A PEEK INTO MY RECORD KEEPING-In the spirit of new beginnings...

Well, since Cricket turned ONE I feel like we are in a new phase. It sort of made me feel like getting things organized and doing some fall cleaning. I spent the last two weeks really cleaning out the agility yard and repairing the equipment, getting rid of what we do not use, cleaning the frontyard and cleaning out my training logs.

I feel like over the years I have been able to come up with a system for keeping track of my training that I can keep up with because it is quick and easy, but still gives me info that I need. With three dogs I can get confused. I am sure I am not the only one that sometimes finds it easy to get into routinues and forget some training that needs to be done until I show up at a trial and remember we have not done a panel jump in a long time....or I can tend to do things that are easy and fun and maybe not train some things that might be harder because we really need to do more of them. By record keeping it is easy to see right away what skills we are working hard and what skills we have not worked in awhile or like for the relaxation protocol we can keep straight where everyone is at.

Thought I would share what I do and give everyone a peek into my notebooks. I actually cleaned everything out and started with a fresh slate.

First off I have a small notebook, THIS IS THE BOOK I USE FOR MOST OF MY RECORD KEEPING, it is just a presentation notebook I got at Target that came all set up with the dividers.

I printed the front of my notebook with the bordergirls names and I stick stickers with inspirational quotes or thoughts or ideas as I find them. Right now it is blank because I just cleaned out my notebook for my fall cleaning, so I am looking forward to finding some things I want to paste onto my notebook.

EACH DOG GETS FOUR PAGES IN THE NOTEBOOK OF THEIR PERSONAL RECORDS ;-).


On the first page I have two sheets in a page protector. The first sheet is a sheet to remind me of the CORE foundation exercises that I feel should be worked A LOT. Things like Crate Games, It's Yer Choice, Restrained Recalls, the 1-2-3 Game, etc...

I have seven games that are earmarked to be worked. I find by looking at that list all the time I remember to work them into daily life. So I might be getting the dogs dinner ready in the kitchen and drop food and play Its Yer Choice with the dogs, or I will be walking through the house and remember to grab a few treats and as a dog comes to my side in my reinforcement zone I will say "yes" and treat.

I think if I was not flipping past tha list once or twice a day...I would forget to do them as often as I do. On the other side of that sheet I have a list/description of the 37 games we did in the Susan Garrett recall course, because most of those were things that I want to continue working on and great foundation exercises. The list with the description helps me remember what each exercise is ;-).






Next there are three different sections. One for each dog. Each dog got assigned a color because I can be a ding bat and sometimes record the wrong dog on the wrong page, so all of Crickets flow sheets are red, all of Breeze's are blue and all of Lizzies are green.

This is the part I LOVE about my notebook. I made up flow sheets, one has all the exercises from the recall course, one has just an agility flow sheet with all the obstacles I try to keep track of training for, one is a relaxation protocol sheet, and I have a little flow sheet to keep track of tricks or shaping exercises. Sometime during the day I just go and make a check mark by the things we have done. It might look complicated but it takes all of ten seconds and makes me look at the list and the check off sheet and remember what we have not been working and notice what we have worked hard on. That way I remember to add in the training exercises that I would most likely forget if I was not keeping records.

CRICKETS RECALL EXERCISE FLOW SHEET-THE CORE EXERCISES ARE HIGHLIGHTED SO I CAN MAKE SURE WE ARE WORKING THOSE LOTS:


BREEZIES AGILITY LOG-I MAKE A MARK IN THE CATEGORY OF TRAINING AND THEN I HAVE IT SORT OF BROKEN DOWN IF I WANT TO CHECK OFF THAT SAY WE WORKED TIRE JUMPS, OR THE CHUTE
NEXT WE HAVE THE RELAXATION PROTOCOL SHEET, NO SPECIAL COLORS, BUT A SLOT FOR EACH DAY AND SOME SPACE TO RECORD ANY COMMENTS AND I PUT INFO LIKE THAT WE ARE WORKING IN THE LIVING ROOM OR FRONT YARD, ETC ON THE TOP OF THE FORM.


LAST IN EACH SECTION THERE IS A FLOW SHEET FOR RECORDING SHAPING AND TRICK SESSIONS I got this flow sheet from Susan Garrett and Say YEs, I think it was on the 2x2 DVD.


There are four pages for each dog, and three sections one for each dog. In the back of my little notebook I have two calenders I found at Target that fit into the notebook. I use these, the red for one Cricket, and the blue one for Breeze and Lizzie. When Cricket is not learning so many things at once I will only have one calendar, but right now there is a lot of learning going on. The Calenders are to record IDEAS, THINGS WE NEED TO TRAIN, MAYBE JUST GOOD THOUGHTS. So I can flip to those and be reminded maybe of what I had thought about working on the days before.





Now I have three totally seperate notebooks that I do not use all the time, one for each dog and you guessed it in their colors.
Crickets has the Leslie McDevitt exercise written on the front that says before you train take a second, close your eyes and
FIRST THINK ABOUT THE FIRST TIME YOU EVER SAW YOUR DOG,
SECOND THINK ABOUT SOMETHING YOUR DOG DOES THAT MAKES YOU PROUD,
THIRD THINK OF SOMETHING YOUR DOG DOES THAT MAKES YOU LAUGH!

I really like to remember that because it helps me to keep it light and keep the training we are about to do in perspective-it is not rocket science and the fate of the world does not rest with what we do in any one day, this is meant to be fun-so I always want to remember that!
Each notebook has a picture I love of my dogs!




In these notebooks I can get more in depth with record keeping if I want. I have each notebook seperated into sections, so there is a section on recall/foundation games, one on contacts, one for jumps and jumping, one for the teeter, weaves, start lines, tunnels, handling, and one for shaping or tricks. Each section has some graph paper if I want to draw out courses, and just some notebook paper.
If I have a check in my small notebook under Sept 28 saying I worked on contacts...I can go to the big notebook and make notes about what happened with our contact training that day. That way I can go back and see a flow sheet of what is going on with that obstacle and find what was going on that day if I choose to record more about it. I do not always go back and record more info, usually I just have the flow sheet, but for Cricket who is just learning, or say like Breeze who is having a weave problem, or even Lizzie who I record more about her foundation/recall stuff because that is my biggest focus with her... I can go through and really record as much as I want to help figure out what is going on and keep us on track.

I do have several flow sheets for teaching weaves that I got from the 2X2 DVD on a clip board for Cricket when she starts her 2x2 and for Breeze while we are trying to work on the weave entries-so those are extra sheets I take out to train with.

ANOTHER THING THAT I FIND VERY HELPFUL THAT IS IN THE FRONT OF MY NOTEBOOK IS MY DISTRACTION LIST FOR EACH DOG. I rate as many distractions as I can think of for each dog with a rating from 1-10. I thought this was stupid when I first did it but it really helps to remember what level of distractions I can add and just keeps me more aware of where each dog is at. I have to rework the distraction list fairly frequently. I also have a list with rewards for each dog rated with their most valuable to least valuable. I put things like LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW for Lizzie, which suprisingly is a VERY VALUABLE reward. One thing I realized as I made my distraction list is that Lizzie has LOTS of things that are 9-10 on her list, and lots of things that are 1-3, it is weird, but not many things that are just middle of the road. So how like Liz is that she either can handle monster distractions and doesnt care or....things send her over the top, not much middle ground. Cricket has a lot of middle distractions, not much that sends her totally over the top. Breeze has a bunch of things on the lower levels of the distraction list, and just one or two that are 10's and can really get to her, kids that she is afraid of or the ball which drives her over the top, or dogs she knows running around or doing things like agility. Doing my distraction list really gave me a clearer picture of each of my dogs personality.

KARMA....

For a day that started out with a heat wave and temps over 112 degrees it ended up being a pretty lucky day. Whooo Hooooo!!!

Today was my lucky day. In our agility classes the instructor gives out tickets for people that help with setting up the agility course. The last session was a bit irritating because there was only me and one other person that would help with setting up the courses--there was a group of people that would just sit around and talk-which is fine but it was irritating when they got tickets for setting up and I did not. I usually did not get a ticket for helping because after class I had to go drop off Breeze and get Lizzie for her class. It was hot, and the middle of the summer so it was hard work ... because I left a few minutes early they got tickets and I rarely did.

ANYWAY, you know Karma has got to be a real thing because I won the drawing of the tickets and got a FREE AGILITY CLASS this session. So I might have missed out on a lot of tickets I feel like I should have got...but it does not matter because I WON a free session of an agility class, WHOOOO HOOOOO.

To wrap up my day I worked with Cricket doing some practice with her end behavior for her contact, at several different places in the park. It was the first day I had taken it on the road....and Cricket was amazing. The first time or two we tried it she was sort of iffy and then it just sort of clicked we just do what we have been doing at home. BOY it is so amazing to see the little wheels turning and see a baby dog figuring things out. It is just so amazing to me that the dogs are even willing to do all this for us, and they can figure it out. Today I am amazed with my little puppy... amazed she is so willing to try to figure me and so willing to work to figure out what I want out. She just alwasys seems so happy to be working with me,....who could not appreciate that? Today watching her I just felt AMAZED.

Where do Weave Poles go to die? Training Challenge

After today you are all going to know my dirty little secret, LOL, but you will all know about my weave pole stash.....just too bad they changed the spacing of the weave poles... I am very happy they did, but I wish I had bought all my weave poles with the new spacing ;-). Just my luck, always a day late and a dollar short!

After fretting and thinking for a long time...I decided to go whole hog and go totally to the 24 inch poles for the weaves. My dogs do go back and forth with the different spacing and do fine, but I do notice the footwork changes, esp with Breeze, and since all the trials here are using the 24 in...I just feel like it would be best to work out their footing on what they will trial on. It really will be so much better for Breeze. Cricket should just learn on what she will trial with, and because she is so young, I feel better about the wider spacing to protect her body and spine. Sooooo....I had to buy some shiny new 2x2 sets of poles for Cricket to learn the weaves on. The 2x2's were Crickets birthday gift-they were actually ready to be picked up on her birthday, that worked out nice!



I got a really neat set of twelve poles last spring with the 24 inch spacing. These break down fairly easily into sets of three poles, which is what I usually use for entry training and for most practice. I can use these poles with sets of 3, 6, 9, or 12 poles, or add on a set of 2x2 for 14 poles. These are pretty sturdy, my dogs SLAM into the poles so they poles have to be pretty heavy and need to be staked. I have a little kit with these so they can be made into channels if I ever wanted to use those and because they break down so much, they are easy to take places or drag around.




Soooooo...the problem with making the leap and doing all 24 in spaced poles.....I have a bunch of sets of 21 in spaced poles. I am not sure how I ended up with all these poles but what do I do with the rest of the weave poles? YIKES! I have made a huge investment in weaves over the years, there is a set of WAMs, a set of 21 in 2x2's, and a couple of sets with channels that adjust easily, and then the set I saved up for for a long time, that I LOVED, a set of really nice, heavy competition poles with really nice non-skid bases. I got those shortly before everyone started talking seriously about changing the spacing. Figures-that was bad timing!

So now all these weave poles lie in the weave pole grave yard behind the pool....poor weave poles ;-)!





In the interests of not looking like a hoarder, I did get ahold of the beginning agility instructor at our club and told her that I had two sets of weaves for some students that could use them....one of of the ladies came today and picked up one set. It made me feel pretty happy to see a beginner that was so impressed and excited at getting their first set of poles. The lady who got the poles has a min. Schnauzer who everyone says is a really nice little dog-so I hope they go to good use, glad they are out of my house and not sitting in my back yard.

I could only get myself to part with two sets right now....but maybe in the next few weeks I can part with another one ;-).

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In the meantime for my CHALLENGE--
We had an exciting time--I went to the park and was working on sits and downs from a distance-so the dogs get used to responding to commads right away no matter where they are-wouldn't that be nice?.

I was doing working this exercise with an xpen. I dragged the xpen to several places in the park-first on concrete so I could try to throw the treat to the doggie if they did their sit or down while I was away from them. Well, that was a bust because I could not throw correctly, the dogs were not impressed when their treats they worked so hard for would end up ten feet away from them where they could not touch them, LOL. My poor dogs! I had to make due with giving the command then going back and treating. Everyone did really super good.

I had a red letter moment when Cricket who is very motion sensitive saw about thirty joggers that I could tell were going to go right by where she was in the xpen. I went over and shifted into doing some crate games with the xpen. I had not worked the crate games with the xpen before, but I opened the door, gave her a treat for sitting,.....repeated a few times... SOOOO by that time the joggers were right by her crate I was feeling very brave,...I opened the xpen and said "BREAK" (Cricks release word), and stepped on the leash as Cricket leapt out of the xpen. With the runners going by I knew what I hoped would happen but I was not sure. I could not believe when Cricket burst out of the xpen and thought for a millionth of a second then raced right back into the xpen. I think she understands that Yer Out Yer In game from Crate Games. I was impressed at the good decision she made. She is such a good girl.

I had some similar really good results with Lizzie. I think I will do a lot more of this work with Lizzie so she has a really solid auto down when I say Down, might be a life saver if she ever takes off-which has been known to happen with the little Lizard.

I am going to try to get some video later on in the week of the girls doing their distance sits/downs practice at the park, having the joggers end up there was a total surprise but turned out to be a fantastic distraction for training.

Cricket picking up her toys

We have not posted a trick in a long time....geneally around here we have been doing a lot of foundation and getting ready for a lot more AGILITY training now that Cricket is a year old. I wanted to post a video of one of our favorite games to do while we are watching tv. I had the BEST video all ready to go and I am still learning the new editing program and it erased my video, and I had erased the footage off the camera, boo hooo!!! Soooo we had to rerecord this and Cricket was a little more tired. I could have waited to do it another day...but that would have been too easy, LOL!



I trained this by back chaining--so I...
1. Shaped Cricket to look at the bucket-which took ten seconds...maybe..
2. put a toy in the bottom of the bucket and shaped her to touch the ball with her mouth in any way. TREATS WENT IN THE BUCKET.
3. Click and Treat for mouthing and then picking up the toy.
4. As she picked up the toy I click and treated which actually made the ball fall back into the bucket....exactly what I was looking for. This was the first step I took a little more time with, I wanted her to really practice the ball falling into the bucket.
5. I held the toy at the edge of the bucket and she would grab it and let it fall into the bucket.
6. Now there was a lot of reinforcement for the toy falling into the bucket. I had delivered all the treats at the bottom of the bucket, just dropped them in so she would really get used to dipping her head in the bucket....so when I put the toy on the ground right next to the bucket she quickly figured out how to get that toy dropping back into the bucket.
7. Pretty quickly add in a second toy, start right from the start but it should go really fast.
8. I think it is pretty important to add in at least a couple of toys right away so the trick gets generalized.

BREEZE TURNS FOUR!

"I WILL WEAR A SILLY HAT....IF...I CAN PLAY WITH THE BALL"
BREEZE IS SUCH A GOOD SPORT


"UMMMMM....BIRTHDAY CAKE"





THE 'SISTERS' GETTING READY FOR CAKE!



It's a BIRTHDAY MONTH!!! Today is my Breezies birthday. She is FOUR years old today which is just hard for me to believe. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BREEZIE. This is the video I did of her first two years.

IT'S A SPECIAL BIRTHDAY!

THERE ARE JUST NO WORDS TO CONVEY HOW MUCH THIS LITTLE DOG HAS ADDED TO MY LIFE OR HOW MUCH FUN SHE HAS BEEN. HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY CRICKET!

Another week....Another challenge!

I swear Breeze thought we were trialing again today, at 6 am she came and woke me up licking my face...she never does that-I thought she was acting like she thought we were late to be going somewhere. Usually we do two days when we trial but since I did not know how Breeze would be feeling I had only signed up for the one day.

For our challenge this week I got all the CRAP together to take all three BC to the trial today. We were not running but I wanted to let Breeze hang around and feel more at home and work on some stays ringside, and she was more then willing to play with me there ;-), she was a happy girl. Cricket just needs to do some look at that with dogs running and work on not jumping on everyone until released and Lizzie just needed to work in new places.

Everyone did fine, but I am EXHAUSTED! LOL, tonight I am just hoping as time goes on I get more organized and taking all the dogs gets easier!

you know...Open is not such a bad place to be....LOL!

THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE for all the really encouraging comments everyone made about Liz and her little test. You know when it is the dog you love and you work hard, sometimes the huge milestones might not seem like a lot to other people but gosh, I know how much they mean to us! It really made me feel good that you all understood how huge that was for the little Lizard and I!

Today was our first trial in two months, we have hardly done any agility because the last trial was when I figured out Breeze had hurt her back, so today we also saw the return of the SEPARATION ANXIETY Breeze used to suffer from. Ughghg, I so thought we were over that. Breeze chewed through her crate-she was found running through the bulding...so glad she was ok, and she was not going to be left at the start line, during JWW she was trembling, ahhhhhhhh, oooh Breeze.

AKC has the super nice novice courses, and you can get a bunch of faults and still Q in novice. LOL, of course Breeze and I SAILED through novice, and I was feeling like hot stuff. I had it figured out how many more trials it would take us to finish up our open title because of course we would sail through open like we had sailed through novice....LOL, RIGHT!!! Our first two open JWW courses were a piece of cake and then .....something happened and we stalled. I am not saying this to sound like I feel bad, or am giving up, but it SERIOUSLY feels like we will never Q again. We will be stuck in Open hell for the rest of our lives, LOL. Today I am not even disappointed or frustrated by that...IT IS WHAT IT IS.

The weaves are killing us. I keep thinking we have them licked....and they seem so good at home and we get to a trial and boom....they are not looking so good.

I thought with all the stay work and impulse control stuff our start line would be FANTASTIC---WELL WRONG! Our start line was about the worse it has ever been, I ran with Breeze in standard so we got around the start line thing, but in JWW she broke her start line, went AROUND the first jump which put her in a rotten positon to jump the second jump so she dropped that bar-the rest of the run was fantastic, but it sure did not get us our Open JWW title!

I thought we would be rusty with our handling, and that....I am VERY proud of and I feel like we did GREAT. I managed to control my arms flapping around and just ran, and we did the actual handling on the course pretty durn good.

I have not done a lot of weaves but I was practing with just entries and a lot of them at a fast speed....I THOUGHT we actually might do those this time, WELL WRONG.

I was so wrong about today, I guess I am not good predicting our performance ;-). Maybe dogs like to keep us guessing.

FIRST WAS OPEN JWW.
YIKES,..The pin wheels were FUN. It was a GREAT course, I just wish we could have made it prettier. The 13 to 14 jumps to the tunnel made the dogs really build up a lot of speed, then there was such a small area from the tunnel to the weaves, I knew that was going to be a challenge and ....what can I say we tried the weaves twice...screwed them up both times and went on. NO Q for us in Jumpers between not getting the weaves and the start line fiasco. No Open JWW title today.




OPEN STANDARD
WE WERE SOOO CLOSE, and yet....so far to that elusive Q. GREAT course, again a lot of fun. EXCEPT for the weaves the only bobble was after the dog walk Breeze is supposed to do her down and she just stopped,...stood there and looked at me like I was NUTS when I said MAT! So I repeated the MAT command and she looked like I was crazy but laid down. I was pretty happy she stopped and checked in actually because that tunnel opening was right in front of her face, she did not think about going on-so I was impressed with that. It was cool to choose our own position on the table, I had Breeze do her auto down, but it felt nice not to have to worry about it. The 12 in height on the tire (Breeze jumps 16 in AKC so the tire is now at 12 with the new changes to the AKC rules) did not phase her at all. Because it took us twice to get the weaves there was no open standard Q for us today ;-(.