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Listen for Stillness

11 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by Katrin in Dog Agility, Dog Training

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

agility, competition, Dog Training, Dogs, obedience, progressive training, stays, teaching, training plans

3 dogs in a group stay, spaniel in a down stay, lab cross in a stand stay, corgi in a sit stay

This is starting to look like the season of stays. With stay instruction and training working its way into many lessons.

Stays are an integral foundation behavior and a part of nearly all performance sports. And the bare bones basics of a stay is stillness until release cue. Defining stillness for a dog consistently though can be a challenge for many people. For many folks, when we start to increase distance and go out of sight, or turn so you can’t see the dog, stay criteria degrades. The dog starts creeping at the start line, or changes positions, or tap dances, the handler none the wiser until they turn to see their dog.

This is where we go low tech. A bell on the collar. And training yourself to hear the silence. Silence means stillness. Stillness means criteria is met. Criteria met means reward or release cue.

3 dog collars each with bells on them on a granite counter top

Removing the need to rely on vision to validate criteria met for stays means increased reliability, consistency and confidence in your dog and your training.

Listen for stillness.

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Role Models

21 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by Katrin in Dog Behavior, Dog Training, Dogs

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

behavior change, Dog Behavior, Dog Training, Dogs, friends, fun, impulse control, intelligence of the dog, play, puppies, social skills, teaching, Tom, trail walks, walk, woods, Zora

Tom in harness sitting and Zora sitting outside ready to start a walk

This morning we joined a friend and her 5 month old lab pup on a walk. He’s a fun, bouncy pup. At that age where social graces are often a quite bit of a struggle. Observing him shift from in your face plowing excitement OMG DOGS!!! To hey look at us just hanging on a walk this is fun I’m pretty cool! Over the course of the walk was a joy.

By the end of our walk he was just one of the crew. Sharing sniffs. Hanging together. Exploring. Comfortable in his own doggie skin.

How did we get from social dork to one of the crew? A long line, help from his mum and me at times, and really Tom and Zora doing a lot of puppy training. T and Z are really good at reinforcing behaviors they feel are acceptable in pups.

Usually goes something like this:

Bouncy dorky pup explodes into a space. Tom and Zora ignore it. Tom being “I have a job to do, pup you ain’t worth my time”. And Zora, “ugh, you are soooo not cool.” With an eye roll and flip of her hair.

Bouncy dorky pup attempts to charge into their space. A human prevents that and using long line and space encourages pup to move in a curve, or sniff, or even just slow it down or stop moving forward.

Pup does any of those behaviors, Tom and or Zora look at pup

Pup loses his shit cuz “OMG they looked at me!!”

My dogs, look away from pup and go back to ignoring pup

Pup goes “But but but! I’m so cute and awesome you must want to love me! Don’t you know how awesome I am?! Talk to me!!!!”

Tom and Z ignore pup. Yea no kid.

Pup gets distracted and sniffs the ground. Zora moves closer to pup

Pup loses shit again cuz “OMG she’s coming to play with me!!!”

Zora goes Yea, no and moves away again.

Pup goes, but but but look I can do that sniffing thing again?

Zora comes back toward pup. They sniff the same patch of leaves. A half second passes, pup starts to lose his shit again cuz OMG Zora is right here next to me!! Human intervenes, Zora ignores pup and moves away

Rinse and repeat throughout walk until final third when pup has finally grasped the way to get Zora or Tom to acknowledge he even exists and to “OMG they let me walk beside them!! We sniffed the same thing! OMG the cool kids, I get to be one of them!!” Is to chill it out. Be cool man, be cool.

The Pain (and Power) of Shunning

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by Katrin in Dog Behavior, Dogs

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Dog Behavior, Dogs, dogs training dogs, resource guarding, social skills, teaching, Tom, visitors, Zora

This is Rey

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A tan reddish and white corgi winking for the camera

Rey can sometimes be a bit of a snot rocket.  Really she can be a bit of a resource guarder if you want to get all technical.  With other dogs.  She’s lovely with people.  Except she likes to guard them.  From other dogs.  And food, and toys, and places to sleep, and door ways, and water dishes, and you get the idea.

Rey has stayed with us a number of times over the past couple of years.  And she really likes Zora.  REALLY likes Zora.

The last time Rey stayed with us, compared to the times previous, though her resource guarding had gotten much worse.  But her owners were receptive to feedback and they worked with her on it a lot.

So this stay she was really appropriate and not guardy for the first 4 days.  Then Monday came.  With non stop torrential rain for 12 hours.  We didn’t go for a walk.  The dogs napped all day.  Rey was still good.

Until Tuesday.  When she regressed to her old ways.  And guarded the water dish.  And some toys.  And the kitchen table.  And the back door.

Tom decided he wasn’t going to come out of the bedroom until she decided to play nice.  And Zora decided she was going to pretend Rey didn’t exist.

Wednesday found Rey a very sad little red corgi.  Neither Tom nor Zora would acknowledge her.  At all.  She was being shunned to the max.

Rey assumed Zora would want to play their usual morning wrestle game.  Nope, Zora wouldn’t even give her the time of day.

Rey assumed Zora would play their usual chase games in the yard.  Nope, Zora walked right past her without a second glance.

Rey was very confused.  Why don’t they like me anymore?

She came over to me with her sad corgi moves.  “Sorry kid, that’s what happens when you don’t share.  No one likes it.”

Cry “They don’t like me anymore?!”  It is very pitiful when a little brown corgi cries.

She tried all manner of things to get Zora to talk to her again.  Appeasement behaviors.  Wiggling.  Play bows.  Invitations to chase.  Nothing worked.  Zora maintained her position that Rey was not to be acknowledged. (Tom still refused to come out of the bedroom unless he knew Rey was behind a gate).

A full day of being ignored by 2 dogs she likes very much and Rey has gotten herself back on track.

This morning Zora decided to give her another chance.  Rey was delighted.  “She LIKES me again!!”  Racing and wrestling ensued.  Then some sharing of toys.  Happy wiggling.  “Zora likes me again!!!” I’m not sure I’ve seen a dog so relieved in a long while.  “She likes me again!!”

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Rey a tan reddish and white corgi with a happy panting look having just had a racing wrestling match with her corgi friend Zora

Zora is more forgiving than Tom, Tom is still saying “brown corgi?  What brown corgi?  No brown corgi here.  Stupid corgis.” Though he as at least decided to come out of the bedroom.  Which is progress.  (Tom really does think corgis are devil spawn.  Zora slightly less so than others, thankfully.  He secretly likes Zora though will never admit it if asked.  Rey he puts squarely in the ‘devil spawn’ category.)

 

Formula for Earning Qualifying Scores

26 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by Katrin in Dog Agility, Dog Training

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

agility, competition, confidence, criteria, Dog Training, obedience, philosophical, positive reinforcement, relationship, teaching, thoughts, training humans, training plans, Zora

I talk with my agility students and students considering competition often about defining what success in the ring means for them, their dog and their team.  As I feel that definition can have a huge impact on not only your competition qualifying rates but more importantly on the relationship your dog builds with the competition environment and with you.

People at trials often comment on how relaxed, happy and easy going I seem.  And how I can be that relaxed in competition?!  For me, it’s all in how I define success in competition.

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Zora sitting in my lap, us just hanging out sitting in a purple chair waiting for our turn in the ring to run agility

With my own dogs I define success in the trial ring as:  I was able to maintain commitment to criteria as I do in training for all aspects of the run.

That’s it.  Seriously.  Simple as that.  Yet often oh so hard to do.  When there is this idea of a greater ‘prize’ be it a qualifying score, title or ribbon and when there is this feeling of ‘everyone is watching’ it can be really hard to be true to your training.  It can be really easy to shift into ‘oh we can fix that really quick and still make time enough to Q!’ when in training if your dog say popped the weaves you would respond by restarting the sequence 2 obstacles into the weaves.  Or you cue a rear cross and your dog spins.  It can be really hard in a trial run not to throw up your hands, say “oh fine let’s keep going” rather than do what you would have done in practice of reworking the set up.  It can be really hard to be as genuinely in love with your dog, the way you are in practice, when in trial your dog takes the wrong course or knocks a bar in a sequence you thought you both knew well.

Have I struggled or failed to stay honest and true to my definition of competition success?  Of course.  I’m human.  I’ve failed.  But I work towards that as my standard.  I’ve found for me even the nicest ribbon or qualifying score doesn’t feel so great when it came at the expense of my training, my dog’s confidence and understanding, and our honesty in team work.  And some of the best feeling runs I’ve ever had came when I was true to my definition, NQ and all.

So here’s my basic formula for getting qualifying scores and runs I’m happy with:

1. Read the rules.  Know the rules, know the standard you are being judged against.  Know the challenges you will face.   Understand the set up.  Have a picture before you even begin of what the performance looks like and what skills your dog and you need to have mastered in practice.  Have a picture of what your ideal performance of a skill looks like and work towards that.

2. Train it until you trust it.  And don’t do it in competition until you trust it in training reliably.  If you learn in competition you made a mistake and something you thought was to the level trust really isn’t, stop putting it in the trial environment until you’ve found and worked through the challenges in training.

3. Trust your dog and be honest.  If you cue something and your dog does something you didn’t expect, trust that they believed you communicated what they actually did.  If you’ve followed #2 above, by the time you are in a trial run if your dog does something chances are you cued them to do that whether you meant to or not.  Honor it.  To not to erodes your dog’s confidence and will end with second guessing and decreased speed (ask me how I know this.  First hand experience. So sorry Zora, Niche, Regal, James, Monty…I’ve done it to all of them at one point or another, and then have to go back, fix my screw up and rebuild.  It’s much easier to believe and honor what you dog did as correct to begin with)

4. Trial like you train.  Maintain same criteria and responses for obstacle performance, handling, cues, attitude, focus, etc in all environments both training and trial.  To not creates confusion and can make it really hard to get the same performance you get in practice in competition.  Just look at how many people say, “He only does this in the ring!  At practice he’s a different dog!”  Often it happens because the dog realizes early on their handler isn’t the same person in a trial that they are in practice.  Their handler has different criteria and rules in a trial and responds differently.  (it can also happen for other reasons but rather often it’s at least in part the reason I just listed)  And going back to #1 if you don’t trust you’ve trained it to where you can trial like you train, don’t trial it yet.

and 5. Trial to find holes in your training.  When you trial to find your weak spots, it helps you push yourself to improve your practice and training, and find the challenge in the courses.  It helps you to try new things in practice and then on course.  It gives you information and data on where to hone your training and where to focus your practice for visible improvement.  It allows you to continue to work towards that ideal you established when you started off reading the rules.  

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Zora with her 1st NATCH ribbon

Here’s what I don’t do.  I don’t walk into any competition run with the goal of qualifying.  When you walk onto the course with the goal of qualifying in mind you are more likely to accept a lesser criteria or micromanage things on course (ie see point # 4), and to change who you are toward your dog in the ring, and by doing that increase the odds over time your qualifying rate will actually decrease.

I’d say my formula has been rather successful for me over the years.  Looking at Zora in 2017 out of 175 competition agility runs we had an 81% Qualifying rate for the year, completed 2 NATCHes and a Versatility NATCH, qualified for NADAC Championships and then won our division there.  Our class with the lowest Q rate was tunnelers because 40% of our runs in tunnelers this past year I chose to work our extreme distances skills and attempt Bonus runs.  None were qualifying runs but all were super awesome and furthered our training practice.  And in Rally in 6 competition runs we earned our Rally Novice all 3 runs with perfect 100 scores, and Rally Advanced in the next 3 trial runs scores of 77 (serious handler errors that run), 98 and 100.

And with that, agility trial season 2018 begins next weekend!  With our complete lack of usable yard space for the past months, and therefore lack of agility specific training, I’ve only entered us a couple of runs one day.  We’ll be using those to get some rust off and I’m walking into it assuming we’ll be training a lot on the field.  Remaining true to my criteria means success.

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Zora and I exiting the agility ring together after a run.  Happy and smiling cheering at each other

Taking Turns

22 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by Katrin in Dog Behavior, Dog Training, Dogs

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

cues, dog bed, Dog Training, good dog, impulse control, learned relaxation, obedience, patience, teaching, Tom, training humans, Zora

I adore using mats or dog beds or other place type spaces to teach and then remind dogs about taking turns.

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Tom & Zora both lying on a white and checked donut style dog bed

Tom and Zora have both been getting rather nudgy, pushy and whiny lately around the concepts of sharing my and other people’s attention so I realized I needed to be much clearer and consistent with our taking of turns during training as I’ve slacked a lot on the criteria for that.  I’ve been really lax on where the non-working dog is to be in space.

We’ve now done 2 sessions where I went back to clear and consistent criteria that the working dog was active with me and the non-working dog was quietly lying on the dog bed.  Then they swap on cue.  And already I’m seeing a positive difference.  Calmer, quieter, more focused work from both of the dogs.

The non-working on the bed dog is remembering to stay on the bed until I give their name and release cue.  Even when the working dog and I are doing some rather active, movement based and enticing things.  The working dog is getting my undivided attention and we’re making some great progress on things.

An interesting observation is each dog has asked to be the on the bed non-working dog at times when they want a break from the active more precision based training we’ve been doing.  I respect that and we do a dog swap when ever either asks for that.

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Tom & Zora both lying on the large tan rectangle dog bed

In the past when I’ve been consistent about non-working dog is on the mat during training sessions, I see really nice fall over to other areas of life, such as when people are at the door, leave it exercises and meet and greets in general.  As those too have deteriorated in ways I’m less than thrilled with lately, I’m including practice and clearer consistent criteria on our greeting manners using their ‘on the bed’ behavior too.

Showing up to class

26 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by Katrin in Dog Training

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Dog Training, education, perspective, philosophical, student, teaching, thoughts, training humans

I’m always impressed when week after week, reliably, people and their dogs show up for classes. Have practiced homework. Have even just managed to get themselves out the door to come to lessons. Let alone to be on time, to actually be here as scheduled repeatedly. In awe that this approach to learning works for them. Totally grateful it does, as it means I have a business model, grateful and in awe.

Because, I’m terrible at it. If I sign up for a multi week class, I do so assuming I will skip at least 1/3 of the classes. Unless I have some other motivator, one that isn’t the joy of learning something new. If there is some other motivator, like fear, necessity, or a higher order goal that requires a stage where I have to check this box, one that isn’t linked to enjoyment, fun, self satisfaction, personal goals, then I’ll likely be more reliable.

Why? Because I find learning based on external accountability and some form of deadlines and expectation I do, practice and learn certain things in a time frame, incredibly de-motivating for me. Has been for as long as I can remember. Learning in such ways saps the fun out of it for me. It’s incredibly inefficient for me. Often frustrating. And requires significant planning and conservation of energy that would be more efficiently spent other ways. I can do it, and do it well, as my formal education transcripts show, but there will be fall out. The bureaucracy of it all drives me out of my mind.

Yet, I love to learn. And do so in many ways that are efficient and joy building for me.

But sometimes I forget how poor and unreliable I am as a student in the traditional way we often think learning and education is to happen. So I sign up for a class, all excited and prepared to jump in feet first. Then as the class goes on, and the structured requirements, limits, rules set in, I find myself avoiding, annoyed, apathetic, the fun and enjoyment of learning and the material quickly sapping.

Until I step back. Remember why I wanted to take the class in the first place. Remember it’s the bureaucracy I’m finding distasteful, not the material itself. Separate the arbitrary rules of the course, from the learning. Find the joy once more. get back to having fun with my dog.

And remain in awe of each of my students every single time they show up for class. Oh how I wish I could be like they!

Tom and Zora standing with the stream the just swam in behind them

Circus Dogs!

16 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by Katrin in Dog Training, Dogs

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dog Training, fun, group class, happy, play, positive reinforcement, teaching, training humans, tricks

I think I need to consider renaming my Thursday night advanced class “Mechanics.” Or maybe “Laugh till you cry” as that seems to be what we do each week. Lol.

Last night, per the group’s request, we focused on teaching a number of tricks that built off of skills they already had in their tool box.

We laughed so hard. “Guys, stop a minute, MECHANICS!” As the humans contorted and twisted. We broke the movements down and wa-la the dogs got it.

By the end of the hour we had a group of circus dogs! Weaving through legs, circling canes, leaping over legs and through arms, crawling. It was a hoot and a blast. We all, humans and dogs alike, left smiling and happy.

Blue Merle Australian Shepherd walking around a pole Black lab practicing crawling Mixed breed and owner practicing leg weavingAustralian Shepherd leaping over her owners leg

Learning Styles

08 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by Katrin in Dog Behavior, Dog Training

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

agility, cardigan welsh corgis, Dog Behavior, Dog Training, Dogs, flat coated retriever, fun, Guide Dog, learning styles, Niche, obedience, Obi, perspective, philosophical, teaching, thoughts, Tom, training humans, training plans, Zora

What’s your dog’s learning style?  What’s yours?  Do you ever think about those factors before taking a class or training your dog?

I’ve learned over the years, many people don’t.  I used to ask each and every one of my private lesson clients, and many of my group class folks as well, “Tell me, how do you learn best?”  After a while, I stopped being amazed that so many people had no idea.  So we’d talk about it, we’d work to figure it out based on their past learning experiences.  If I was working with someone who learned best through demo, then I’d ask if they were comfortable with me demonstrating with their dog or having them move along side me mirroring the movements I wanted them to make.  If I was working with someone who learned best through reading, I’d make sure we included time at the end of each session for me to write up their homework for them to review during their practice.  If I was working with someone who learned best through repetition, I’d provide them the space and patience to repeat as many times as they needed.  And so on.  I always wanted to maximize the chance of the client being able to internalize, remember and really learn the skills we were practicing and I was working to teach, therefore it behooved me as an instructor to provide materials and presentation in the way that was most accessible to that individual learner.

And the same for our dogs.  The dogs in my own life have taught me, just as with people, each has their own individual learning style, strengths and weaknesses.  If I recognize those factors, training is more enjoyable, efficient and down right fun for us all.

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Zora practicing her dumbbell holds using a chin target

Take Zora for example.  Her learning style really compliments the parts of the training process I truly love.  Mainly the planning, research, thinking, finding a dozen ways to approach any end goal stage.  With her, once I find the way that makes the most sense to her she’ll have what I am working to teach her down flat in a nano-second.  With her, if she doesn’t have the skill within a couple cumulative training minutes, I know I need to go back to the drawing board stage and figure out another way to approach it.  It’s awesome.  I love it.  I get near instant gratification for the thinking, planning, problem solving, questioning part of the training process that I already love.  Someone once told me as we discussed how I had attempted to complete a BS in chemical engineering, “Oh you’d have been a terrible engineer.”  I asked why?  He replied, “Engineers are really great at filling the box, but terrible at creating the box.  That’s what the managers are for.  You on the other hand are really great at both creating the box and filling it an endless number of ways.  Being a formally trained engineer would have driven you nuts.”  (living with my computer engineer husband, I concur with his assessment of engineers.  W is a really good engineer, he’s great at filling the box.  He cannot though create the box to save his life.)  Zora’s learning style allows me reinforcement to create the box and fill it an endless number of ways.  It’s awesome!

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Tom in harness guiding me to a log in the woods

Tom, he has a very different learning style from Zora.  Tom’s learning style, I’m not complete sure how much of it was influenced by the early compulsion training approach he had as a pup in the guide dog raising program (they have now since changed their puppy rearing and training approach) and how much of it is his own natural tendencies, but he’s a dog who if I show him what I’d like him to do, or I bounce the new thing off an already existing behavior he knows well, he’ll grasp it very quickly.  But if I were to ask him to guess, he would find it very stressful.  Tom does well with brief periods of luring or even molding, then shifting to reward based.  He also has an excellent memory, especially for context, and if I teach or ask him for a behavior one time in that context, the next time the context occurs he will offer it usually unprompted.  For example, the very first week I had Tom home, I accidentally cued him to turn up my neighbor’s driveway on the cue ‘home’, and praised him when he took the turn as I thought I was my own driveway.  It then took me nearly 2 weeks to retrain him that ‘home’ was actually the next driveway over, ie our actual driveway.  After 1 week he wasn’t turning up it, but he was still head bobbing as we reached it, that took the 2nd week to eliminate.  But that part of his learning style does come in handy so often.  He can remember things about environments that we last went to once years ago, and he brings them to my attention to see if I’m going to reinforce that behavior once more this time now that we are back in that context.  It’s really awesome and has saved my butt so many times in places where I’m sort of not really familar.

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Niche a liver colored flat coated retriever in mid stride with an orange training dummy in his mouth

Niche, my last flat coat, was an incredibly literal learner and really awesome with patterns.  With him, I had to carefully think through anything I wanted to teach him, do all of my research and planning, carefully decide exactly what I wanted him to be learning, and then teach it.  As he would give me 1 shot.  Once I taught it to him, he’d repeat it for the rest of his life upon being asked, but if I wanted to change it, oi that took a lot of work and convincing.  He would happily offer behaviors, loved shaping training sessions, but was usually rather literal in his progressions and as I said once I’d put something on cue and reinforced it a number of times, that was that in his mind, and to be repeated exactly as taught with little to no deviation.  Was really great for competition skills, and made me really improve my training plans, but could be challenging in daily living as he would find and create patterns in the smallest of details.  He was a dog that believed to his core that correlation and causation went hand in hand.  If he felt A caused B then it must be so.  Even though often A really had nothing to do with B and was just a product of coincidence.

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Little black flat coated retriever puppy Obi chewing a toy next to my laptop, he was around 8wks old

Obi, now Obi’s style I found incredibly fascinating and really it’s why he was the pup I took home in his litter as I observed this in him as young as 5 weeks old.  Obi was a natural mimic.  It was so super cool.  Thankfully he was also a sweet heart lug head of a dog who wanted nothing more than to be loved, which prevented his learning style from being more challenging than it was to live with.  He unfortunately developed idiopathic epilepsy by the age of 6 months which I think also damaged some cognitive abilities for him, but he was a sweet heart to say the least.  My favorite Obi mimic story was how he learned, through watching me do it many times, how to open crate doors.  He knew how to open spring loaded crate latches, Varikennel turn latches, pull latches.  How do I know this?  Well one day when I apparently didn’t latch his crate, I came home and all the dogs were loose.  Which they hadn’t been when I left.  Then it happened again.  I knew Obi was a mimic, so I had a suspicion it was him.  So with him outside of a crate, I latched a crate door and asked him to then “Kennel up.”  He went to the crate, found it locked, used his mouth to unlock it, opened the door with his paw, and hopped into the crate.  I then did this with every style of crate I had in the house, he knew them all.  The saving grace, he never figured out how to unlatch the crate while he was actually in one (though I was incredibly cognizant of latching all outdoor doors using the deadbolt from then on!  I figured if he learned crate doors it was a matter of time before he figured out door knobs!).

Every dog I’ve had has had their own unique individual differences when it comes to many things, learning included.  The four I gave are just a couple of them.  I find this part of dog training so much fun and fascinating.  Working to figure out my own dog, what makes learning easier and more fun for them, and how I can compliment that through the training approach I take with them.

 

2017 in Review & Here’s to 2018

01 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by Katrin in Who Knows What Else

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

agility, competition, Dogs, food, friends, happy, NADAC Championships, obedience, review, sewing, sharing, students, teaching, thoughts, Tom, travel, Zora

2017 was rather an eventful year for us.

Dogs –

  • In agility, Zora and I had a smoking year.  I’m still in a bit of shock when I remember we won at NADAC Championships.  I never in a million years had any inkling in my head that would have been a thing.  She’s such a good dog and fantastic teammate.
  • Zora is also the dog I’ve now met 2 of my bucket list goals with:  getting a NATCH and a Triple Triple.  Actually Zora and I won 3 NATCHs this year (nearly 4, we are one barrelers q away from our All Around NATCH).
  • On the downside, doing all of that so successfully so quickly into our agility career, has left me a bit waffling, so we are currently working on our competition obedience skills.  Which we are having loads of fun with!
  • Also this summer Zora LEARNED TO SWIM!!!!!!  Which is amazing and huge and awesome!!!
  • Tom and I had a good year too.  Our working routes changed a lot again, instead of mostly in town we now do most of our work in the woods.  We learned a number of new trail routes together as well as some new street routes.  He loves learning new things and his enthusiasm is contagious!
  • Tom turned 8 this fall and showing some early signs of arthritis in his foot and carpus, but is still a power house of a guide dog and happy as ever to shove his head into his harness and us to get going!
  • We’ve also had a variety of canine guests in our home this year.  And walked with many friends.  Tom and Zora are fantastic about sharing their home and helping the visitors learn the ropes around here.   Boarding dogs would be so much harder without Tom and Zora.
  • This year I also began working with a small number of clients in agility and obedience which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.  I really do love to teach.  In moderation.

 

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Ducks –

  • Sadly in early summer we lost Penelope.  But the remaining 5 are happy and healthy.  Spot the drake does a great job protecting his ladies.  And the daily eggs are still amazing.
  • This summer I cleaned up brush and added fencing to expand their outdoor area.  They love being out back there, digging up worms and bugs.  Hubby says it looks like an enclosure you’d find in a fancy zoo.
  • This year I also discovered and developed a few new duck egg recipes, which my young nieces and nephews ask me to make constantly.

 

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Who Knows What Else –

  • This year I worked on one of my goals to find ways to volunteer, and as a result am now involved in the local 4-H program once more and am the librarian for the IAABC reference library.
  • I also worked on the goal this past year to do things because I wanted to and because they would help me feel more joy.  ie working further on letting go of the ‘shoulds’.  And while I still have a lot (LOT) of work to do on this, I feel I did make good strides on listening to my heart.  I started a few things thinking they would help me feel joy, then when they didn’t I actually stopped doing them!  Without feeling guilty, or remorse.  This is huge for me.  And I’m more spontaneously doing things simply because they make me feel joy.
  • Sound proofing our bedroom this year, was an incredibly good investment.  For the first time in a decade I’m sleeping soundly past 4am on a rather consistent basis.  It’s glorious!
  • And I worked on a number of small building, art and sewing projects this year.  Which I had great fun with overall.
  • This year I also worked to get back in the reading habit.  Discovering the ease of e-books and how easily I can adjust font, size, color, brightness is fantastic.  Books are now accessible to me once again, which makes me beyond thrilled.  As such I’ve curled up with many new titles this year, both fiction and non.
  • I continue to enjoy writing this blog, reading the blogs I follow, and discovering new blogs to read.  Its been grand this year connecting with more bloggers!

 

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On to 2018 –

I don’t set new years resolutions or goals.  For no reason other than doings because of an arbitrary date on the calendar doesn’t make sense to me.  So my plan for 2018 is to continue exploring what works for me, my family, and my life.  As we say in dog training, “dogs do what works.”  My continued plan in 2018 – do what works, stop doing what doesn’t.  Simple as that, right? 😉

Happy New Year Folks!

 

Pawtraits

06 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by Katrin in Dog Behavior, Dog Training

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Dog Training, Dogs, fun, games, happy, husbandry skills, silly, teaching, training humans

For the past few weeks for an hour each week I’ve been teaching a group of friends and their dogs.  They all came into the group with varying yet similar goals and have made awesome strides over the weeks.  And I’ve been having great fun with them all!

One of the goals many of them had was to work with improving their dog’s skill and comfort with body handling, everything from nail trimming and grooming to being petted.  And through various exercises including targeting, stays, engagement and such they’ve been improving immensely.  Last night building on the various successes they’d been having, we did a really fun Pawtraits exercise.  We were all laughing, it was great fun!

What are Pawtraits?  Simple really- traced outlines of your dog’s paws or other body parts.

IMG_1839

Traced dog feet & other body parts in purple & green magic marker

So in order to trace your dog’s body part on a piece of paper 2 things have to occur- the body part has to make it onto the paper, and has to stay on the paper long enough for it to be traced.

For those 2 things to occur a dog has to-

  • Be willing to have a piece of paper under their body part
  • Be willing to stay still
  • Be willing to stay still as a person reaches to their body part with a writing implement
  • Be willing to stay still as a person traces around their body part with said writing implement

Those things are really really hard for many many dogs!

Ideally we want to do this exercise with the dog as relaxed, comfortable and willing as possible.  And there are loads of ways to approach that.

I was super impressed and proud of my students.  It was awesome to see how much the work they’ve been doing with their dogs over the past weeks made Pawtraits doable and super fun.  We ended up with outlines of front feet, back feet, tails, ears, legs and more.

Hearing people recognize for their dogs-

“You’re right, this marker is really smelly, here let me change to a different one to make this easier for you.”   (ie recognizing their dog was uncomfortable and problem solving why, then changing to make it more successful)

“Hmm, let me think about how to get your ear traced…” (ie developing a plan before attempting)

“I think a down stay will make tracing your rear feet easier, let’s try that…” (ie thinking about skills they and their dog had in their toolbox and experimenting which ones would be most successful)

Made my face hurt I was smiling so much!

 

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