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Same old

Zane is continuing all of his normal training.  There's nothing exciting to write about. . . just working on improving all of his work in obedience and agility.

This weekend I pulled out a spider than rolls around the floor.  Zane decided that it needed to be killed.

Agility morning

Zane is still attending Bella's agility lesson while she takes a break.  We're skipping weave poles and jumps are at 8", but he's out working.  He's not running a whole course.  We do 3-5 obstacles, then stop and play.  I try to make sure we stop after something that is giving him problems so that he gets a reward for doing it.  So this morning, tunnels were an issue for him for some reason.  So after every tunnel, we stopped and played.  We also played after the chute as he's still new to it.  And sometimes we just stopped after a jump just for fun.  The a-frame is taller than he's used to, so I helped him with it a bit.  And after the teeter banged a couple of times, I helped him with the teeter.  Other than that, he's moving fast, going out to take jumps, and having a blast!

Push

We've been playing a lot of pushing games and tug games this week.  He still does some obedience work, but he didn't do any agility until today.  We went for a private lesson.  He went on the dogwalk with a rubber top.  At first he got on, then immediately got off when he felt the different surface.  He really notices differences!  Then he went over with no problem.


Here he is with mad teeth.

Herding weekend

This weekend we went to a stockdog clinic.  Zane didn't get to work, but he watched and took it all in.  Overall, he did very well.  But. . . he cannot handle puppies.  They weren't even that close to him and he started to growl, then got very wild-eyed.  I had to get him back to his crate away from there.  Puppies are just too out of control for him.


This morning at Rally, he was fine with the dogs.  He did his goofy rolling and acting like a baby puppy with some, and when a friend brought out her old, blind Border Collie, he did his rolling, but it was very subdued.  It was like he knew that he had to be calmer with this dog.

I'm starting to do more pushing things with him.  So I hold food in one hand, the other hand on his chest, and he has to push into the hand on his chest to get to the food.  I want a lot of push and pressure so he is really working to get it.

This morning he did nosework at a covered shelter in the park.  I hid one find in the open end of a picnic table.  He knew it was somewhere up there, put his front paws on the picnic bench, then looked at me very worried that he wasn't allowed up there.  He found it though!  He found all three hides - good job!

Hot Dog Heeling

When we first started hot dog heeling, Zane would get a couple of nibbles, then walk along wishing he could have more.  If he had pushed into it, he could have!  This week at Rally, he was definitely more pushy - that's exactly what I want!  The only time we had a problem was for the schutzhund turn - he didn't want to leave the hot dog!  But I can definitely feel a difference in the level of intensity in his heeling.  Hopefully we get the level of drive I want from this.

We working on his chin target again.  I want him to maintain it while moving.  He actually does a nice sidepass to the right, but has harder doing a sidepass to the left while maintaining a chin target.  He can also move forward.  But he's not pushing into a chin target when I just hold it out.  He'll lightly rest his chin when it's stationary, but not give the pressure I want.  So we're working on that.  I want him to learn to really push into things.

Bella is on break from agility, so he went to her agility lesson this week.  We skipped weave poles as we haven't even started them, and he had issues doing contacts on the a-frame.  Then again, we've just started doing a-frames, so that doesn't surprise me.  And yes, he went on the dogwalk and a-frame and teeter willingly!  Yay Zane!

Wondrous day!

It was a wonderful, exciting, stupendous day for Zane.  Some people will go, "Huh?  What's the big deal?" when they read this.  But for Zane, it's huge.

When I got Zane, he was fearful of dogs.  He would hide and lip curl or snarl at dogs who came near.  We've done a lot of work - I don't need him to play with dogs, but I do need him to accept dogs.

Today our kennel club had a Pack Walk.  Zane was a bit worried about dogs walking behind him and passing him, but he handled it and settled in and didn't freak out about it.  A couple of dogs even gave him a quick sniff in the face and he didn't react.  At the end, we were all in the shade of a tree.  Zane was surrounded by dogs.  He just sat there.  No reactions!  Two months ago, he would have freaked!

The only time he got worried was when an Anatolian Shepherd wouldn't get out of his face.  He didn't react, but his body language wasn't happy.  I called him out of there and he did fine.

One thing I am noticing is that when he was a baby puppy, he didn't act like a baby puppy around other dogs.  He was too scared.  Now it's like he's reverting back to that phase and wanting to act like a baby puppy around other dogs.  Unfortunately, he's not of an age for most adult dogs to accept that.  So now he needs to learn some self-control around other dogs.


Look at the dog sniffing his butt!  That would have definitely been a reaction moment in the past.



Look at him surrounded by other dogs.


You can see the concern here.  His body is curved, head turned away, ears back, mouth closed.  He's not comfortable, but he doesn't react.