Naptime and shaping

Look at Zane and Bella napping together. Awwww!


Zane worked on his sits and downs - starting to anticipate his downs, and he's folding. Yay! He's still working on going to his mat for his breakfast.

Tonight in an Orientation class I used him to demonstrate shaping. His first time to demo! Big night for the little boy.

We had a major scare today. Jade, my youngest daughter, walked home from the bus with a friend, then they both came here. They played a bit, then informed me that one of the friend's puppies is sick - dying sick. She didn't know if it was parvo, but did know that the pup had diarrhea. Crap! Later that evening she called to tell us the pup tested negative for parvo. I'm still not completely free of fear, but I have more hope!

Wraps and Tunnels and Nicknames

Don't all dogs collect nicknames? Zane sure does. Some of his from early days:
Zaney Brainy
Zaney McBrainy
Zanish McTavish (after DH said he needed a Scottish name as he's a redhead)
Toadbelly
Doodlebug
Duder-head

And more recent ones (based on his growing up and pushing limits):
Butthead
Booger-butt

And when he's being adorable and a butthead, he is:
Boogerbutteriness


Spent several short sessions yesterday working on downs and tuck sits - going for speed on both. No more thinking about it! Just do it. Also did a quickie with his retrieve articles. Just asking for the bite - no hold yet. Every morning for breakfast he is learning to go to his mat and lie down. I'm now working on duration with that.

This morning we went out to the agility field. He loves the tunnel! But look at the legs on that boy. He's all legs right now!



He is also learning to wrap around a cone. This is a new technique for me. . . I've always shaped it, but found a segment on the Control Unleashed Games DVDs interesting, so thought I'd give it a try.

Seminar

So many things to report. . . it will take a couple of days to get it all! Last Thursday Zane, Bella, 2 friends and their dogs, and I headed to Phoenix for a Laura Romanik seminar. We learned so much. I'll be sharing some of what I learned, but here are some fun pictures from the trip.

On the way to Phoenix, we stopped at a rest stop to potty the dogs and eat lunch. While we ate, I stuck Zane in Bella's crate with the top open for air. He likes a sun roof!








At the hotel, Zane got to do stairs for the first time.



The hotel also had a nice grassy area where the dogs could play. (Thank goodness!) Zane liked to grab Bella's leash and pull her around.



And now some posed pictures:









Zane was an absolute angel for the most part. We'd get up at 4:30, I'd potty the dogs, then back inside for their breakfast, then we'd go walking. We walked and walked and walked, then played in the grassy area for quite a while, then laps around the hotel, then left the hotel at 7:30 each morning. Then he slept quietly in his crate at the seminar until the first break. I'd take him to potty, then back to his crate. Then a long walk at lunch and playtime, then back in his crate. He never made a peep except on the last day when a clueless Dobie owner kept letting her dog get all over his crate. He still has some dog issues and did some barking and growling at the dog. (Lots of dog don't like other dogs by their crates and sniffing them in their crates. Please teach your dog to not approach a dog in a crate or x-pen.) I ended up moving his crate since this woman couldn't keep her dog away from him.

He met some other dogs and was fine. And thanks to some great advice from Laura, we're getting faster downs and even some offered downs. Yay!

I have so much to process from this weekend. If you have a chance to see her, go!

Meeting dogs, stacking, and helping ourselves

Zane was only scared of one dog at the big event at the park. No, it was 2 dogs, but they were together. They were Old English Sheepdogs. Then Monday morning he saw Rusty, the border collie, again and was perfectly happy to interact with him. He's been worried about Rusty before but has turned the corner with him. He also met Spice, a golden retriever, and had no problem with her (went right up to her and was almost rude!). And he sniffed Wally, the Australian Terrier, again. So the dog issues are improving drastically.

Zane loves ice. Any time he hears us open the freezer, he comes running.

Sitting and waiting for his ice. (Bella loves ices too).


If you're too slow, he tries to help himself.


I finally pulled out a box for his toys so they aren't scattered everywhere. He likes to pull them all out.


And here he is stacked at 14.5 weeks.


He finally starting going down on a verbal cue, but. . . it's not a fold-back down. He's just kind of flopping. So I'm back to shaping a head drop and rewarding in such a way that it's easier to go down to get the reward. We'll get it.

I am still putting him on the Happy Legs for a short amount of time most days. Then putting him on the floor to stack. He won't move, even on the floor! When we were taking the above stacked photo, I dropped a piece of roast beef, and he really, really wanted it. He reached and stretched and folded his legs as much as he could. . . but he never moved the feet.

RDO events

I've spent the last couple of days doing final preparation for today's big Responsible Dog Owner event, so not much training happened.

A friend let me borrow her Happy Legs. Here's Zane's first time on them.


At the RDO event, he made lots of new friends:








It got to the point where people would ask to pet him and I'd have to point to him already rolling at their feet and say, "I don't think you have a choice!"

And he got to play in the pile of dumped ice:

Stop!

This morning's walk was almost too quiet. We went all the way around the block, and on the back side we finally came across several yards of dogs. Zane jumped and ran ahead at the first one, then walked with me for the rest. I need to find some noisy busy areas to work in. I thought of the Walmart shopping center, but that's where people bring puppies from Mexico to sell, and I'm too worried about germs there. He's been to the hardware stores. Gotta' put the mind in gear!

On the circus elephant, he can turn until his back is to me, then get stuck. So I step to the other side of him and he continues his circle. Soon he'll be doing the whole thing. He still isn't getting the verbal down. He just stands there and looks at me. It will come.

Today he started to learn "Stop". Some people call this "wait", but wait is one of my stay commands, so this is "stop" - as in stop all forward motion and just stand there (or sit there for now).

Park and Relaxation Protocol and Ears

This morning Zane got to go to the park for the first time. We were there for Rally practice and he met several new dogs. No growling or snarling! Yay! He worked on eye contact and the "J" leash exercise. He wanted to sniff the ground and didn't want to keep a "J" in the leash at all. Lots of work to do.

We also did a bit of choose to heel here at home. And he worked on the circus elephant trick. He is starting to circle a bit! He doesn't want to turn his back on me yet, so I did a bit of moving with him. Otherwise, he'll only make a half circle then stop. And he worked on retrieve with a dowel, dumbbell, metal article, leather article, and marker. He's still a bit unsure of the metal article, but will bite it. He picked the dowel and dumbbell up off the floor.

I don't know what to call this exercise, but I had him sit in heel position, rewarded several times for eye contact, then released and took a step forward and got him to sit in heel position again (using a hand lure). He does a rock-back sit and not a tuck sit, so he tends to sit behind me instead of in heel. I don't think I'll get a tuck sit out of him although I'll try.

This evening he did Day 1 of the Relaxation Protocol in both a sit and a down. He broke 3 times on the sit, although one of those was just scratching. But scratching is not something I want on a sit, so I considered it a failure. He broke once on the down - after the first reward he decided to pop up, so I put him back in a down and started over. After that he was perfect. But we'll repeat Day 1 until he is 100%.

The vet staff yesterday commented that he's a very serious puppy. And yes, he really is. He's playful and fun and can be a pain in the butt (as any normal puppy can be), but he's also very, very serious. It's going to be interesting to see how he matures.

And the final news is that Zane's ears are now taped. I was hoping to wait a bit longer, but I'd like to have nice, normal ears! Not the wonky things they would turn into. Hmm, it sounds like the old myth - don't cross your eyes because if the wind blows, they'll stick that way. If the wind blows wonky ears, will they stick that way?

Fun days

On Sunday we had an agility match, so Zane got to go watch.

He had the best seat in the house to see the action.


He also got to do the tunnel! He thought it was great fun.

This evening we worked on attention in heel position, taking one step forward or to the right and finding heel position, and recalls. For the recalls I did two things. One, I pushed him back and took off running while calling him. He loved that one. Raced after me and barked and carried on. The other was calling him and tossing the treat between my legs - he had to run through my legs to get it.


Eye Contact



He went to the vet today for his vaccines. He weighed 15.2 lb.

And the ears. . . oh, the ears!

A bit sideways.



A lot sideways. Nods to Bosker.



One ear up.



Zane has a secret life that only readers of this blog will know about. In his spare time, he's the super hero - Batdog!


He can fly!

Foundations

Last night I was out hacking nasty, clumpy grass out of my agility field. Zane and Bella were out with me. Before, Zane would not go through the tunnels, even if the other dogs went first. Now that he's learned "through", he's racing through the tunnels like they are the best toy ever. They're fun now!

Last night we also started to work on "stand". I like to use Sue Ailsby's method of getting a kick-back stand (looks flashy in the ring!) - see http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/Levels/ByLevel/2Level.html , but I make a couple of modifications for puppies (yes, I modify everything!)

Because puppies are so limber and roly-poly, I find they tend to fold up on themselves when I'm trying to get them into a stand. So I start with them in a stand and "push" (not really a push - I'm not touching them) the treat toward their chest. They back up to get it. I click that back up. After a couple of repetitions of that, I start in the sit and do the same thing. They're used to backing up with the food in that position, so they tend to kick back. Zane sometimes just scoots back in his sit, but he does eventually kick back to a stand. That's what I click. And I'm working on a stand/maintain from the beginning.

He has learned the verbal cue for sit now, but doesn't understand the verbal cue for down yet. I find that it seems to take longer to get a verbal down than a verbal sit.

Do you wanna' hear what Zane absolutely hates? He hates to be brushed! I do it daily and he does not like it. I'll continue to do it and he'll get used to it, but it's not his favorite thing right now.

Right now he also has "sheltie ears". It's almost time to start doing something with them. They're darn cute, but not quite what we want. Of course, they'll get much goofier in the next few months.

I think I'm going to go over Sue Ailsby's Training Levels again and start working more of her stuff into our training. So many foundation behaviors to get!

Mat Work, Retrieve Work, Choose to heel

Have you seen Treiball? It's a sport in Germany where the dogs herd the large exercise balls into a goal. It looks like a total blast, and I've been working the basics with Bella. But it got me motivated to start Zane's mat work.

I put the mat down, and like any normal, nosy dog, he looked at it. I clicked and tossed 4 treats on it. While he was eating the last one, I said, "Ok!" and picked up the mat. Then I put it back down. Repeat about six times, then the mat went away. Oh, after the second click, I did start cuing a down on the mat before giving him his treats. I don't do this with all dogs, but felt I could with him. Soon he'll be running to that mat and throwing himself down on it!

While we were outside this evening, we did a little bit of Choose to Heel. It was so hard because Waffles, the cat, was out there too. Play with the cat? Choose to heel? Play with the cat? Choose to heel? It was a hard choice! And it was only kibble, so not the most motivating food.

This evening I also got out his dowel for some more "take it" work for the retrieve. Then I pulled out the dumbbell and did it with that. Tomorrow I'll pull out metal and leather articles (he has a small one of each that he plays with). Then I'll start finding creative things to hold.

He's starting to love to play in the water more. We have tubs of water outside for the dogs to drink out of. Zane puts his front feet in and either just soaks his feet or digs at the water. You can't get mad because it's too cute!

Video Overload!

This is Zane starting to learn "brickwork" or what I call "Circus Elephant Trick". I'm clicking whenever the back feet move. Eventually, he'll start side-stepping.




Going "through" a box.



Going "through" a tunnel and hoop.



Bridge and Chin Targeting



Nose Targeting



Retrieve, part 1 of many to come



Paw Target to a Tap Light



Targeting a ball with his nose





This picture makes me melt!

Tunnels and Circus Elephants

At the training building tonight, Zane loved the tunnel. I was trying to put it away and he was still running through it!

Then we pulled out the stool for Paws Up. While up there, we started working on his turning a turn on the front. So his front paws stay on the stool and his back feet circle around it. We call this the Circus Elephant trick. I turn it into a lot of other behaviors. He's not circling yet, but he has figured out that it is his back feet that are the key. I'm doing this as a completely shaped behavior - no luring, just shaping. Right now those back feet are almost dancing in place - he's so cute!

High School Love

This mornings walk included a barking dog (he walked right past - he looked at it, but didn't stop and alert); a man sitting in a chair pulling weeds; a truck pulling a trailer that made very loud noises over the bumps that was very scary; and a baby stroller. He had never seen a baby stroller before and had to stop and stare at it.

This afternoon he went to the high school for a presentation I was doing for the DECA club. The high school girls descended on him and he accepted all their loving. He crawled into on of their laps for the presentation and happily laid there.

Today he worked on stand, adjusting the front feet, paw touch at a distance, and getting more distance with the hand touch. He's headed to class this evening so we'll see what he does there. Oh, and I started his Walk Away training. Video coming soon!

My how he has grown!

This is Zane in his Sherpa bag when I brought him home at 8 weeks.



This is Zane in his Sherpa bag now at 12 weeks:


Grown a little?

Restrained Recalls

Today we did restrained recalls. Jade held Zane while I walked out, showed him a toy, called him, and took off running. He ran as fast as his short little legs could take him to catch up and grab that toy. We did it three times then just played with the toy and worked on give and "get it".

Rubber Ducky

Zane says, "Some puppies have to play with rubber duckies. I get *real* duckies!"





We're still working on a tethered stand and playing with moving front feet. Putting sit and down on verbal cues. This weeks "Aim for It" is "through", so he's gone "through" an open cardboard box.

I'm about to get very, very serious with recall training. I was in Susan Garrett's recall course and I want to start the games with him.

On Monday nights I teach a Novice Obedience class. Before class starts I get Zane out and work him. He does eye contact, choose to heel, and last night we added a modified form of "Calming Ovals". Ok, I modify everything! Two cones, set 6-8 feet apart (depending on the size of the dog). Dog on the inside, just walk an oval (like a racetrack) around the cones. The dog has to learn to give in to you on those turns and not run in front. It went very well.

This morning our walk consisted of a barking dog (play BAT) and a lot of traffic (just sat and watched it for awhile).

This is Zane at his Toad Belly best:

Stands, Paws Up, Rear Awareness

This evening I put out 4 objects that Zane could do Paws Up on. I didn't give any cues, just waited for him to interact. He would easily do Paws Up, often climbed completely on, and when doing Paws Up, I often got the rear foot movement I want for rear end awareness. He'll eventually figure it out - I want him circling the object completely with his rear feet while his front feet stay on the object.

We also started working on stationary stands - not asking him to go from a sit to a stand, just holding a stand when already doing it. I tethered him and as he stood there I clicked and gave him a treat in a position where he remained standing. We did that for about 20 clicks, then I started playing with getting him to "step" to move the front feet forward to get him into a stack. He often steps forward with a back foot too, but often just moves the front foot I want. More fun to figure out!

Zane's Big Weekend

On Friday we headed out to Tucson for an agility trial. I pulled my little travel trailer and about 7 miles from our exit to the fairgrounds, it had a blowout. So Zane got to experience sitting on the side of the interstate for an hour waiting for roadside assistance. It was hot, but all the vehicles roaring by didn't bother him.

We made it to the trial in time for our first runs. At first Zane was worried about the other dogs. He would stop and stare, very alert, ready to take offense or run. But none of the other dogs came up to him or did anything, so the second day he settled down and didn't give any of the dogs a second look. I think this was very, very good for him.

A friend (hi Stacie!) has a red Aussie with markings very similar to Zane. Interestingly, Zane walked right up to him on Friday night and never acted worried. He immediately took to Rex. That's a first for him!

He was a dream at the trial. Only a few fusses in his crate. He walked all over like a champ. Never had any problems, and everybody thought he was so good.

I think Zane notices differences in things. He sees our horses everyday, but since he's been here, nobody's ridden them because it's either too hot or too rainy. There was a horse show at the fairgrounds, and Saturday evening while we were out walking, three horses with riders went by. Zane stopped and stared and ran to hide behind me. He's seen horses, but never horses with two heads!

On a cute note. . . the first thing Zane did to the ice chest? Paws Up! He knows that one well now.

Zane and Rex






Zane crawled on top of Bella. She sat up and he rolled off. Camera went off at the perfect time!



Chewing on his bully stick.






Zane chillin' on the ice chest.

Tummy Update

I think I know what is causing the diarrhea. . . The vitamin C I've been giving him. So he's off of it for now, and I'll start again next week with a lower dose. Why didn't I think of this before? It's a common problem.

Transferring cues and training fun

I am now transferring Zane's down cue to a signal (the signal I'll use in utility). He doesn't get it yet - he often sits - but he is watching and figuring it out.

I've never taught a sit as a sit/maintain before. This is interesting. I started teaching him door manners this week - they have to sit and wait at the door while I open it then release them. I asked him to sit, opened the door, and he just sat there and said, "Yeah, so? You told me to sit." He never budged. He didn't try to escape out the door. He just sat until released. That was easy!

Now for some fun training. This is Zane's 3rd training session learning "Paws Up".



Here he is playing the wobble board. Beth had a wobble board in with the puppies, so he's used to and doesn't have to go through the initial intro to something moving under his feet.

Zane and other Dogs

Zane and other dogs is still a bit hit or miss.

We've taken in a foster collie whose owner died. At first, Zane got as far away as possible. The collie is not pushy at all and didn't try to force his way onto Zane. So the next day Zane started chasing him around and biting at his butt (in play). Today he was laying beside him for a nap.

This evening Zane went to a class. His only goal was to sit quietly in his crate with a nice stuffed Kong. One of the students was one of my 4-Hers and they wanted to see Zane. Their dog, a young Aussie mix had already been by the crate Zane was in and he did fine (and had food tossed in for being good). First intros went well, with me passing him an occasional piece of food. But the other dog wanted that food too and got a bit pushy. Zane growled, snapped, lunged, and went after her. She didn't back down and came right back at him. I ended up picking him up and getting him out of it. He did not want her near him after that.

It's so hard to find stable dogs to introduce him to - ones who won't get in his face and get too pushy too fast. Once he's comfortable with a dog, he tends to be fine and plays with them.

With the dogs at the house, he quickly learned to read them. He knows to never bother Travis. He doesn't even try. He'll try to bounce on Emily, she'll give a lip lift or a light growl and he'll leave her alone. He knows he can get away with anything with Bella. Those two play together non-stop. And now with the collie, he knows the dog won't react to him, but the dog also won't play with him, so he's not sure what to do, but sure is trying to get him to play.

Zane is learning to sit at the door until released to go through (that was easy with the sit/maintain training).

Today we also had fun with a little table - it's only about 4 inches high and I worked to shape him to get on it. He never got on it all the way - I think it's a bit small for his whole body and he's not willing to try. He'll get front paws on it easily, so maybe we'll start brickwork instead.

BAT for Dogs

This morning's walk was almost too quiet. One vehicle passed. No people. One dog barking in a distance. One dog barking from their backyard.

Both dogs barking worried Zane. He would stop and stare toward the sound (couldn't even see the dog), so I did some BAT work. When he stopped and stared at the sound, I stopped behind him and waited. As soon as he gave any kind of calming signal - head turning, lip licking, head lowering, etc, I clicked and we backed up. The backing up is a functional reward. Then we would take a couple of steps forward and repeat. Eventually we could walk past the barking dog.


More information on BAT: http://ahimsadogtraining.com/blog/bat/