Tweaking the training plan for Liz and evaluating what seems to be working....

I went to a trial today to help a friend walk the course and be a cheerleader. I deceided to bring the Lizard. WOW, as hard as a few weeks ago were with her, that is about as easy as she has been the last week. It started Monday when Liz was such a good girl and was able to complete the full agility class and did not do any zoomies, a first for the little Liz. That was followed by a couple of evenings of really great practices and today she was a little angel at the trial. She sat quietly in her crate, walked very nicely around the trial area and was able to do all her tricks and was generally a model dog.

ON the way home we stopped by the Bass Pro Shop, not a place I usually go but they had a chair that I wanted. It was really hot and I did not realize they allow dogs, who knew??? So I thought I am just going to bring her in and try to be quiet and I will just leave if they call me on it. As we got out of the car Lizzie was pulling like a frieght train and generally looking like wild animal, so I was concerned....but I deceided to not panic...take a deep breath and we started doing our premack. I made her do a couple of tricks, released her to sniff the plants she was so interested in, got her to do a couple more tricks, again released her to sniff, then got a few more tricks and released her and she no longer even wanted to sniff. I used my "what would Leslie McDevitt do?" question to myself and stopped at two or three points on the way in the store and made sure we were a connected unit and working together. I had a bunch of treats and I was encouraging C A L M.
WELL, we went over a lot of surfaces, it is a huge store, there is a two story fish tank with HUGE fish, a stream going through the store with fish and a bunch of stuffed animals (like stuffed game animals, which always makes me sad...), a glass elevator and two flights of wooden stairs that are a little slick. Liz walked like a companion dog, did a down stay while I looked at the chair and was friendly to all the other customers but did not jump all over them. As we were going to the check-out three employees came over to look at her because they said they could not believe how well behaved she was and all her tricks. WOW, that does not happen often. I put her in a stay as I was paying and the clerk asked if he could pet her, I said SURE, released her and told her she could put her front feet on the counter, she jumped up, let him pet her and then offered her paw to shake hands with him. Wow, it is a new feeling to have people looking at me with my dog and thinking that I am a lucky duck and I have a great dog.

Usually they all look at us but it is with some dismay like how could a dog actually be that wild? LOL, but that was not the look I got today and I have to say I like the way they looked today much better.

WHATS CHANGED?

Soooo, I have given up thinking that what I do is fully responsable for how Lizzie is all the time, sometimes she just is who she is. Sometimes I do all the right things and she is aweful and sometimes I do all the wrong things and she is wonderful. I have been doing some things with her that I have to think are helping.

1. One thing is that I am really trying to do a lot more of the premack training. When Liz really wants something and can not think and is super distracted, I am stopping myself and making her do a few things and her reward is doing what she wants. After we worked so hard with that plan with the gophers, she is really seeming to understand that and it works really quickly now. I am so impressed with that, see I impress myself, LOL.

2. I have really been trying to remember to use the Control Unleashed principle of not going into the "ring", (or store, or agility yard, or what ever...) without conecting and making sure I have a dog with me and not just a dog body, (a functioning dog with a mind), LOL. I have been using tricks which seem to calm her and she loves, and they are cute, it has been working great.

3. I have really been thinking about something I read from Leslie McDevitt, or maybe it was on her DVD.... anyway, she was talking about how it is not comfortable physically to stay in a state of high arousal and I think a lot of times dogs like Lizzie do not know there is another choice and they default to that high arousal state to any stimuli. Well, I have been trying to help her learn she can react otherwise. Soooo... like in the house she will go into HYPEREXCITEMENT, like way over the top if the door bell rings or one of the kids friends come over, so now I will tell her "go to your crate". Can you believe in that state if I get her down just a little she will totally on her own turn and find her way to the crate. I make her sit there for a minute until she is calmer then I give her the Break command to release her. Sometimes we go through this little ritual a few times and when she is able to sit and calmly look then she is allowed to sit and watch the excitement of the door being open-as long as she can stay calm. I do this when she wants to look out the window at the other dogs playing, or when she wants to stare at the cat, she is getting pretty good at that.

4. A training buddy-Denise-asked if I had read Shaping Success by Susan Garrett, and of course I have, it was what got me through Lizzies first year. When she asked me that I looked at it again and OMG, I found a sobering part of the book. Susan was talking about her Buzz and how once she was trialing him and he was dropping bars, she would take him out of the ring and took him out more then 21 times I think she said. She realized her reinforcement for him had dropped to a very low percentage and she thought he was fine because he still ran fast, he was still wild and he still barked and was willing to work with her. When she realized that Buzz really LOVED contacts and did great with those, which were still highly rewarded she stopped jump training and just did contacts to get his rate of reinforcement up. With no further jump work the next time she trialed him, wha laaa, it was all fixed. IT HIT ME, OMG, when I have been working with Liz I think I have gotten lax and figured she was handling working through things more and I was letting her struggle more. Not sure Liz is a dog that really handles that, because she does not show stress in the way I am used to but....thinking back think she has been having more trouble and I think that is why she is being so steller with her contacts, and things she knows how to do, like if I say find the tire, she does, but when it comes to running sequences she gets a lot more stressed/wild. Not totally sure that is the whole answer, but something I am becoming aware of again and I am setting up her sessions to insure her success a little more, she is not Breeze.

Anyway, just some things in my training plan that have been undergoing some tweaking and I am sure we will be having a back sliding soon....but gosh little Lizzie is doing very well the last week and I am enjoying our little step forward.

just a little practice session before the big trial this weekend for Breeze...

Check out my new tire on my tire jump. I was given the really nice tire a few weeks ago, and I got it all taped up and pretty and hung on my tire jump. I love my tire jump now!

I have not posted many of our practice videos, I have not had any lessons with Alicia and have been doing some lessons here in town, but those start at 7:30pm and run until like 10pm, so it is impossible to get video there, so I decided to post a little video because I like to have it for me to look back on when we will be perfect in a couple of months, then I can remember where we came from, LOL!!!!!Lizzie did pretty good in practice, I had to break down the first part of the sequence because she wanted to go around the tire, then she just was having trouble sticking her contact really well, but she was trying and she understands now, then I did not get it on video -but I had to break down with a toy coming out of the tunnel and finding the jump-coming to my side. It did not help that she reads my body really well and if I pull off the tunnel even a split second too soon and am moving laterally, then she thinks she is supposed to pull off the tunnel and come with me and of course collection after a jump is not her favorite thing-to put it mildly, LOL, but we both got it pretty quick. She really is such a good girl and really tries so hard, but check out how fast she can turn herself off and sit and hold a great stay. I think so far the sit at the start line is working better for her then the down was lately, I might try a stand too, she might like that, but right now the sit seems to be doing the trick, less chance for her nose to distract her little mind, she is pretty solid in a sit stay.

Breeze had been doing terrific on her stays and her contacts. I am not sure what has happened to the contacts, except we have been working a LOT on the dog walk and doing the 2020 there. Breeze has been doing a 4 on the floor, a crooked 4 on the floor but it has been really solid,not the prettiest thing but solid. I have been working on the Aframe and exercises to build her back end thinking that might be some of the reason she sort of just falls down the aframe and I have been trying to make sure her weight is shifted back, so maybe that is a fall out of that???? Anyway, Breeze has a lot of runs this weekend, an AKC JWW, and a USDAA gamblers and snookers (and has only done JWW in trials so far, or tunnelers,....so I am a bit concerned after our practice tonight!!!!)

A revised timeline for the Lizard

When I got this cute little split faced, curly coated border collie, Lizzie...I had really high hopes, dreams, aspirations. I knew that day that we were meant to be together, and for good and bad we were going to be a team. So as the first few weeks came and went and we were getting to know each other and after a few months she started showing some of her future personality, I was a little concerned. Not to worry, she was just a baby and her total over zealous lust for life and never ending energy, that was just because she was a baby, RIGHT???? Please.... We did lots and lots more training and work on self control, I worked on making myself the funnest thing on earth, I spent lots of time, and some things were looking marvelous, but there was always this underlying total disconnect of the brain when Liz got excited.

When we hit a year, Liz got amazing at doing tricks, she could figure out anything, and surely she was just at the height of her adolescence, and any day she would be totally reliable. At that point I only dreamed of her being safe one day, surely soon she was called so I would not have to always worry about her getting out and going over the top with excitement and being three counties away before she could even hear someone calling her. That was my HUGE fear at this time. At that time people said she will mature. We enrolled in more obedience, a couple of recall classes-three whole series on the totally reliable recall and we did a lot of homework. At about this time we went to an agility instructor that really wanted to do lessons with Breeze, told me Liz and I had no relationship at all and the dog had no connection to me, this after a few minutes watching Liz in her total whoo hooo state after going to a new location-at that point she could truly not think. She made it clear that Liz was not allowed back. I was devistated but I tried to tell myself I knew the bond with me and Liz was stronger then any other bond I had known, and so what if this yahoo did not see it? Besides she was going to mature, right???

At the two year mark, not a lot had changed, Liz did lots more behaviors, she didn't get into everything in the house, but she still could not attend an agility class. But everyone said the magic mark is three years......PLEASE let that be!

Last summer at 2 1/2 OVERNIGHT things changed and Liz matured. Not to where I wanted her, not to where she could do what I had dreamed when I got her, not to where she could consistantly do a class, but to where she could function most of the times in a private lesson in a familiar environment and to where she could sometimes...function for a few minutes in a class in a familiar environment, but hey we had until 3 when she would fully mature, right???

So recently this spring we hit the three year mark. I love Lizzie more then anyone can know. If I want to have fun shaping and working with a dog, I always go to Lizzie first. Lizzie learns any tricks in a snap. Lizzie has a terrific recall when she has a head and well, she knows more then any other dog I have ever had. Still at 3, she can do a class, sometimes, she can work in an unfamiliar place, a little, sometimes, she can work for a little longer time, occassionally, but I do not worry about her getting lost, about her going over the top and running three counties before she stops and notices she is lost. She is very reliable in the house and doesnt tear up the bathroom, or get onto the counters or into the fridge like she used to do. Actually a wonderful dog to be around. She sleeps above my head on the pillow every night and I reach up and give her a pat and feel nice feeling her when I wake up at night. She really is my best friend, but I was facing that it might be time to give up on the idea of her doing what I got her for, agility, even though she is the fastest dog, she is built terrific, she loves it, but you have to be able to trust your dog can stay on course and well, that does not always happen. But maybe time to accept what is,....after all she is 3.

So last night there was a new ray of hope and a bunch of people were telling me that hey, lots of dogs mature and get it together at FOUR!!!! YES, some ray of hope!!! I am going to buy it!!! That ray of hope along with her amazing performance last night, maybe we will really actually make it, some day.....As long as she enjoys it, I will just have to keep trying. People might hear our story or watch us run and think I am a rotten trainer to not have this dog doing agility and trialing, but hey they do not have a dog like her and they have not seen what we have gone through, so let them think what they want. I guess if it never happens, that is ok too, maybe if she had turned out to be the agility dog I wanted and went out to buy, maybe she would not have been the amazing friend I found.

Deanna's class, Lizzie gets a gold star for her performance

Last night was Deanna's class and no video because it is a night class and so video just doesn't work! LIZZIE DID THE ENTIRE CLASS, and ACTUALLY looked like a dog that might actually be doing agility, not just a bad imposter. YIPPIE!!! So one thing is that Lizzie is not a dog that you get all riled up and in some wild drive before you go out, she does that on her own. She did so good in her start line stays, who would think a dog that looks like she has so little impulse control does her best work with the contacts and start line stays??? She does great in control work, it is just when she feels she is off on her own and floating out that she loses it. A girl who is in the class and has always been giving me a hard time for not trialing with Liz and has never seemed to understand why I have any trouble with her has watched her the last two weeks and came up to me and said, "WOW, I had thought I have seen high drive, wild dogs, and wild border collies, but I have never seen any dog like Lizzie", hahahahahahhahahahah, OMG, ya know if you did not experience the Liz, no one could believe the Liz. I always try to remember when we run it is not gorgeous, but there are not many that could have gotten as far as we have, so when I get discouraged....I do know I have worked fifty times harder and more with Liz then I have with Breeze, or Chloe and yet....you would not be able to tell by looking. So Liz and Breeze are opposite.

Breeze had trouble in this course with the weave entries-esp 10 on the light and dark circles. If I tap the break a little then she whirls around and starts yelling at me, if I run full fource then she blazes past the first pole and catches the poles about the second or third opening. Now Breeze is having difficulty because she stops about the third to fourth pole and looks back to see if she is right, whoops....if I say YES too loud or animated she gets all hyper and just loses it all and the weaves are history, if I say YES in a very soft tone at just the right time I can get some beautiful weaves, so we are going to have to work on that. Liz how ever had gorgeous weaves and just would occassionally pop out between pole 11 and 12.

Then in the light circles the start of the course, boy that is where there was a huge difference in the dogs. It was hard running both one right after another, first there is a lot of running....YIKES then Breeze will not hold her stay for a very long lead out and if I can get her too she would not read the number 2 double jump, she would sail around it, and if I stayed to make sure she saw that, then I was way further back, so I had to do a rear cross before 4, where with Liz I could move way further out and had no trouble getting a front cross between 3 and 4, which was just much nicer feeling. Then when we did the dark circles in the 4-5-6 section, Breeze has a fantastic tunnel send, so I could easily do a front cross between 5 and 6, then push out a little to get the weave line after 6 and it was a slick little bit of course for Breeze. Liz who coming off the teeter (WE SUBSTITUTED THE TEETER FOR THE AFRAME) gets all weird and doesnt want to drive out too far ahead,.....her I had to just stay with her on my left side out of the tunnel and do a rear cross before six, and still push her out a lot so she caught the right side of the poles for the entry.

I also figured out last night that I practice all sorts of weave entries but not with all the movement and forces of a real course like this, so we had a lot more trouble with entries then I would have thought considering we have worked with them so much lately.

That dark circle 11 to 12 amazed me because I was able to get there and do a backy uppy move and I thought that would work so well if I could get there, but I did not think I could especially with Liz because she was running fast last night....and Liz is usually not really good to put it mildly about decelerations, but we nailed that each time with both dogs, YES!!! Nothing like the feeling of actually being able to get somewhere where you did not think you could get to.

Anyway, all in all I learned a lot in class, and it was super hard running both dogs, but I do think that helped me really see the differences and figure some things out about both dogs.

I was so proud that Lizzie ran both of these courses TWICE, so a total of four courses and did not run off once. I do think I am going to switch to Lizzie sitting at the start in her stay, when she is in a down she starts sniffing, sniff, sniff, sniff, and then her little brain follows the sniff and it is a lot scarier watching her because I can see her disconnecting, so not sure that is always true, but I sure noticed it the past week, so might work with a sit and see how that goes.

this weeks class the lizard continues to puzzle me

Well, today was my agility class here in town. I was not going to bring Breeze because she had still been doing a little bit of limping after she hit her foot on saturday. She looked ok this afternoon so...I deceided to take her and just do a few things and mostly work Liz since I knew the topic of this class was going to be contacts and Liz loves her contacts so I thought I would have a good chance of keeping her working. The first sequence was a fast sequence I ran Breeze in and boy was she wired. She was spinning and barking and she was just not able to get the weaves because she was so wild. I tried to stop and collect her but some days she just is so over the top, LOL. I am going to have to work her on the weaves and get her way more excited, because it really falls apart when she gets like that.

So the next exciting show that we put on for the class was Lizzie running a speed circle of contacts around the yard, at least that is what the idea/plan was. I have been in Deanna's contact class several times and the whole point of it is a very good one and one I have always remembered. We get homework for this class and are supposed to come with very specific criteria for each contact obstacle written down. So like for Liz on the teeter she is to load onto the teeter going straight, drive quickly up to the very tip of the teeter then shift her weight back as she rides it down,with her head forward and low, stay on the obstacle once it hits the ground until she hears a verbal BREAK cue, she is to do this no matter where I am. I have a criteria for each dog with each obstacle and I do think it really helps to train the obstacle like I want it, to have a clear picture and know what we are looking for and helps so that I know EXACTLY what to reward for so it is clear for the dog.

So that is all well and good, but with the Lizzie Lou, whooooo, it was a wild ride. I have got to figure out what this is all about, but she just bailed off the teeter, she was trying to take off, she was in full whoo hooo factor. I got her with me and shifted to rewarding her for each obstacle to get her head. It was amusing and I would have been laughing if I was not the person trying to handle the wild girl. So the second time we were going to run the circle, this time with the aids, i.e. targets, etc...Deanna said she really wanted Liz to do it so we could fix the teeter. I pullled out the cheeze whiz so I could put it on the end of the teeter and went back to training mode with that and she did it gorgeously and proceeded to do the whole course beautifully, running fast, performing all her criteria. So was she looking like an agility dog the second time because she knew food was involved? Was it because she had got a little wild whoo hooo out of her system the first turn? If I could figure out why she can be so amazing sometimes and so crazy wild at the drop of a hat, gosh maybe I could get somewhere.

I went back and ran Liz over the sequence Breeze had trouble with and she was amazing, she got her weaves, she did great, then all of a sudden with no warning she took off and ran to the pee/water area, ughghgh, so I am trying a new thing where I just do not let her do that, I go and grab her and bring her back and make her do a few more things then I release her to go and do what she wants, not sure if that is going to work or not, but it can not hurt.

an afternoon at the movies, again!

I went to see My Sisters Keeper at the movies. I am not a antisocial person and I love to go with friends to a movie as much as the next person and some days going with a group IS the funnest thing about the movie, but...some days I LOVE to go to a move by myself, sit in the back seats and just get all wrapped up in the story, just thinking about how it is affecting me and what I think about the whole thing. I went by myself today to a very early showing and there were only like 3 people in the theatre. It was the new theatre that has only been open a couple of weeks and it was such a great morning. The move is about a girl who was conceived to provide cells, marrow, etc..for her sister who was dying of cancer.

Eventually the little girl sues to have rights to her own body when the dying sister needs her kidney. It was such a great story but it just seemed to be so much like so many things in life, there were no easy answers, no great solutions, and pretty much the situation everyone found themselves in was not fair in any sense of the word and pretty much sucked.

I really liked the movie and it was a great movie to get lost in for a few hours, although it had some pretty sad moments. There was one really cool dog in there that belonged to the lawyer. The lawyer said it was his service dog and said the dog kept him from magnets or something, LOL, but it was a really gorgeous, sweet, black/white border collie named Judge.

AKC trial today, Saturday June 27,09 JWW

FINALLY we had another trial. I was signed up for an AKC trial, and of course it was about a hundred degrees, so I thought I was going to die. We still do not have our teeter performance safe...so we were just signed up for jumpers, Breeze and I that is. OK FIRST LET ME SAY THIS LOOKS LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK, BUT THE ANGELES ON THESE JUMPS AND THE WEAVES WERE KILLER, I do not always say this but this one was a lot harder course running it then it looked like on paper. Well, I left Breeze at obstacle 1 and just went to the other side of the jump and released her as I started running, I threw her in the jump and slid laterally to the landing side of jump 3, so textbook, gorgeous start. I had to give her just a third of jump 3 to catch how jump 4 was angled sort of back of the line you naturally wanted to turn and point toward. Still doing fine Breeze took the part of the jump I gave her and continued on. Jump 4 is gorgeous, jump 5 she is moving out laterally and reading everything really wonderfully, 6 and 7 I am starting to fall behind and then I get an attack of the nerves, right about as Breeze is looking backwards worrying because I am behind. The jump right before the weaves is at an odd angle and the weaves are at a horrible angle and I knew I needed to get there to do a front cross and I still would have got there but Breeze got worried and sailed around the jump in front of the weaves. No worries, I am having a nervous attack but we have breeze back on track and she just starts yelling at me, whirling and totally turned around looking at me, which leaves the weaves....way out of her sight, LOL. So I finally get her settled down and she does the weaves, right as she comes out with the angle of the next jump I really had to push her line to get her out there but no problem, we are almost pros, or maybe novice runners, LOL, so then it is a bit choppy at the big turn with the rear cross and the right command at jump 12 but we get it and I am thinking we are going to pull this one off, and all of a sudden it was like Breeze hit a brick wall. She just stopped turned around and started sniffing and would not leave. I guess a lot of dogs were sniffing there but I had not seen that and Breeze, NEVER sniffs, Chloe and Lizzie, they are sniffers but not Breeze. aghghghg. So I have to really rouse her to get her off the spot and then she is not paying attention and slices the last jump at a very bad angle and hit both bars and the stantion. OUCH, she walked off the course limping ;-(.

Tracy, Breezes dads person went out and checked because she thought there might have been a gopher but she did not see a gopher but there was some feathers and it looked like a bird had been caught there recently????

Well, maybe next time, but it sure did not help that it must have been 184 degrees by the time we got to run and we had been sitting for so long, that is not good for my nerves, let me tell you. I wish I had a video but everyone I know was running right before or right after me, it is funny because it seems everyone I know with experienced dogs is starting over in performance so they are having to run novice too, so no one I could force to video, LOL.

In two weeks we have a JWW AKC run under cover in a horse arena in Pomona on Saturday and then our first USDAA, which means more measurements, ugghghghg, but that one we are signed up for a gamblers and then a snookers run-that is at a different venue but it is under a cover too, in a horse arena. Then I think we are going to take it easy until it gets a bit cooler.

THE GREAT PART OF OUR PROGRESS OR my progress is that I am getting much more comfortable and it does not bother me to have people watch me, I do not feel like they are judging as much and I am feeling much more comfortable acknowledging the good parts we are doing and knowing our mistakes are just areas we are learning. It makes it a lot more fun to be trialing and feels a lot better. I am not as nervous the night before and I do not think I would be that nervous if I was not having to sit around all day for my turn, but even going out there I am not as nervous, although gosh in the middle of that run today, it really hit me like a ton of bricks and I really did not expect it in the middle of the run, but it is getting better!

This weeks class-me and the girls are doing agility

These pictures were taken by Karen at Contact Point Ranch and I am so excited to get some pictures of the little Lizard doing actual agility.

We had our local class, with Deanna, and it was not our worst class....but not our best either. The good part is that Liz did work with me and do some of the course, and had killer contacts even on the dog walk which she has not done in a long time. The bad part is that Liz runs like a little kamakozee, really fast, fearless and with absolutely no collection, no matter what I try to show her about turns or stops in the course. YIKES. Also she has a real love for the Aframe and will go way out of her way to go back and forth over the Aframe. OOOOH Lizzie!

So after Lizzie's moment of glory, then we did some box work, and I took out Breeze. Gosh Breeze is doing good. So this was fun to do because it was looking at the rules of the front cross: You must be ahead of the dog, keep your eye on the dog, it involves a change of side, put it as close to the next obstacle AS POSSIBLE, and it changes direction, you put them on a curve. So by changing the order of the jumps and looking at the dogs path it was very interesting to see where the straight lines and where the curves were FOR THE DOG, so that explained where to put the front cross. We could also have done this exercise with rear crosses of course, that is why I LOVE box work. So the other interesting thing was that Breeze is getting VERY good at working out from me, and I have not adjusted so I was going way too much into the pockets and trying to babysit when Breeze was just fine with me staying way further back and just going to where I needed to go. It is awesome how much she is understanding all of a sudden. Deanna said our really great part of how we ran this was that I was able to leave very tight lines over the jumps and Breeze is very comfy working really close and coming in and just taking the room I give her, we are going to get this yet. So it was a pretty durn good class for my little girlies.