Soul Work

"Without thought or effort, I could find the cool white space within myself where no ego existed, where I had a goal but also no goals at all, where there was only the dog who accepted my invitation to dance, and the world fell away." 

-Bones Would Rain From the Sky, Suzanne Clothier.

When I read those words in Bones, I was huddled on a foot stool at work during a lull in activity, reading my time away.  My throat choked up and tears flooded my eyes as those words slammed into me.  That is what I want.  That is what it is all about.  I felt like I needed to hide in a bathroom somewhere and sob. (I am a very outwardly stoic, yet inwardly emotional person.)

My attitude towards training has shifted dramatically of late.  With Ein I was so excited by all that my little red dog could do, so excited that we could go to Real Trials and perform!  Earn titles and ribbons!  This was amazing to me and the trials were the absolute most exciting part of what we were doing and learning together.  And I still love trials, if you can't tell.  There is no way I would rather spend my day -  not even hiking.  I love dogs, I love to people watch, and I love taking my dog into the ring.  I love to work agility trials, I love to watch new teams play - and the older seasoned pros turning out a gorgeous performance that I can only dream of, I love the network of friends that I am meeting.  I love this new life, this dog life.

But no longer am I madly grabbing up any opportunity possible to trial.  With all three dogs I raced headlong into trials before any of them were entirely ready. (Though the strength of the bond between Ein and I took us very, very far.)  And I am probably still doing that, especially with Molly's agility trials.  (And mostly because I feel that agility trials are an enormous learning opportunity for both Molly and I - and did I mention that I love trials?)

But I want to do Rally Advanced with Perri - but for now I'm just enjoying training heeling, pivots and all the foundation work and confidence building exercises.  Laughing, smiling, perfecting and enjoying every minute of it.  Rally Advanced is not going anywhere.  Going to class weekly is now our own personal trial.

I have Ein and Perri entered in a WCR trial (RLV and RL1) in April.  I thought so very wistfully of attempting some QQ's with Molly at that trial.  The old thoughts flooded back, "I'm already going to be there!  Just go for it!  She can do it!"

Molly could probably get the QQ's, she could get the points.  But I don't want her to just have her ARCH.  Just having the letters and the ribbons don't mean so much to me anymore.  I want us to have fun earning it.  I want to train her for it, I want to dance with her.  It is a complete disservice to Molly's bold personality and heart to not showcase her best traits at a trial.  And we certainly did not do that at the trial in February.

All of the time at home we are doing mini training sessions, me and all of my dogs.  It is how we play - and they fight over it.  I have to put a gate up to keep the non working dogs separated.  (just today Molly showed me that you can't keep an agility dog behind a stupid gate.  Leap!)

And the world and ego falls away and we dance.  We laugh, our tails wag and we learn together, we belong to each other.  We take our baby steps and we enjoy our journey in that sweet, cool white space.  I love this dog life so very, very much.

Molly's first session on "finding heel".

Perch Work With Perri (Video)

I really wanted to make a video of Perri's progress this evening, so I did!  This is her at her finest: confident and happy!  I am terrified I will never ever be able to get her to behave this way in the ring and that is ridiculous.   But here it is.  A little building block that I am very proud of.

Motivating Perri

It seems like forever ago that I decided to abandon lure-based heelwork training in favor of Silvia Trkman's clicker and perch-work based method for Perri.  I have not been the most diligent when it comes to Practicing Everyday, I will admit that.

But over the last two weeks, and especially over the last week I have been trying so hard to work with Perri at least once if not twice every day.  But Perri does not always want to work with me.  

After Ein's anxiety and Molly's wildness, Perri seemed like a dream to me.  But I am getting to know this curly dog, and it's not always easy.   Ein?  Pretty consistently will work work work for Bil Jacs and my approval.  Molly?  Will work for absolutely anything and until the end of time.  She is not afraid to be wrong.

Perri is absolutely not a confident dog.  I think that "this too shall pass", but in the meantime it is my job to build that confidence.  Perri definitely seems to enjoy perch training, but only sometimes.  And if I raise the criteria?  Oof.  That is very overwhelming for Perri.

This all comes to mind because Perri has been doing great with her perch work, and I finally got her to rotate around the perch in both directions.  I decided that it was time to add a new challenge...Finding My Leg.  Perri would have to rotate counter clockwise until she comes to my left leg (in the beloved Heel Position that I am dying for her to love.) and that gets her a click.  We stepped up (literally) to this new challenge two days ago.  Perri was so overwhelmed by my standing next to her perch instead of a foot away from it that all she would do was sniff the surrounding area obsessively on our first session.

I am getting better at just putting my toys away and trying again later when it comes to Perri.  Molly may be maddening in a dozen ways, but if there are edibles to be earned, that girl is THERE.  And I have been spoiled by that.  My dogs challenge me in new ways all the time, and I never imagined that Perri would add a third dimension to that so thoroughly.   But there it is.  As much as I've always called Molly a frustrating pain in the ass button pusher, she completely caters to my "drive it into the ground" personality when it comes to working towards goals.  Perri?  Slow and steady wins the race with this girl.  I have recently seen at least three different dogs belonging to friends of mine whiz past where Perri is progress-wise on their perch work, and that has been hard for me.  We have to take everything super slow because Perri just isn't willing to offer and offer behaviors because she Might Be Wrong.  Some days, some sessions, I may only get one or two clicks into Perri before we have to quit for the day.  End on a good note.  Short but sweet.  That's tough for me. (A new game that we are going to pursue is "101 Things to Do With A Box" so that Perri can grow more confidence-wise when it comes to shaping.) 

The other thing I am learning about Perri is that her motivation is all over the place.  She definitely enjoys toy and play rewards more than food rewards.  Off the subject of perch work, I reward her purely with her squeaky tennis ball or tug toy in agility - and she has improved a whole lot since that.

Just in the last week Perri has alternated between wanting to work for: her squeaky tennis ball (number ONE reward, usually.), her destuffed crab toy, grilled chicken, pomegranate sorbet, running around the yard with me, meatballs or hot dogs.  It's a lot of work, sheesh!
If I don't find the correct motivational object, or choose the wrong time of day temperature-wise, Perri is simply not into it.  That piece of mulch needs sniffing, thank you very much.

It's a learning journey.  But just tonight Perri was wild working on her perch, finding my leg and smiling at me for just the joy of chasing her squeaky tennis ball.  Tomorrow it may not be that simple.   But tonight I ended our work with her wanting more and both of us having fun, and those aren't bad goals to work towards.

We have an Obedience Fun Match this Sunday and I am looking forwards to it.  We have been working hard on Recalls and hand-signal-only Right Finish and I am eager to see how she will handle those exercises during the "stress" of a match.  

"I'll get there when I get there.  And I will be awesome when I do."