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Hi!
<<I would like for you to feed Nox when she is looking at the dog as well, not just looking away.>>
I will try that instead of the LAT game and see if that helps.<<Also, you are asking her for behaviors but they seem to be more stimulating for her. Is this typical?>>
Yes, any kind of cue excites her. Even if I just have treats in my hand, she will throw out behaviors and get very barky.<<Are you familiar with the technique called BAT?>>
I have the BAT 2.0 book and have read part of it, but I need to go back and review and finish it.Assignment #2
I have a couple of videos of Nox getting distracted by triggers and trying to get her to go back to work after recovering.
This first video is of us working on our front porch. There is a lab that lives across the street that she has never met nose-to-nose. She is less than a year old and is a nice dog. She plays with other dogs but isn’t very confident herself (hasn’t had any training or much socialization outside of her front yard). I think she’d be friendly with Nox if I introduced them, but it’s probably hard to convince your neighbor that a barking, growling, lunging dog should meet their puppy, haha. I have also hesitated to have them greet because then Nox wouldn’t view the dog the same way, and I couldn’t use the dog for training. I’m not sure if that’s the best way to look at it, but once Nox knows a dog, she’s fine with it and doesn’t react, and it’s not always easy to find novel dogs with willing owners.
I’ve never had a dog with reactivity issues before Nox, so I’m still learning the best way to help her with this. I am sure I am doing it all wrong in the video! I can sometimes get her to do quick easy behaviors like a hand touch or sit-down-stand exercises, or we will play Look at That, but it doesn’t always work, especially if she explodes before I can redirect. In this case, I ended up pulling her close to me since sometimes physical contact will help her cope. I will guide her to my leg, and she will put one of her paws on my foot (something she started on her own). I will also try to block her view of the other dog, jogger, etc. by putting my hand next to her hand to prevent her from turning to face the trigger head on. She will sometimes push back on my hand and sometimes just allow me to block her view. Slow petting and quiet talking also sometimes help until the trigger passes and we can move on. Since the dog across the street was not just passing by, it was not very effective until the other dog went back in the garage out of sight. It took between 20-40 seconds before she could respond to a cue after reacting in this video.
I don’t have a video, but today in Home Depot, there were several other dogs walking around. She was able to get a quick glance and then continue with me to a place where she could not see the other dog. She barked once at a couple of different dogs, but there was no big outburst, and she recovered after just a second or two. She was able to give me hand touches, sits, heel, etc. easily. I think the difference was we were able to move away from the other dogs quickly and there was a lot of motion involved as opposed to being limited to the space on our porch. She is also usually worse in our neighborhood than in other places. I think this is more of a learning history issue than a territorial issue. She has no problem with dogs coming into our house, even dogs she hasn’t met before.
Finally, here is a quick video of our training from this evening. Contacts have proven to be quite difficult to master for Nox. We started with the foundations for running contacts, but I think a combination of my inexperience with them (never trained them before and I struggled with the online class I took) and Nox’s low tolerance for frustration made it fall apart. I taught her stopped contacts very quickly after that, but I couldn’t fade the physical target and it fell apart again. I just started her on a new step-by-step program, and this was the first day of it. She’s supposed to lie down near a marker while I continue moving. Then I am supposed to throw a reward behind her and release her to get it. She was doing pretty well with it until my husband came outside to move the sprinklers (reseeding the yard for a nice agility field!). It took her about 20 seconds to come back. [Hopefully the video isn’t too dark; I tried lightening it a bit.]
Hi!
Yes, I would agree that there is a lot of frustration for her in agility. She seems to have a very low tolerance for frustration in general, not just agility. She does a lot of barking and air snapping (never nips or bites thankfully!). She will also take food too hard when she’s overly frustrated. Errors are not tolerated well (whether mine or hers). I am hopeful that I will learn some techniques in this class to help her cope better so she can still be a state of mind where she’s thinking.In terms of behavior modification, I have put her on a long line and harness and done some simple behaviors and pattern games (super bowls, 1-2-3) near shadows. She can usually ignore them (or at least not interact with them) in that context since she’s not in a high state of arousal like when running agility; plus, she knows when she’s dragging a long line as evidenced by the almost perfect recalls while wearing one, lol. I am not comfortable putting a long line on her when doing agility for obvious safety reasons, so it hasn’t been something that I don’t know how to work on effectively. I mostly try to manage it by not letting her chase them when not working and trying to be really fast with rewards when we are working, even if things don’t go correctly. There have been instances where she has started to take off after a shadow after an error but she’ll run to a Lotus ball instead if I throw it fast enough (although that doesn’t always happen).
I have had some people suggest herding might help her find a healthy outlet for her shadow chasing behavior since it likely stems from her herding genetics. I would imagine it’s quite frustrating for her to chase the shadow but never be able to control it. I’m not sure if herding actual animals would help her or not, but I don’t have easy access to sheep or lessons (I know NOTHING about herding). I also would worry that she does not have the control over her arousal level to be safe in that context (either for her or the sheep). Another person suggested trieball to try to give her the herding outlet. Again, I know nothing about that sport, but I’d be willing to learn if it could help. Since I’ve seen levels of frustration in every type of training we’ve done thus far, I’m not sure if it would actually help. Do you have any thoughts on those activities?
Nox will also chase birds (flying WAY up in the sky), helicopters, para-gliders,etc. She has even been known to notice stars in the night sky. Once the object has left her line of sight, she will sometimes transfer to running the fence looking for a shadow; other times she will come back to me.
At a seminar a few months ago, I asked you what online class you would recommend for Nox and me, and you suggested this camp. I cannot thank you enough for this suggestion.
Nobody in my area can provide me with the level of instruction that you have, and I am so grateful for being able to participate in this camp. I really enjoy your teaching style and class format. The short videos along with written explanations are perfect, and your feedback is always encouraging even when it feels like everything went wrong in the video. I appreciate you pointing out the positives and for sharing so many things other than just handling suggestions. The pop-outs are really cool, and having easy-to-print pdfs was great. The live classes were also a really neat concept.
I love that you called this the “Learn Your Dog CAMP.” Although I have learned A LOT these last several weeks, I think what I am going to get the most out of this experience is being able to use all of your specific feedback after camp ends to work on skills we are missing or are weak in. Even though I haven’t responded to all of your feedback (I didn’t think you really wanted more posts to read unless there was a specific question, lol), I am taking lots of notes and planning to set some of these sequences (or parts of courses) again so we can master these skills. I can only imagine how long you spend on commenting on everyone’s runs. You can be sure I am combing back through it all and making notes on my course maps for skills to work on when I try them out again over the coming months.
I started agility over 20 years ago and have run a variety of dogs since then. I had dreams of making it to national events and being very competitive, but I got stuck in my training and never made significant progress after a while. I always thought it was because of the dogs I was lucky enough to share my life with; some had physical issues and some had anxiety issues that prevented us from going too far. When I got Nox, I thought we were going to do amazing things and it was going to be relatively easy since I have a lot of experience and she was physically sound and confident, unlike my other agility dogs from the past. Boy was I wrong, lol! The saying, “You don’t know what you don’t know,” really resonates with me right now, haha!!
However, after working with you (in seminars and CAMP), I have a renewed feeling of excitement and hope for my future agility career. I am a classroom teacher right now, and although I love teaching my kids (most days, lol), my real passion is teaching agility to others. I have been so excited to share some of the things I know with my students, and they have made great improvements thanks to you as well. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Nox and me!!
I have learned more and made more progress over this summer than I have in years!! I had a blast doing it, too!
I don’t expect you to look at all of it at once. No hurry at all! I feel bad for posting so many at once!! I’m a teacher and life got really crazy once school started back up and I’m also in a wedding soon and have had to do wedding related events. It never ends, lol!
Please don’t feel like you have to give me thorough feedback on everything. Even if you could tell me one or two things to work on that would be super helpful! I have more than gotten my money’s worth out of this camp already!!
This is Package 5- Standard Course 1. This course proved to be quite challenging for us. I think we need to work on driving lines away from me a lot more in order to be successful with it. I did a really good training session from the end of the dog walk and sending out to the weaves and layering the dog walk in the process. But of course I somehow didn’t get it on video! Unfortunately, despite having quite a few great reps, it wasn’t strong enough to transfer to the actual course.
Moving on to Package 5! This is the ESC set of sequences. The video is a bit long, but it’s all 4 sequences. The threadle wraps were the hardest part for us. At some point, I turned into one of those weird flailing inflatable tube guys, lol.
Here is the video of Package 5 ESC: Boxes.
Hi!
I was able to get all of the rest of the sequences run, but I didn’t have time to do the video editing as well. I only have 6 more videos to post after this one, haha! Since these videos were all taken before your comments about the last video, I’m sure some of the same issues are present, especially those involving a better way to keep going or making the decision to stop and reset, so expect to see that again, lol. (It’s ok if you don’t want to go into detail about that again 😜)
Here is Package 4- Standard Course 2.
At 1:41, I was essentially doing a German turn but without a side change. Is there a name for that move? If it’s a legit thing, should I have a cue to indicate coming to the same side rather than behind me? I have found that she sometimes will go behind me when I try it, and I think it’s because it looks so much like the German.At 1:48, I did two backsides in a row rather than doing a tight wrap in the other direction. If the path to the next obstacles is decent from either side, I tend to try to keep her in extension rather than slowing down for the tight turns, which she hates anyway. In this situation, do you think that was the best choice? I’m trying really hard to figure out how to determine which direction is better for her.
For the opening, I did want her wrapping to the right. Hopefully it was just the camera angle and I’m not teaching her the complete opposite of what I should be, haha!
I appreciate the specific examples of where/how to either stop and reset or keep going. Being able to match your comments with those parts in the video is helpful so I can try to see those places on my own in the future.
Your explanation of why she gets so irritated to stop makes complete sense! Understanding the behavior science behind it is helpful to me so I can apply it elsewhere (it’s also just super interesting to me, lol)!
I think I need to work on getting her to drive to lines better so I can feel more confident with layering things. I definitely need to be able to layer with her since she is so fast!
The water idea is interesting! I’ll have to give that a try one day!
I understand the value of continuing on and the impact it can have on her frustration level, but I do struggle with it. Partly, it’s because it’s such an ingrained habit to fix it (one I’ve bene trying to work on but it doesn’t always happen in the moment). However, it’s also because I don’t know how to keep going with her. She’s very unforgiving when I make a mistake, and she is so busy yelling at me (and trying to trip me, lol) that it’s hard to do anything other than stop her and ask for stillness before moving on. In training, I can throw a reward (when I remember!), but in a trial, that’s obviously not possible, so it would be nice to be able to do have the option of continuing on.
I am trying to almost exclusively use thrown rewards, although I do use a cookie from my hand when I’m just resetting her after we’ve had to stop sometimes.
