Potty Training 101....

When Cricket came here she was already pretty savy with the idea of not going potty in the house. I can not imagine she would have EVER went potty in her xpen or her crate and as long as I was paying attention we had almost no accidents. I think her success was because I let her out a LOT, about every hour, a few min. after she was playing, as soon as she woke up from her nap, a few min. after she ate, when she had a funny look in her eye and pretty much any time I thought about it, LOL. I was really fanatical about making sure I went out with her each time she went potty and gave her a reward and said "go pee" or "go potty" as she was getting ready to go, so she pretty much will go on command and knows she should go out and get her business done. I also have adjusted so we do not play outside until the business is done, then we spend a little while playing before we come in most times. Anyway, so I am patting myself on the back, LOL, but it has really gone so easy with Cricket.

On Christmas day Cricket gave me a very NICE gift. She started using the bells on the door to tell me she has to go out. Up until now she really did not seem to have a way to tell us that she had to go out, sometimes she would vaguely walk in the area of the door, but she really had no clear signals and not sure she really understood potty in the house bad, although with the treats she seemed more clear on the concept that potty outside is GOOD. So it was interesting to see her run to the door and set off the bells. I have had three dogs now that just learned to do that-call people to let them out with the bells, and one dog (Liz) that never did. I stuck the bells on the door when I either was potty training Breeze, or maybe when I was potty training Liz-but I do not think I had them for her??? Breeze learned to use them pretty quickly, Cherry learned to use them in the first couple of days probably because she was an adult and now Cricket.

This is one of those things that I never really taught, just from the time these dogs came to the house when the door was open you hear the bells, so guess that is enough association that they put it all together and figure if they make noise with the bells that will give someone the idea to come and open the door. I think that is just too cool.

I was originally going to buy some of the bells they sell to hang on the door but I made this by just braiding some fleece, actually I think it originally was a toy I made. I have a tennis ball on one leg of the toy, and then I took some bells and stuck them on a round clip thingie for holding papers, and threaded that in the braiding, I stuck on some Christmas bells I got on a clearance, and just tied in a bunch of bells. The door is a slider, so I just sort of fashioned something to hook the toy onto the door. Anyway, little brilliant Cricket has been going to the door a lot for the past few days and seems pretty reliable letting us know she has to go out, so we have been able to relax the vigil a little more, LOL. I can hear the bells through the whole house because our house is small-a benefit to a small home-YIPPIE.


STALKER CRICKET-hummm, you would think she is a border collie! I am not sure what she was stalking because all the dogs are behind her?

The picture of Cricket with the prick ears is a total misrepresentation because her ears sit sort of half up in the front but very floppy, I think there is no chance she will have prick ears, LOL, but in that picture she looked up at me and that made her ears fall into a prick position, LOL.

Little Cricket also had another suprise for me the last few days....LOOSE TEETH!!! Poor baby has some very loose teeth, time is marching on!

COOL NEW THING I FIGURED OUT-I figured out how to download the videos from youtube and then convert them so they go on Itunes so I can put them on my Ipod. I downloaded a few sequences from Agilitynerd, and figure when I go to the yard to work on them tonight I can work on the sequence, but if I get stuck or want to try other ways to handle things, I have a little video tutorial right at my finger tips, how cool is that? It always takes me awhile to figure out the technology I have available, LOL.

WELL, ITS ALMOST HERE!!!

Well, the holiday is almost here. Cricket is sacked out after a full day of excitement and the rest of the dogs went with Hubby and the kids on a walk while I make the pumpkin pies, some black bean enchiladas-since we are vegetarians, and I finish the last batch of cookies. Of course we have been watching the Santa Tracker-my youngest is a believer and is very excited. Check out this cute little Christmas song that they have been playing on Radio Disney-you get to listen to those channels when you have kids, LOL. I think it is such a funny song, it definately gave me a smile!

Herding and Crickets first time at the beach

Monday was our herding day and I was really looking forward to it because I got to go down by myself with the dogs because the girls could stay home with their dad. It was a nice day, pretty overcast so it felt a little more like winter, and it just felt like a relaxed quiet day, I LOVED it. It was such a nice day, some good company, a pretty day, working with the dogs, what more could I ask for? Karen from Contact Point Border collies http://www.bordercollies.tv/index.html stopped by during my lesson so I got to talk to her a little bit, and of course Robin http://www.robinonthelamb.com/ always makes herding fun. I asked Robin to start off working with Liz a little bit to get us going, so I got a little video of Robin working with Liz. I did the rest of the lesson with Liz and boy, Robin makes it all look like a quiet, and that is not how it looks when I am doing it!



Next time I go I am going to try to get some video of the ewes and lambs, they are so adorable and they just jump straight up in the air like little Mexican jumping beans, I could sit and watch them all day.

After we finished herding I took all three dogs, Liz, Breeze and Cricket and did agility. I worked with Breeze and just did some playing with some short small elements of the course that was set up and we worked a bit on the contacts and had a good time. I think Breeze and I need to sit and play in the backyard a little more to get working really in sync with each other again. Liz was SPECTACULAR and looked like she was having a blast and little Cricket was very good on her recalls and just doing some of her stuff in a new place. Cricket gets GOLD stars for how she was walking on leash yesterday-probably because she does not yet understand how exciting it is to walk toward an agility field or how exciting the sheep are.

I got myself a little Christmas gift, I got my own flag for herding. The flag is what Robin has us using to sort of get the dogs attention and let them know when they need to move further back-a sort of extension of your arm. Now that I have a flag and am working with my own dog does that mean I am a herder now? LOL, who would have thought?

Next we headed to the beach. It was a bit on the chilly side, and I am sure the water was cold so I wanted to just let Cricket play on the beach and experience the sights and sounds, I was grateful to Breeze for being a great ambassador and showing Cricket the beach is a fun place.



It turned into a VERY LONG day when the GPS in my phone sent me into he middle of nowhere when I tried to find a Trader Joe's on the way home...first off there was no Trader Joe's where the phone said there was, and then when I plugged in to have it show me how to get home it sent me into the middle of NOWHERE. YIKES, my gas gauge was near empty and I had no clue where I was then and I could not find a gas station. The lady in the GPS in the phone is going to get coal in her stocking from me! I have to say I was pretty scared until I could find my way back to a freeway and found a gas station.

a Fun Match and some socializing

It was a gorgeous day here in Southern California, it had to be in the 70's for our fun match-so the weather was a little hot at times, but pretty much perfect-and so weird when I see everyone else's pictures of snow.

The high point of the day was late in the day when I decided to let Liz do some agility. This match was TOTALLY UNFENCED. It was not right on the street and it was not a really busy street, but a busy street was very close. Liz is a runner, and this was a totally new place, very unorganized, lots going on, but I thought I will take her out on leash and just take her over one jump at a time and really reward and just see how it goes. I took Liz out and she did one jump, I gave her a reward, she did another jump, and she turned right back to me and I did feel her connected with me so I took her over the triple, again she was connecting even though we were at the end of the ring where she could see the wide open field behind the ring. I was feeling good so I tucked her leash in her harness and we did a jump to the teeter-WHOOPS, totally did not go to the teeter but made a big turn to the Aframe, but up and over the Aframe and landed in a perfect contact-turned and looked at me still connected. YIPPIE. So we totally blew off the marked course and did the tunnel to a 180 and then back over the aframe. By this time her leash is on but tucked up and she is still staying connected and I have not seen her think about leaving and of course I am very aware by this time that the leash tucked in the harness is going to do nothing to help me if she bolts, it is just giving me a false sense of security, but it keeps my nerves doing ok, so.... Then came the big moment, a 180 to the weaves, but the weaves were heading into wide open space, YIKES, did I dare??? I took off the leash and Liz quickly glanced out of the ring, the first time she had done that, so I quickly said something to her-but really did not feel nervous and we were off. She did the 180 to the weaves and did a GORGEOUS set of weaves-her first 24 in spacing weaves and it totally did not throw her. Liz does best on the obstacles she has to think about a lot. Anyway, after that we connected, I did a rear cross over a jump to the dog walk-perfect contacts and two more jumps and we were done. Whoooo hoooo Lizzie. This would not have been possible even a few months ago. It was probably a good thing I had waited until later in the day to do that with Liz because then I was not tempted to do it again and push the boundaries which always gets me in trouble, we were able to end on an excellent note.

Cricket is 13 weeks old and still in that open, impressionable stage where it is important to give puppies lots of good experiences, so Ian Dunbar would be proud of Cricket yesterday. I took her to the playground right by the agility rings, lots of great different surfaces to climb and play on, and she apparently really loves kids-big ones, small ones, what ever, she seems to like kids. I know Cricket got to play with Brittney's (Crickets breeder) son, and when she sees little boys that age she really lights up and gets so excited. From the videos I have seen Brittney's son is an excellent puppy socializer, and I think that is going to really be a great thing for Cricket. Breeze is really afraid of kids, and it is easy to manage and I need to work on it, but it is so nice when a dog is ok with kids. We were able to find a lot of nice dogs for Cricket to say Hello to and play with. And of course being a puppy at a fun match...she got to meet a lot of people. She even met Santa and put up with the kids doing the picture putting little red velvet cuffs with bells on her feet and around her neck, and then the reindeer ears....and the big guy holding her with a beard and a funny hat, she took it all like a trooper. All in all a terrific day of socializing for a little pup. The playground had some great equipment for Cricket to get on some wobbly things, some high things, and some different surfaces.

After the match I took her to the Bass Pro Shop in our area. They have a two story fish tank with huge fish, an elevator that is glass that goes up right by the fish tank, there are stuffed dead animals, ;-( (I really hate that, but it is weird stuff for the pup to see), there is a waterfall in the store, and lots of weird hanging things, and the people in there are always really nice to dogs, and they allow dogs in the store. I had not counted on the place being PACKED. If I had really thought about it being right before Christmas I might not have brought her, but it is a bit of a drive to get there and it was on my way home from the fun match. It was so crowded and in front of the store there were tons of people. When we got there Cricket was nervous about the shopping carts, and strollers. We worked on playing the look at that game, then made a game of her going up and touching the shopping carts, and by the end of the visit she was totally fine with both things. She got to see three people in wheel chairs, lots of friendly strangers, a poodle that wanted to play and a lot more kids. She was a little nervous for a few minutes when she saw big crowds but we had went with another border collie puppy friend who is a little older then her, so when she saw he was ok, she decided it was all ok. She really is a very confident little puppy, I keep feeling I really lucked out with this little girl.

I have to say that it was a very hard, frustrating "fun" match for us. First off the last few weeks Breeze and I just feel so off. Nothing feels like it is flowing, I am not feeling the connection with my dog while I run and I messed up so badly...I was on her path to the weaves, which pushed her off, I was late cuing things, and I did some things I NEVER do. I was watching how a lot of other people were running the course and I just totally switched my plan and did it the way everyone else was. Totally wrong for us, not the way I walked it and actually a way I pretty much knew Breeze would not like, I usually make a plan and just go with it and it usually always works but for some reason yesterday I just did not have the confidence to just go out there and play with Breeze, and it showed. I wanted to sit and hit myself in the head with a rolled up newspaper or something. Of course our contacts on the dog walk were terrible, and Breeze was having no part of the table today, LOL, yep table troubles today-and we NEVER have those. The only thing that was pretty good was the start line, she broke once but the work we have put into those did show. The good thing is that Breeze was very happy and confident, no sign of the stress at the start lines that we had been starting to get after the last trial, there were some good parts for sure!

Right now, it is just not fun at all to be running and feeling so out of sorts-and I just do not know how to get it all to gel again. Maybe it is being so focused on the puppy and we are sort of taking a break, we have had to change training places so I do not really feel a part of that yet, I have plans to start working with another really terrific friend after the holidays-and I always work better when I am working with someone else, so maybe I should just not take it so seriously and know that this is just another phase and trust things will come together when we are ready to get a little more serious again??? I really do not care about the mistakes it is just feeling so disconnected with my dog when I am running that makes me sad.

So sorry little fairies but I just am not coordinated...

Well, the holiday season marches on. Our house is really small and with all the crates, the big xpen for Cricket, and everyone being home for a few weeks, I was trying to figure out a way to have a Christmas tree that was safe and did not take up too much room. I got a 4 1/2 foot tree and put it on the kitchen table! Seemed like a great compromise, I rigged up some pvc to thread the plug through so it seemed pretty safe from the puppy, the wild wrestling border collies and the kids running through the house. Of course as I am patting myself on the back and thinking I had thought of everything and I was soooo smart, I turn around and not five minutes after the tree went up I found Kimmie the cat trying to climb up the tree, ahhhhhh....well, it is close to a perfect solution, LOL.

I have very SAD news to report, LOL, I took little Miss Cricket to Breeze's class yesterday, and as we went into the agility field I think the fairies were dropping like flies. It was a sad few minutes for the fairies. hahahahahahah. (I had seen a blog where they said to think every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash a fairy dies, well, bad time for the fairies). I thought I could walk with Cricket on a leash walking in, carrying her crate and clicking and getting out treats. Well, I am not as coordinated as I thought, and so I just could not find the right hands, and everything was falling and Cricket was just so excited to get in and say hello, that there was a lot of tight leash going on. OOOH well, she was on her harness, so it was not a total loss and when we left the yard and when I took her and walked around the yard we were safe guarding the fairies then, and she did marvelously. The great news is that I was able to let Cricket run around a lot more this week, it was more relaxed and she did get to meet a poodle mix, an aussie, a papillon and a spaniel mix and she was eager to see them all. Actually Cricket was way bouncey and in their face and I am pretty surprised no one told her to back off a little bit. The aussie she met had not seen puppies before and Cricket was really wanting him to play and he just stood still trying to figure out what the deal was, LOL, we had some nice doggies to say Hi to yesterday. I was so proud of my little ball of fluff, she was sure everyone in that class was her best buddie-she still is showing no shyness or fear. Cricket spent some time exploring all the equipment then ran through the big long tunnel before I could get her, but she was fine and ready to do it again. I am not sure if she had been through tunnels at Hillcrest, but I have not had her through any here, so I was pretty impressed with that. I put little Cricket in her crate while I ran Breeze and covered the crate, gave her a peanut butter kong and she did fine. I was also working on Look at That when the big dogs would run by her because the movement does get her pretty excited, and she loves that game.

Yesterday was the bonus class for Breeze's Handlers 2 class. When people come and set up the class equipment for Deanna's classes you get a token and if you have six tokens at the end of classes you are able to come to a bonus class. The bonus class usually is a fun course and we just get to run a nice full course that incorporates some of the things we have learned in the previous class.

WHAT CAN I SAY? Last week we had the hardest course....and we aced it. This week I walked this course and thought it looked sooo easy, I was not too worried about it. Of course you know that means we mucked the whole thing up, LOL.

I was very happy with my opening and tried to stand basically by the tunnel entrance and then sent Breeze over one and two (like a pinwheel sort of), then rear crossed the tunnel and thought if I was way far back like that, and just moved up I could change Breezes line to nicely go into the tunnel. Well, as Breeze SHOT out the tunnel she just knew she would do the aframe and sort of barely glanced at me. The second time I tried that I tried basically an RFP to get her to move back and pulled her way too far back, and was way late, ahhhhh...and it looked so easy when I walked it.

Going to the double before the dogwalk, I usually am very quiet when I run but decided to give a GO OVER and the rear cross to get her out and turning for the dog walk. Well, I usually don't talk and Breeze was headed for that jump and doing marvelously until I used my verbals, she totally thought something must be wrong and almost stopped. Then I had to get her going again and over the jump, hummm, good thing to take note of in the future.

My dogwalk contact has been not looking so good again, so I stuck a toy at the end on the ground and Breeze was going to whiz by the contact and saw the toy at the last minute and almost went tail over tea kettle trying to stop. Poor dog with her hips dysplasia she just does not have the rear end strength for some things. I will have to be baiting the contact a little more often I think.

Weave entries have been a problem and this was training so I took out the middle poles, so there was two sets of four poles. If Breeze caught the entry I wanted to be able to reward it and not take a chance on her making any other mistakes so I could not reward...anyway, she caught both entries, YIPPIE.

Breeze jumped on the table and skidded off, there are some good clean run exercises to proof the table and help dogs figure out how to stick it, so we are going to work on those this vacation.

The last part we had a problem was a part that another dog had the same issues with and that was the tunnel to the second to last jump YIKES. Another part I did not expect a problem and what happened is that Breeze time and again BLASTED out of the tunnel and looks for the next thing, by the time she checked in with me she was way beyond the jump, she went around it every time until the last time. Breeze has this blastie thing coming out of tunnels that I was not aware of, but this course really brought it out at the start of the course and the end, so another good awareness for me.

So a lot of good things to work on and a lot of challenges for a course that I just thought was a no brainer when I walked it, .......Anyway, a lot of fun-Deanna always has the best classes and the best courses!

More training levels

Cricket has been doing great and I really am LOVIN' the Training levels. http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/%20Dog1/levels.html This has been what we have been working on. I did not include the Zen, Watch, Loose Leash and Crate,sit and down but she is doing great on those. We still need to do the Stand, Stand Stay, Sit Stay-

On the topic of Loose Leash walking, my whole theory with that is that I am trying to teach Cricket to loosten the leash when she feels it tighten. My lofty goal is to never let her get where she wants when she is pulling on the collar. There are going to be times when I might not be able to work it like I would like, and for those times I am going to try to make sure she is on a harness, so if she inadvertantly gets where she wants to go and has pulled it will not be as bad as if she pulls and gets where she wants to go on the collar. I was researching different ideas on how to make this happen and I ran across the cutest post from Positive Petzine http://www.positivepetzine.com/node/392 he has a saying that I think is very cute and as silly as it sounds when I have Cricket on a leash I remember:

Remember-every time your dog gets somewhere on a tight leash A FAIRY DIES AND IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT, Think of the fairies,

LOL, talk about pressure to be consistent, LOL. Starting on Level 2 there are instructions for teaching loose leash walking, http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/Levels/ByLevel/2Level.htmland it sure has to be easier to teach this to a young puppy then it will be to rehab Breeze who has been rewarded for pulling for years and thinks that is the correct behavior-hummm, wonder whose fault that is???

Dog Play DVD by Patricia McConnell, Ph.D.

I love agility, but more then that I have to say I LOVE watching dogs and I really enjoy learning about dog behavior. I have not got to any really good behavior seminars recently and in the past I have been to some really good ones, so I was excited to get Patricia McConnell, Ph.D. lecture on DVD from Clean Run, entitled Dog Play-Understanding play between dogs and between dogs and people. This was taped at a recent seminar she gave and included a lot of terrific video of dogs playing. I really liked the DVD and feel like there was lots of excellent information presented-and I found it fun to snuggle in and to learn more about just plain old dog behavior.

Patricia goes over reasons for play, why play is important and then she started talking about dog-dog play. Some of the interesting things that she talked about was the research showing that dogs will pick and enjoy playing with certain dogs over a lifetime, not just any dog, they will pick some dogs they like to play with and it is good for them to have their doggie playmates. Interesting.

Some signs of healthy play between dogs:
SELF HANDICAPPING-with healthy dog play the stronger dog will alter their play to suit the weaker dog. I have seen this with Lizzie and Cricket, Lizzie does not tug as hard as she normally does and she plays softer and easier when she plays with Cricket. An older dog will often play softer and do things to teach the younger dog to play,pretty cool stuff. Patricia showed some video of a puppy of hers playing with an older dog and how the older dog was more careful playing with the pup, then she had video of the pup all grown up and very strong, the older dog was then 15 yrs old and you could see how now the younger dog was the one self handicapping so they could play and everyone could be safe and comfortable.

OPEN MOUTHED-when dogs are relaxed and playing you will see open mouths and relaxed faces, when the mouth tenses and you see more teeth and their faces tense and mouths close then you should be watching.

LOW LOOSE TAILS-these show relaxed dogs playing for most dogs.

EMOTIONAL CONTROL-neither dog gets over the top

LOTS OF PAUSES-when dogs are playing nicely they take a lot of breaks and just pause for a few seconds-when there are no pauses you need to watch what is going on.

EXAGGERATED AND LATERAL MOVEMENTS-the dogs move in side ways ways, and their back ends go faster then the front, they go back and forth going to the sides

BITE INHIBITION-goes without saying the dogs are gentle and don't bite too hard and don't hold on too long

PLAY BOWS

SIGNS OF UNHEALTHY PLAY
Little or no pausing in play
Little or no self handicapping
increasing arousal
one dog is attempting to terminate play
one dog dominates the other, does not let the other dog rest, inhibits the dogs freedom of movement
Change in vocalizations-lower pitch, higher pitch, louder
bully behavior
blood

Also when looking at play you need to factor in the age of the dogs. Young puppies engage in a lot of rude play and learn how to play nicely as they mature.



HOW TO HANDLE PROBLEM PLAY
RECOGNIZE HEALTHY PLAY-understand what is normal

KNOW THE SIGNS OF OVER AROUSAL-no pauses, teeth flashing, vocalization intensifying

THE DOG SHOULD MASTER ONE CUE-a back, a leave it, a down--One thing you dog does NO MATTER WHAT. Patricia really does not recommend a COME as much because that is a complex behavior and the dog would need to stop, turn around, think to come, and she would rather have like a down where the dog just drops. you CAN BODY BLOCK IF YOU NEED TO GET THE DOGS SEPARATED. DO NOT sit and stare at them, or hold your breath or get tense because that will escalate things.

ONCE YOU HAVE DOGS ATTENTION TURN AWAY AND GO ON A WALK-give a treat if that is not going to escalate things, give dog the toy, and get the dogs attention off things and walk away, put a lot of distance between you and the situation.

EVALUATE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DOGS BEFORE YOU LET THEM PLAY AGAIN



The last part of the DVD Patricia talks about play between dogs and people. Patricia talks about the type of play that works with your dog. of course she talks about some of the benefits of play with your dog that include...
Strengthening your bond
Play Often involves healthy mental/physical exercises, and tricks can fall in the play category
You can use play to teach emotional control and frustration tolerance
Play helps manage multi-dog households
Play is fun
Play can be used to solve behavior problems.
Patricia does show how you can use play behaviors to teach these things, and I found that part of the seminar very good.


Patricia showed a dog she had that was severely dog aggressive at 7 weeks, and she shows how she uses play to calm him down and at 2 yrs old he looked great with other dogs, she would let him see another dog and then throw him his toy, let them sort of say hi, and throw his toy, building all sorts of associations between other dogs and relaxation and play. It was pretty neat to see.

Cricket and the box video

I shaped Cricket to climb in a box and then sit down. Check out about 30 seconds in when she sort of misses her back leg, LOL.