Day at the Fairgrounds

I have been out of commision for a few weeks because my laptop stopped working. Thankfully it was an under-$100 quick fix that did not involve "your laptop is screwed, better buy a new one." and I'm back in business. (I hate blogging off of my smart phone or tablet!)

So with Molly's toe arthritis and the limited abilities of my three dog team to play agility (simply meaning, I can't do All The Venues All The Weekends! anymore.), I accepted that we would not be visiting the East Freehold Showgrounds for a trial in a long long time. Because: no more lure coursing for Molly and no more outdoor AKC Agility.

So when I saw an all breed conformation show on Memorial Day weekend offering Canine Good Citizen tests, Trick Dog tests and NADD Dock Diving at the Showgrounds, one of my favorite trial sites...I jumped on the opportunity! I had been looking for a trick dog test for my friend's young dog to test for her Novice Trick Dog title, as we had been preparing her for it. And on the flip side, my friend has been teasing me into giving Ein a third try at his Canine Good Citizen test. After all, third time's the charm? Ein has failed the CGC twice. Both girldogs have their CGCs and I attempted to test Ein twice over the years when each girl took her test. First at Molly's test where he failed any step that involved contact with a human, and secondly at Perri's test where he nearly passed except for the grooming step.

We arrived and went to check on the Dock schedule. It was around 930 in the morning and the CGC testing was running from 10-12 so plenty of time there. This was mine and Molly's first time jumping with NADD (North American Diving Dogs) and I learned that this event was being run "cluster style." This meant that if you pre-register for "Splashes", that you have no set time for your jumps. You show up in the morning and write your name into whatever time slots work for your day (to minimize conflicts.) Unfortunately for me, getting there a half hour after the event began meant that there were no available time slots until 1 or 2pm. You know, right when the Trick Dog testing was available. Yay, conflicts!

After that we walked over to the Canine Good Citizen ring and testing was already under way. I got Ein's name on the sign up sheet for his CGC as well as the Trick Dog schedule! Zoe Poodle also got signed up for her Novice Trick test. I felt a little nervous going into the test, mostly because of the Grooming step. Ein accepted a friendly stranger, sat politely for petting and grooming. The tester was very respectful and let Ein get to know her and approached him from the side and let him sniff the brush. She also asked him for his paw rather than taking it (upon my request. Ein has arthritic feet and he is happy to "shake" when asked.) Loose leash walking and walking through a crowd, no problem! Sit, Down, Stay and Come - no problem! Reacting to another dog (ignored her!) and reacting to distractions (wheel cart rolled by him and clipboard dropped, he glanced at the distractions but back at me.) And finally Supervised Separation, she kept him in the ring and I walked up through the breed rings for three minutes during that time. It is official, The Finest Einest CGC!

After the day's first victory, we returned to the car camp and put Ein in his crate for a rest. Now it was Zoe's turn for her Novice Trick Dog. Since Zoe has previously passed her Canine Good Citizen, for Novice she had to do five tricks. (If the dog has no CGC they must do 10 tricks from the Novice list.) Zoe did: Shake Paw, 4 Paws on Platform, 2 Paws Up, Get in Box and Spin. What I just love about AKC's trick dog program is how it encourages people who may never have done a competition with their dog or who are too intimidated by obedience or rally-o to get out there with their dog, train tricks and earn a title. I love it. That was exactly the case for our friend's Zoe and Mary, the Novice Trick Dog title tested them on skills we have been training and the challenge was accessible to them. Really exciting!

The dock diving schedule was running late so we decided to try to get Ein in for his Trick Dog tests.
I chose to do the Novice, Intermediate and Advanced levels with Ein. What a busy day!

Once again, I have been so excited to do AKC's Trick Dog testing with Ein since I heard of it. I did the mail in titling with Do More With Your Dog with Perri, and she has her Novice and Intermediate titles, but it was so much more appealing to me to go in person with my dog and show off the tricks.
For Novice, since Ein passed his CGC in the morning, he only had to do 5 Tricks. We did: 2 Paws Up, 4 Paws on Platform, Hold It, Shake and Hand Target. 

In Intermediate, things got a little intense! The tricks that went according to plan were: Balance treat on nose, Fetch it (dumbbell), Game (Manipulate puzzle toy or kong), Hand Signals (Sit, Down, Come), Leg Weave, Roll Over, Handlers choice "Heeling with AutoSit", Handlers Choice "Right and Left Finishes").
The tricks that did not go according to plan were that I was planning on using Ein's dumbbell carry for the "Carry" trick - but the tester would not allow me to use any object but a basket. So that was out, as Ein had not generalized his object hold to a basket. I wanted to do "Catch" instead, where the dog must catch a treat or a toy but geriatric Ein has lost his ability to catch so that was a total fail. The tester was very kind and told me to go take a break with Ein and return with a trick we could do. Ein was getting hot and there were people waiting for their turn to do their tricks so, this was a good thing.
I couldn't believe it - one trick away! I was totally flustered. Mary and I went back to the car, gave Ein some water and I petted him and told him he was a good boy. I tried to get him to carry the basket, there was lots of attempts to revive his ability to catch treats and Ein was happy to eat all 400 treats I threw at him but his skills grew no more reliable. We tried "Crawl" but with Ein's hips as they are, it is too tiring for him to go the 5 foot distance required reliably and the tester was by the book. "go Find your handler" was an appealing option but I was told we could not do that since we were in an outdoor ring. We tried to get him to jump through my arms circled as a hoop! Paws up on handlers arm! Nothing! When we were in the ring I tried to get Ein to paw target on a little musical piano, and that would have been a passing trick but Ein just kept laying down on the piano and that was Not Good Enough. I finally had the good sense to get Ein paw targeting and rewarding him like crazy for it, and then we went back into the ring and I asked him to paw target on the $%$&!!! toy piano and he did it and we finally passed the Intermediate Trick Dog. Whew! It did me a heckin concern!
Comparatively, Advanced was a breeze. Ein did Back Up, Circle Right and Left, Turn on pressure activated light (with the paw target again!), Play Dead (Bang!) and Down at a Distance of 15 feet (verbal or hand signal only.)

CGC, Novice/Intermediate/Advanced Trick dog. BOOM!

And all that remained was the blissful relaxation and no-thinking joy of Molly's dock diving! It has been almost two years since Molly has gotten to dock dive at an actual competition event, and she was cranked to the max! She was so frustrated having to wait she latched onto my leg and tried to hump me a few times. Oh my! Molly had her first two jumps with NADD, in the senior range with a 15'6 and a 15'.

So I got my Freehold showgrounds fix for the year and a well rounded day for all! Only Perri was left out of the action. I am curious about getting her up on the dock to see if she is brave enough for a leap but the day was far too busy for that. I am planning on some more NADD events later in the season and they do allow "Try Its" with a second dog on the dock, so that is going to be a very good way for Perri to get acquainted with jumping. And as far as the Trick Dog titles, I can grandfather Perri's DMWYD Intermediate title so she can go straight to testing at the Advanced level. I will look forward to a future event with her! Not that Perri minded coming along for the ride and being support staff, she is always happy in that role.

Tissue!

Perri and I loved shaping the "fetch a tissue" trick this evening.  She was so adorable initially, she kept trying to tap the box with her paw or would pick the box up with her mouth.  I took the box away and we worked with a single tissue until she got the idea and from there she made quick work of it.  Even Husband Vince had to admit that it was cute.

I know I am very emotional about my dogs' progress but I really had a moment of joy when I realized how Perri and I worked for a little while on this trick and she did not shut down or disengage on me.  I think it's awesome that she just wanted to keep working!

Perri ITD

Earlier this week I was inspired (more details to come.) to finally mail in for Perri's Novice and Intermediate Trick Dog titles.  This year has been about building Perri up, and tricks were a definite part of that groundwork.

For Perri's Novice Trick Title we had to do 15 tricks chosen from the list provided on the application.  I made a little compilation video of the 15 that I chose.  Video editing and creativity is not my strong area, making these two videos was fun but it felt like a very enormous project.  Ha!

For Perri's Intermediate Trick Title we had to do 10 tricks "of intermediate level or higher".  We did 6 tricks in the intermediate category, and then two in the advanced category (Back Up, Scratchy Board) and one in the Expert category (Weave Poles.)  I also made a little video compliation of those tricks.  The weave pole clip is from a trial and hopelessly far away, but believe you me.  Perri does her poles!  If only I had the motivation and the intelligence to move a better clip of this from my laptop back onto my iPad.  Oh well...

The next level of trick dog titling is Advanced Trick Dog.  At this point Perri does not know enough of the tricks on the Advanced or Expert list to qualify.  She will need to learn five new tricks to do so.  My goal is: Turn Off the Light Switch, Cross Paws, Bring Tissue (Fetch Only), Act Ashamed (Hide Your Head) and Play Dead.   We are actually finished with play dead aside from needing to put it on cue - I think that one will be quite a hit on our therapy visits!  (Directed Retrieve is also on the Advanced Trick list.  I think it goes without saying that I would love for Perri to feel more confident with the dumbbell.  All in good time.  I think that revisiting picking up different objects with her mouth will help us in the right direction!

I have to laugh about Play Dead.  Ein knows it as "Bang!" with a hand cue of me pretending to shoot him with a finger gun.  But Ein always had very dramatic deaths.  Slamming onto the ground with several rolls away from me and growling all the way down to his grave.  Not going down without a fight!

Tricks for Bored Pitbulls

Molly's agility class was cancelled tonight for a club meeting - not that she would have been able to attend anyway with the condition that her toenail is in.

This sucks.

Molly is starting to brim over with very irritating energy.  Her week typically consists of agility class, agility trials, sleeping, hiking and 1000mph fetch.  The past week has consisted of licking her foot, sleeping, licking her foot some more, sleeping some more, annoying Ein, licking her foot...you get the idea.  I never make enough time to play trick training so tonight I decided to just play around and work Molly's brain, since that is always a good way to whittle her Annoying Factor down a few notches.

We just played "You put this object into this container.", I have been wanting to get started on that with Molly for a while.  The video is Molly's second session of the evening.  We worked on it, then I did some house cleaning to give her a Thinking Break, and then we came back to it.  Molly loves anything involving the earning of food, her tail did not stop wagging!  She tried to pick the bowl up quite a bit...nope!  Try again, Molly!

Building a Brave Dog with a Hula Hoop?

On the way home from yesterday's Fun Run, I stopped and bought a hula hoop.  My plan was to make a sort of "tire" for Perri to practice jumping through, since she seems to have forgotten what the tire is.

I brought our new hoop inside the house though and decided to acclimate her to it first and build up her confidence by getting her to walk through it, and eventually jump through it (with either me holding it, or with it mounted on some jump standards.)

Ein and Molly were ecstatic about it and were willing to race through it for treats.  Perri took one look at it and looked horror struck.  I went to pet her and she stood up and laid her head on my chest and sighed.  What was that about?

I pulled out one of her squeaky tennis balls and did some throws through the hoop to encourage her to try it out.  She did!  Perri was nervous about it and would approach it slowly and then race through it quickly to get her ball.  We ended on a good note last night.

Today I got the hoop back out and she approached it more eagerly and was actually offering me some walk-throughs instead of being lured with her ball.  Progress!  Another fun little trick to work on together.  It helps a whole lot to have Ein to look at.  Looking at Ein is looking at the future.  Ein would have been terrified years ago to do a simple hula hoop run through, but these days he could not care less.

Monday Progress Note?

Autumn is my favorite, favorite time of year.   Molly and I had over an hour of time to kill before agility class tonight, so we went for a walk on the newish trail near the training center. (and, found a geocache!)

Her behavior was absolutely terrible.  Leash pulling and reactive, my favorite!  I have Molly to the point where she will focus on me if I ask her to, or will stop leash pulling when I stop walking, but her manners leave much to be desired.   Ah well.  She's a work in progress.

We still had a very nice walk together!

Big Leaf.

Agility class was fun.  I think that I am starting to relax a little bit and trust Molly (in classes at least.)  We did some long lead outs and she held her start line stay really well.   She handled some tricky-ish jump sequences really well.  She did not blow contacts.   I totally forgot to do a cross when I was supposed to and messed us up.  She forgave me.

And really cool moment, Molly did a 12-weave sequence fast and without popping out.  CUE THE PROUD.  I paced with her and kept an eye on her out of the corner in my eye.  Tried to stay a little ahead of her but not race away and she stuck in.   That didn't work the second time but oh well.   Once again, we are learning to dance with one another.  Molly has a hard pace to learn.

We had a good time!  And we are back to trialing this weekend and I am very excited about that!

At home Perri and I worked on her weave poles and retrieve shaping.   I let Ein hang out with us while we did so and it seemed to bolster her confidence.   Perri did very nice weave poles tonight, but she still seems to think the dumbbell might electrocute her if she bites it.   We will get there.  My good friend told me that animals learn at their own pace and are oblivious to my goals.  True.  Perri can only work at her own speed and I may as well learn to have fun along the way.  Confidence building is our friend.

We also played around with some single jump exercises since Perri was a bit nervous about jumps again in last week's class and she did well with that also.  Poodle was in a good mood tonight, and so was I!

And Ein got rewarded for being a buddy to Perri, I have started playing 101 Things to do with a Box with him because he just loves to work.   He thinks its great!   I'm having a tough time finding a large enough box that he can step into with those stubby legs but we are just playing around and having fun.  Oh how his tail nubby wags!  I love this guy.  I am as ever amazed at how his confidence has grown during the last year.  

Trick Pudelhund

Perri and I have NOT been grinding into the Obedience training.   I am giving us both some breathing room.   Perri has a test with a Therapy Dogs Incorporated tester on Tuesday and if she passes she will officially and finally be a therapy dog.   Another thing that we have started this week is trick training!

Every single thing I have taught Perri has been purpose driven towards sports - be it rally-o, obedience or agility.  I have underestimated how shy and sensitive she is.  Perri is the first of my dogs that I have really embraced clicker training with - but even then it was perch work only because I wanted her to heel for the obedience ring.  I am taking a step back, taking it down a notch and teaching Perri some tricks! (Just like Silvia Trkman suggests!)  Perri's confidence and motivation needs to be built up and we need to learn how to have fun together and communicate with one another.  We are also taking an "Introduction to Retrieve" class and I am learning how to shape a dumbbell retrieve with Perri.  She thinks that it is great fun and that it is "just another trick", so we have plenty to keep us busy!

We started with an easy one.   "Shake"!  Since Perri has been so overwhelmed by perch work and I cannot work her very long with that, I thought that this would take a while.  Not so!  She was frustrated but it was not long before she moved her paw a little bit and got a click.  Her head shot up and she gave me A Look.  It was hilarious.   It wasn't long before I got consistent paw movement and by the next day I have a cue on this and reliable performance.  Wheeee, fun!

Serious "Shake!"

Next was "Sit Pretty".  This one wasn't my idea, it was Luna's mommy's.  We had just watched a Silvia Trkman trick DVD and she just started off holding a treat in the air and getting Perri to Sit Pretty for it.  Perri did great albeit with a lot of attempts at jumping up or putting forepaws on the nearest object or human for balance.   The next night when we tackled it at home, it was like she had spent the day practicing it or thinking about it.   Perri gave a few unsteady Sit Prettys and received "jackpot" rewards.   By tonight I have her consistently sitting up and I am putting a cue on it.

Awesome poodle!

Our next project is that I want Perri to smile on cue.  This is tough!  It doesn't occur to her to just bare her teeth.  I am starting by clicking for her licking her mouth, but that happens FAST and I am not the quickest clicker.  I'm getting there though!   I chose to do the mouth licking because often Perri will bare her teeth while licking her mouth.   My hope is that once I get her consistently licking her mouth I will be able to click a grin here or there and she will get the idea.  We will see!

The coolest thing is that I am not training this for any trial.  I'm not burning towards any deadline.  We are having fun together.  I find myself laughing and enjoying my silly girl and already watching her confidence grow after just one week.   Shaping tricks and behaviors is so absolutely beneficial and brave-making for my girl, and I am finding myself more excited about that and therapy work for her than anything else right now.  I just want her to have fun.