Getting ready for our first standard run in a trial, yippie

So we are going to have our first STANDARD RUN tomorrow in a trial. Our first standard run ever, and we chose NADAC for the venue. We have done a lot of jumpers but because of the dog walk could not do standard runs and feel Breeze was not going to hurt herself. Unfortunately, I do not know anyone that will be there that can video so I will have to just rely on my myself to remember what happens and how it goes ;-) (think the big one that got away in fishing). I really wish I knew some people that were going to be trialing, after all this time out of trials I am back to feeling really nervous, and sitting all day by myself will probably not help that.

In preparation for our trial tomorrow, I went to the local agility class yesterday with Breeze, it was handling 2 so one of their upper level classes and it was WEAVE day. YIKES, weave day with my dog that is not figuring out how to switch from handler focus to obstacle focus and is having a hard time figuring out how to check her stride before she hits the weaves, add in tons of wild weave entrances, and boom instant confidence deflation for me right before a trial, LOL. We will limp through this weekend with those weaves, ughghghg, and work on them next week ;-). Now the good part is that I did all front crosses, more then anyone else, LOL, and I got to the right place for them all, which Breeze was moving wickedly fast, so I was pretty proud of that and the handling part of the course, besides the weaves was LOVELY. So that was a confidence booster.

We had two photographers from the local paper at class, and they set up right in front of the 180 on course, so the dog had to jump right into them, well, Breeze was first dog up, right after the photographers arrived and they did not phase her at all, I did not even see her slow up, so I think she is doing fantastic with distractions, now if only we could fix this weave problem!

For us running a standard run at the trial tomorrow is a big marker point in our training- after partially tearing her ACL on the dog walk and numerous other injuries on the dog walk, there was a serious question about if Breeze could really ever safely do a dog walk with her hip dysplasia and how she uses her back end sometimes, and especially in a trial when she gets excited. It looks like that was not the case, so I think Breezie and I are entering a really exciting, fun, phase now. We CAN FINALLY RUN STANDARD RUNS, YIPPIE !!!! Anyway, sappy as it sounds it was just a little sad and disappointing I could never show our instructor because she lost the field she was doing lessons in so she has pretty much said that we will no longer have lessons. It is sad it ended before she got a chance to see that we finally did it, and finally after a year and a half of rehab, training and retraining I feel safe running Breeze in standard now-so I am pretty excited.

I feel like we made it to the moon or somthing...

OK I know mankind will probably not be greatly affected by what has happened here at the bordergirlsmoms house...
I will probably be the only one in the world to be sleeping better tonight because of what has happened....
I will walk a little taller and feel a little prouder but I doubt anyone else will and I doubt the newspaper will be interested....

BUT WE HAVE CONTACTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEA I MEAN FOR BREEZE!!!!!!!! Can anyone believe that?

I know it is not a big deal to train some nice contacts but Breeze is a retrain-she was doing a gorgeous 4 on the floor on the dog walk and a sucky four on the floor modified running contact on the Aframe. I was having so much trouble getting her to change to a 2020 on the dog walk and fix the Aframe. I had almost given up, and Diana encouraged me to keep at it, thanks Diana for that!!!



Things I have learned from this whole retrain process and lessons I will take away:
Keep at it just when it seems most useless it always seems I am on the verge of a breakthrough.
REWARD PLACEMENT, REWARD RATE, key factors you always have to really think about when teaching anything new.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, when I train ANYTHING, I need to have a super clear, super detailed, very specific picture of what I want in my head and always be working toward that, even if things get broken into smaller pieces you have to have that picture of exactly what you want to end up with ;-).

I AM SO EXCITED!!! I have now got two dogs with retrained contacts, I had no clue when this started how hard it would be to do a retrain, and with two dogs...I never thought it would happen!!!!

SUPERGIRLS move those sheep

I have to give you my impressions of Liz's herding Instructor-Robin from Om the Lamb Herding. I LOVE HER. She is a SUPERGIRL as far as I am concerned and I wish I could have got a picture but the way she arrives at the lesson and leaves-it just struck me as too funny, and a real SUPERGIRL entrance and exit. So imagine Robin-who is working Liz in the video leaving the lesson, she strides out of the herding ring, telling me what she thinks of Liz and what we need to do, she is dressed in shorts, with tennis shoes, a sleeveless top, her hair back in a low pony tail, and a visor that advertises On the Lamb Herding, and sunglasses. She is usually dressed pretty similarly because it is hot here in So Cal. So she is talking about Liz, striding quickly through the trees away from the area and onto a golf cart or 4 wheel drive vehicle-she hops on the cart, there is a crate strapped on the front, and a crate strapped on the back, her black/white smooth coat BC gets into position in front of the cart, she hops onto her little cart and flies off with her BC running in front. It made me laugh because I felt like who is that masked lady who strode in here fixed some problems with my dog and then flew on out.

It has been about a month since Liz could go herding-Robin was sick for her last lesson ;-(, so I was really looking forward to the lesson today although...I did not realize I had scheduled lessons for the same day as Liz's agility class, so it was a VERY long day for the Lizard. A 2 1/2 hour drive to herding, and hour herding and then a 2 1/2 hour back, we ran into the house to feed the other dogs, grab some treats and we were off to class. It was a big experiment and I was anxious to see how she would do with agility class after thinking for her herding lesson. The herding lessons really make her think, and tire her out, so I knew she would do amazing at class or be fried, but who knew which?

I am not quite sure how it worked, and how to interpret what I saw at agility class-did Liz do great after having herding first or was it too much?...Liz did AMAZING in the sequences she did and was so on it and so focused, she was actually decelerating and reading me when I needed her to, she was doing her contacts perfectly, really driving ahead and looking for obstacles, that was all good,....but then she took off a few times and we had our first full fledged...well, sort of full fledged zoomie that we have had in a LONG time. She took off to see friends a couple of times ;-(. The last time she went to see Deanna the instructor and when Deanna played the bad guy and sort of shuffled her off she at first sat and sniffed and kept out of reach and then just took off really fast...but the new thing was she took off and went to her crate. Humm, that is new. I can not say that is a bad thing if she is going to run.

When Liz ran into her crate Deanna had me take Dillon the blue merle aussie out and sit and play with her and give him lots of treats and do lots of tricks while the next dog ran,....Liz was not happy about that idea -as soon as the next dog had run she got another turn and she was all about working and very excited.

AS FOR HERDING During the lesson Robin said she did not think Liz would ever move big buffalo-which is OK because I have no access to buffalo, and Liz would never be a really super powerful dog and she does not know if she will ever be able to do 1,000 yard outruns...but she thought she would definitely be good enough when we build her confidence that she would be able to WIN some herding trials, whooo, is she serious?. I hope she is right about that....I would really like to learn more about herding. We went to a herding trial this weekend and I really know NOTHING about herding, but it sure made me realize how much there is to learn.

THE HERDING LESSON: Liz started off very stressed looking, avoiding, eating sheep poop, acting like no one was there. One sheep in particular kept staring at Liz...and that really upset her, first it made her nervous and a bit scared but then Robin encouraged/let her run after the sheep and yell at her and then Liz just got really mad when the sheep would stare at her. It was funny a couple of times when Liz almost shut down Robin would walk over and pet her and tell her she was a good girl- Liz's whole body would visibly puff up and she would rush into those sheep like a bull in a china shop. Robin worked her around the edges of the pen, using the fence to make Liz deal with the sheep and try to feel the power she has to move the sheep-Liz is really unsure if she has power and what to do with the power she does know she has. Little Liz needs to learn how to feel like SUPERGIRL-she has power and she can MOVE THOSE SHEEP.

Another thing Robin did say today was that she really felt having worked with Liz now that this herding work will really help her learn how to deal with things better which will help with her in agility. Helping her learn to think, and think through things, helping her confidence to grow and letting her feel her power should help her not be so overstimulated at times by her environment. I sure hope she is right about that but it sure seems to make sense and I am thinking....she just might be right.

This is a long video, and about half way through is the more interesting part where Robin talks about what she is teaching, how and why. The first part is just some of the stress signals I caught. I REALLY like Robin and I love that she does not seem to teach by a set schedule of steps but seems to respond to the dog and what they need which seems to change even in one lesson.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

I know a lot of people read this book awhile ago and it is out in paperback now, I picked it up on a whim at Costco yesterday late afternoon and could not put it down until I finished it this morning. I cried like a baby at the end,one of those books that you want to finish so bad, but at the same time you hate to keep turning the pages because then it will be over...I REALLY enjoyed it and it made me look at my dogs a little differently last night and made me glad that I am lucky enough to have some really special dogs around me. If you have not read it and have some time, I would recommend it, but keep your tissues close at the end.

my latest problem....

This is not dog related but it has been causing me a lot of grief in my life recently, so I really wanted to just take a minute to gripe about it. I know in each relationship there are spenders and there are savers. I suppose in my home I am more the spender, and my hubby is more the saver, ....er...and some days he can be a little cheap. He is the type of guy that when we wanted to get living room furniture, like the whole set...a couch, a love seat, a chair some side tables he thought that $200 should do it nicely....he thought a couple of hundred dollars would refloor the whole house. Well, welcome to 2009, he is just so funny at times.

The current difficultly arises from the fact that hubby would like to do all the shopping at the dollar store. I love the $1 store and they have some fun things. I do not like when hubby was trying to buy dish washer soap at the dollar store that left all sorts of weird films of an unknown substance that did not look safe on our dishes, when he buys these silly toys for the kids that have been recalled for lead and just end up in our feet broken all over the floor before they have been in the house for an hour, he would probably get his medications there if he could.

Recently, I realized hubby had bought a huge supply of TOILET PAPER at the dollar store. Let me tell you at least this dollar store toilet paper bears little resemblance to what I think of toilet paper. The roll of toilet paper is so small that we can go through several a day-which the dogs take the empty rolls and put them in the trash so they enjoy that, but it is turning into a daily occurrance that everyone is screaming to please get a new roll. The toilet paper seems to be made of some scratchy wood that I am sure they thought about turning into paper, but...they apparently didn't quite get that far and how could something that is so see through and thin be that scratchy? Needless to say I made a trip to Target today and got a BIG pack of the toilet paper mega rolls, LOL, something that will last and is a little higher quality. The funny thing is that the dollar store rolls were so small, I can not believe all in all that the dollar store toilet paper has got to be way more expensive per sheet then the nicer real toilet paper that actually functions like toilet paper.

Liz handler plus class, session 2-

Oh Liz and I can be a sad little team. I took Liz to her class last night, it was freezing so I grabbed my sweater and saw that Breeze pulled my sweater into her crate and ate a hole in the sleeve-REALLLY BREEZE?? Was that necessary?

Liz did AMAZING for being Liz. She ran off to say HI to Deanna the instructor- she rounded a corner looked suprised to find Deanna there and just had to say HI.
I frustrated Liz by being in the wrong place to show her how I wanted her to come off the teeter and I pushed her out around a jump, but whatever...she was happy and working well. We did a rear cross exercise after this that was...well, something we can work on, LOL.

BUT SHE ONLY RAN OFF once during class and she was able to work the entire class-and those are long classes, that is HUGE for her.
ld

Could we actually be making some progress on the 2020 retrain with Breeze?

Ok after the fun match and feeling sooo very confused and discouraged over the contact situation with Breeze, I sat down and knew I had to figure out how to train this 2020 to Breeze. I am TIRED of talking about these contacts, I am seriously tired of training them, I am tired of seeing the suckey contacts, and I am ready to just make it happen. RETRAINS ARE HARD. So I broke the problem down for myself and tried to figure out what Breeze understands and what she doesn't... and I swear Breeze really understands the 2020 when I am right there, when we do it slowly, when she is not excited.....but the minute I add speed or excitement in....it all falls apart and I SWEAR she thinks in those situations the criteria IS a 4 on the floor.

So I sat down and thought of all my training principals. I tried to think how this was looking to Breeze and how could I use reward placement, the timing of the reward, and the rate of reward to make things look different for her to get her to understand that I want her to do 2020 all the time on the dog walk.

I deceided to try the manners minder again, I figured it would put some pressure on her because it would be in front of her, it would allow me to reward from far away and control the reward delivery, and I just get the feeling if I could get her to do it right just a few times, she will get it.

I went outside and got everything ready, I had a special reward set up because if she really got it and drove into position fast I wanted something to really make an impression on her that she got it right, I got everything set up and then brought her in.

First time she blew by the contact and the second time,...she stopped, that is the time I got on video. Whoo HOOO. She got a big tuna treat.

After a few more tries, I took her over and did the Aframe with her where I am using the 4 on the floor, I wanted to pair the two contacts to really make it clear which one I wanted where. I went back and forth three or four times, and then was able to take away the manners minder and SHE GOT HER DOGWALK CONTACT!!! I celebrated and then quit, I will give her overnight to think about what we did and hopefully she is starting to get the idea!

FUN MATCH

We had a fun Match here in town today. I took Lizzie and Breeze to scope out the situation, I knew I would run Breeze, but I had to check out how Lizzie seemed at the site and what the fencing situation was. I brought Liz out first so that if it looked good I could get her going before she had a chance to stew and get herself reved up, and before I could get myself nervous. The only ring I could go into fairly quickly was a tunnelers course, with snow fencing that was about 2 feet tall around the course, but the course was in the back of the yard...so further from the open front area to the busy street. I have never had Lizzie loose in that loosely fenced an area, but I deceided I was going to screw up my courage and try it. I was not that nervous going into the tunnelers ring, and I alerted the ring crew that we could have problems so they put a bunch of chairs at the in/out opening.....(I also choose the tunnelers ring because NO one was there, so I knew I could take my time). At first Liz ran past the first tunnel and was ramping up to start running off, so I pulled out my toy and started putting her through one tunnel at a time and then tugging with her favorite toy after each tunnel. Pretty soon she was not scanning for take off points and starting to look for the tunnels then look for me, so I started finding two tunnels in a row to sequence a little more, then three in a row, and then I was able to do four that were a little further apart. LOTS of reinforcement in lots of places, and WHEW, we were done and there were no zoomies and no running off. I was so happy that we were able to do that, but now I am thinking that maybe the NADAC trial with no treats or toys might not be such a good idea. I do not want her to get ring wise and figure out when it is good to stay with mom and when it is not.

Next I wanted to put her in the standard ring, but there was a lot more activity there, a lot more people and a long wait. I could walk up to the jumpers, so I figured factoring everything in....that might be the best bet. So I asked the ring crew if Liz started heading for the gates if they could look big I would appreciate it, LOL, they were super terrific and all asked for a handful of food, everyone made sure they knew her name and they all stood in the entrance and exits. I WAS SOOOO NERVOUS. Way more nervous then I would have thought I would be-Could that be part of our problem???? Hummm. I had not walked the course, but I figured I was only going to try for a few obstacles at a time, but the fencing was seriously only about 2 feet high, and Liz has never been impressed by that type of fencing in the past. We were able to go and do some three or four obstacle sequences, pretty good attention and not trying to scan for a time to leave like she did in the tunnelers course. Lots of reinforcement, and I was able to do some short sequences with a little bit of handling....YIPPIE, so we safetly got out of the ring.

I was suprised at how nervous I got, I knew it would make me nervous but my heart was pounding soooo hard, it was hard to breathe. I think it will take a lot of these things before Liz and I can truly trust each other when I know she could actually leave and get into harm....BUT SHE DID DO IT!!! Which means with more experience and more training,....SHE JUST MIGHT BE AN AGILITY DOG!!! Yippie!!!

Breeze got to do the standard ring and it was hot so I did not wait to walk the course, I figured I just wanted to work on the contacts anyway. Gorgeous Aframe and the suckiest dog walk contact, grrrrrrr, I think I can totally do a four on the floor but she is just not transferring the dog walk 2020 to any sort of situation where we are anywhere else but my back yard or occassionally class. she just is not doing it anywhere there is any excitement, and I have tried to be so consistent and tried to set up situations but it does not seem to be getting better, that four on the floor is just so strong. I think I might have to just go with the four on the floor and train what I do not like that she was doing with that. Otherwise it is going to be forever until I can trial her in standard. I do not want to take her in there and let her not follow the criteria so she gets ring wise, I want to make sure I am reasonably sure she is going to do it or be in a place I can correct it.