Monday, March 28, 2011

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!

Sunday, March 27, 2011

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.

Zane - 9 months - mad teeth

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

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!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

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!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

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.
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Look at him surrounded by other dogs.
Zane - 9 months

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.
Zane - 9 months

Friday, March 11, 2011

It's Chuckie!

This morning, it finally hit me who Zane reminds me of. . . Chuckie from Rugrats! They both have unruly red hair. They are both irrationally scared of normal things. They both speak in a nasally voice (ok, so Zane's voice isn't really nasally, but anytime I "speak" for him, it's always in a nasally voice.)

Go here to see a clip of Chuckie:
Chuckie and the Potty

The new behavior he's learning: targeting with a rear foot. I do this by having them back up to a large target and gradually decrease the size of the target. He's backing up and putting one or two rear feet on the target, so he's getting it!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Cat Dog

Zane in the cat tunnel.
Zane - 9 months

Isn't that ridiculous?

He finished his Focus & Control class last night. There was another dog there that is leash reactive, and he and Zane have snarked at each other before. Last night they were doing head-on mat races without even looking at each other. It went very, very well. The class helped him a lot.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Zane - 9 months (almost)

Zane - 9 months

Fast Progress!

Today I was out cleaning up all the stuff that blew around in our recent windstorms. While I was out there, I rearranged some of the agility equipment. As I moved stuff around, I looked over, and Zane was standing at the end of the dogwalk waiting for me to watch. As soon as I did, he walked up it and walked across! Woohoo! He offered that all by himself. Of course, he got cookies and pets and loving for doing it. He got on and off all by himself several times and even turned around once (without me asking him to). This evening, he also went over the A-frame without needing help. Now granted, they are both lowered, but this is major progress for him.

Then I was wanting him to do a line of jumps and move out ahead of me. As we passed the 4th jump, he would veer off to the dogwalk which was nearby. I guess it's been reinforced enough now that it has value again.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Room Searches

This morning Zane did 2 box searches, then I filmed a room search. It's fascinating to watch the dogs work.




And here's Bella doing the same search.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Unroll a Mat

Here's Zane working on unrolling a mat:



I thought I filmed Bella learning it from scratch, but it didn't record! She learned it in about 30 seconds. She's so amazing.

We met a friend for agility practice today. I sent Zane over the dogwalk there - worked on stopping on it and sitting on it. Then went to the A-frame and learned he's scared of it now too. So more work. Before we left, he offered to get on the dogwalk again. Yay!

At home, I lowered the A-frame to very low so the height doesn't scare him. It will be regularly added to our training now.

While at the agility place, I went off to another area and did some nosework searches. He didn't find one. It was in the middle of a big wood pile. He knew it was somewhere, but couldn't figure out where it was. So that's a puzzle to work on.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Retraining the dogwalk

Zane is having fun unrolling the yoga mat. I think I need to move him to a rolled up carpet!

Zane is on a program to re-train the dogwalk. He's never been completely comfortable on it. His goal is to get across it as fast as possible. I want him to be comfortable. And after his fall yesterday, it's going to take some work. The first thing I did was lower the dogwalk. Then I started rewarding any movement on it. Then I had to get him to stop on it. And we worked on sit and down on it.

This evening when we went out, I had him go across it a couple of times (he still wants to avoid it), then just scattered the rest of his meal across it. He went back and forth eating his dinner.

Here's a vid of this morning's work.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Scary Day

This morning, Zane started learning to unroll a rolled up yoga mat. Silly trick, but I want him to start getting a little "pushier" with his nose. So we'll be doing lots of pushing tricks.

We also went to the park (a new one) for obedience work. He did well on what I asked, although I still see some chewing of the dumbbell. And he did three outdoor searches out there. Sometimes it's hard to tell when he's working a scent and when he's just sniffing. Must learn to read the boy.

Last night, Beth watched the video and we were doing it wrong. But she had a great suggestion for what we were doing - use two toys - toss to reward TOTO, then send him back over. We'll try it.

She showed me what she originally was trying to tell me. We went out this evening to try it. It, uh, didn't go so well. I don't think Zane has the coordination yet to handle it. Remember, he's only 8 months (almost 9 months!) and still very leggy, and as a friend says, he's put together with rubber bands. He ended up falling off the dogwalk in a very scary way. And of course, it scared the &*%^ out of both of us. Here it is in all our glory.





And here's Bella learning to do it. You can see she has some trouble maintaining her grip a couple of times until she learned how to make a straighter approach.

Challenge!

This has nothing to do with Zane, but I wanted to share something we're doing over here in dog training land. I'm starting a monthly training challenge. It's starting easy with a "shut the door" challenge for April. Why don't you join us?

On Cue Challenge

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Agility discussion

Before we discuss agility, we need to discuss Zane and the furniture. None of my dogs are allowed on the furniture. Then with Bella, if she was invited up, she could get up and cuddle with Jill. Then Zane came and all the rules changed. I don't remember how it started, but it became his job to nap with me. Then anytime I sat on the couch, he was up there. He doesn't get up if a person isn't there to cuddle with, but anybody is fair game to have a red dawg leaping onto them.

Zane - March '11

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Now, on to agility. Beth, his breeder, IMed me to discuss his reaction on the dogwalk. She thinks it was more worried that he had done something wrong (how his mother would react). And she wanted me to try something different with the dogwalk. So hopefully I understood her directions, and I'm putting this up to see if I did it right. Beth?



Tonight is Week 4 of his Focus and Control class. He does better at it than at Rally practice in the park. I haven't figured out why yet!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Nosework update

Today we went to the park for rally practice. We got there early and Zane did 2 box searches, then I had him search two benches. He likes this work. He likes finding his cookies.

I've noticed that he's entered a phase where he is very unfocused. He's having problems with heeling as he just can't maintain attention on me. Some is concern about other things; some is just ADD - adolescent dog disorder. So my new goal is to build more drive for heel.

I did this with Travis with hot dog heeling. So Zane started today. I hold a hot dog in my left hand. My hand is wrapped around it and he can only nibble the very bottom of the hot dog. And to nibble, he has to be pushing up into that hand. So he gets a nice heads up position, he is driving into heel, and his focus stays on me.

I learned that right now he doesn't have a lot of drive to stay in heel. It took a bit for him to realize that he could control how much hot dog he got. He went through the whole rally course shoving his nose into that hot dog hand. I'll just do this for a couple of months and see what we have.

I really need to figure out how to get him working in drive more often. He can do it and has done it. We just need it more consistent in new places.

He still loves agility. Today I let him do the A-frame for the first time. He ran right over and hit his contact like a champ. I'm also working more circles of jumps. One set had 4 jumps set in an arc. They were spaced so he would bounce through them. He doesn't quite have the spacing down yet. He could bounce the first three, then needed a stride for the 4th. Nice baby work to teach him how to read the spaces between the jumps.