple treats so Wager would come over to it. He immediately flopped down, chin down. Her description of the exercise (as I understood it) was you stay calm, don’t make eye contact and as you see the tiniest change in relaxation you gently drop a treat (like an ear dropping, turn his chin away, etc). So, Wager never relaxed in the exercise, but he would drop an ear, lean to the side and eventually roll off one hip and as he did so he got a treat. She took the video of him and asked her mentor/instructor what the deal was. Both were a bit puzzled by his demonstrating the appropriate positional changes, but not any real relaxation. She never asked for a position or behavior, but she taught me to train him to offer the position. I’ll get the other high stress videos on here later tonight but I’m attaching what I taped earlier today. At a trial when I look away from him, he will do just this. Not relaxed, but not noticing what’s going on around him. I’ll start the exercise the way you have shown, but is there anything extra I need to do to make this work better since we are starting with a broken history on this?
Just read the threshold info. One thing that I found that really changes Wager’s state of mind is the ‘it’s your choice’ game. when we had to be near a ring, I used to try to do tricks and reward and he stayed amped up. one time i started the iyc game for no good reason. i watched his body relax and him calm. because i’m a science-based person, i repeated the experiment – back to tricks and he amped back up, back to iyc and his whole manner changed again. Does this fall in line with what you see?
The most important thing for me is to have a happy, comfortable partner. Anything we can do to make that happen is great! I spent a long time trying to get a good stay. It has degraded a little in practice over the years, but mostly the lack of self control happens at trials. I had a well-known instructor finally suggest that I make a compromise – he can move as long as he doesn’t take the jump. Her rationale was if I tried for a solid stay and he moved then I’d never have any kind of lead out. If I make that compromise I could get down line some. It’s what she did with her world team dog and while it’s not pretty at least I can get ahead a bit. For Wager the biting and other arousal things only showed/show up at trials – not practice or at clinics, so it’s been a hard process to really work on it. Now with FEO/NFC there is an opportunity. I”m not all about the Q or seeking to get to higher levels of competition with him and since the behavior is almost exclusively at trials I’m happy to spend my trial $ on FEO runs to work on anything that will help him be more comfortable in life. I know he is happy to play at home because he will run up to my course and wait for me to join him. When he leaves a ring at a trial, he is playful and seems happy. Obviously I lack the knowledge to solve our issues on my own but am willing to try most anything for his benefit. So I’m totally open to trying any suggestions.
I reread the instructions for our first post and realized I didn’t really tell you about myself. I’ve been doing agility since 2004. I train alone (which doesn’t help poor Wager on the arousal stuff) because I live away from the city. Most of my instruction is online or at clinics. Previously I have had 2 really nice working aussies. Neither with arousal problems and I’ve never had start line issues or a dog that goes past threshold before Wager. First one was solid temperament and moderately fast and consistent. Great first dog! Second one was competitive, fast, consistent but somewhat fearful outside the ring. He won at regional levels and was always on the cusp at national events, making the finals once. Because of injuries that aren’t going to resolve, I find myself needing more distance and moving much more slowly. Am finally getting serious about getting back in shape as best I can, but I think realistically I’ll continue to need distance and verbals to navigate courses well. I’ve stopped having expectations for Wager beyond just improving what we have and enjoying our sport, but I have a younger dog that I do hope to be competitive with. Solid temperament and similar to my competitive dog with a little less maturity in his boy brain to date. I plan to use all the good info I get for Wager to help Spot, my young one, have an even better chance at success.
I”m still alive! Had some life happen. sigh… I did this Std course work a couple weeks ago after I did that crappy trial. Was so discouraged I just didn’t even look at it till now. I’ve figured out I pretty much can’t run in grass with this knee till i get some work done on it. Don’t be fooled that I was being a great rewarder on the contacts – I was trying to breathe. 8000 ft makes big courses a bit tough. LOL! I did two attempts on different days. Tried to brighten up the second one in editing – hope it’s not too dark. Anyway, I”m back in action and will be getting some work to you again. Whew!!
OK, I’m having some frustration with the week 2 skills. I figured out a possible solution for the send behind thing. I’ve tried a couple of times to have a wing and then a cone behind my back with my legs right up against it. I’m using my off side hand to send around. VERY slow going. I’ve tried to show a ‘middle’ and then a ‘whoopsie’ (my word for around my back) so he can see the differences. So I thought I’d move on to the discrimination. Ummmm, I don’t think my dog knows what a jump or a tunnel command is. sigh… What is the step before sending to the obstacles by name? I couldn’t do it sitting – they thought I was crazy, so I stood. Still took what was closest to the side they were on. Should I back up and just send with a verbal obstacle name to each thing for lots of reps till they seem to get the idea then start adding the discrimination? Is it easier if the obstacles are closer together or further away from one another? Is it easier for the dog if I am closer to the obstacles or further away so they have a little time to think and see both things instead of just heading for the one right in front of them?
BTW, I went to a trial this weekend and came away wondering if it’s me or the courses the judge set up, but we couldn’t get any of them done. I”m going to message your a couple of photos of the courses and get your input on whether you think they are a little extreme. There were a huge number of Beg/Nov people at the trial – like 50 in the class. The two I spoke with crated by me were so disheartened that one said she wasn’t going to run her dog in agility anymore at all, then other said she wasn’t going to do UKI again (first UKI for both of them). I told them these were not typical of all UKI judges, but I’m going to see what you think about that if you don’t mind.
Can you tell I’m having a little valley in my confidence in agility? LOL!
OK, how do I undo what I’ve done? I have spent a lot of time teaching a ‘middle’ which is to go between my legs to set up at the start line. My cue is exactly what yours is for this except my legs are apart. First attempt at teaching this I got him squeezing between my legs. Help!
Wager did about the same as Spot. If I waited until he was at pole 2 I could rear cross the weaves, but pretty similar. Guess that says I have only trained weaves to a certain point in the past. LOL
I found the thing that was hard for Spot and in doing so I realized the same exercise has those soft side weave entries. He missed the entry the first time and Stacy’s comment was I rotated away from the direction he was going and had me make sure to turn toward the direction he was going to weave. It worked.
The hard thing is the last part. It was a 180 send to a backside slice The course continues on with a left turn ahead so I wanted to be on the left side and push for the back side. First time he got it, second not so much. Next time in we worked that piece and she thought the better option was to call in on a threadle to the take off side then blind after the jump to get on the left side of your dog, It worked better, but what I learned was at speed with a shallow approach to a back side slice we don’t do as well as with other choices. Anyway, here’s that…
Thanks!! The only thing we struggled with at camp was one little thing – not sure if I have video but if I do I’ll put it on here. He really did well and I”m so proud of him. One of the other old campers who has watched Wager over the years said ‘who is this dog and what have you done with Wager?’ LOL! He was smooth, not barky and a real teammate. Feels so good to have all those hard patches ironed out. Whew!
So, I’ve got to set up the Wk 1 Std course, but didn’t have time so I just worked on the weaves. Not sure if you’ll see it, but I decided first rep to not really challenge Spot so he could just see that you weave even when the weird wing was there. He actually did a little hop as he entered like he was taking a baby jump. He got it until I tried to move the opposite direction too much, so I backed up and ended with an easy one where he could get it for sure. Wager is with us in this because we alternated – Spot did a rep then Wager. I just edited his part out.
Anyway, here you go…
I zipped through a quick try at the second jumpers course yesterday before I headed out to C Spot Win camp. Wager was tied by the course and he had a lot to say. Sorry.
Anyway, not sure what happened that Spot didn’t get the threadle cue, he’s usually good at that so I’m sure it was something I did or didn’t do.
Both boys rocked camp today. I was so proud of Wager – we were a solid smooth team! Spot did lots of big boy stuff and held his own with the experienced dogs. Lori Michaels had lots of good things to say about Spot and his nice balance between handler and obstacle focus and his responsiveness to cues. (thank you for all the help on that!!!)
Anyway, here’s the video…
Thanks! Will try to give him his wrap cues sooner in the future. I did find on this first jumpers course when he exited the tunnel to take the jump and turn right through the middle of the course that I had to delay the right cue till he was closer to the jump. Not sure if I didn’t say the go on and jump cue before the tunnel, but will work on being able to cue that turn sooner on my redo after I get your feedback.
I was pleased that he understood the cue for the backside so early. So fun that this works!! Well, also more pressure to get those words out early and accurately. Ha! At one point in my rear cross to the right wrap I started by saying his left wrap cue then changed. Good boy for saving my behind.Here’s the first jumper’s course:
