Dyl was fantastic in training this week. I’d be dancing if I knew he was going to run like that in competition, because it really was brilliant! Super smooth, super fast, and just smoked everything. We played weaves and jumping, and left the contacts alone for another week. I know I’m going to regret that (we really need to do some dogwalk training especially) but there’s only so much we can focus on in 45mins.

I did some weave games, since he popped those last two poles at the weekend, but I couldn’t get him to break out. He was also nailing his offside entries, even at 90-120, which was pretty awesome to watch. I’ve been quietly niggling at that one for a while, and I love it when the work pays off. By the end of the night I was sending him to 90 angles from around 20ft away, which was fun and meant I could be lazy.

We had some straightforward jumping sequences, and we also had a slice grid set up (which is now my new favourite exercise. It’s so much fun watching the dogs figure it out!). We worked the slice grid first, since I know this is something we have a problem with anyway. Dyl jumped it initially as he tends to in competition; cautious, tucked, collected strides. He got more and more confident every time, until the 5th time around when he blazed through, just as confident as Kim if not quite as smooth. He’s not fully extending over the angle yet but he was clearly figuring out what needed to go where and adjusting to it.

Same story with everything. Lots of lovely extended jumping, twisting into his wraps and actually moving with complete confidence and pace, and the more we did the smoother and more fluent Dyl’s jumping got. I can see a couple of lingering issues even when he’s moving and jumping as well as he is, and I think that’s probably the genuine source of his problems. He misjudges takeoff points occasionally, but because he’s rolling he just throws a massive jump in and stretches to clear it. I am currently theorising that in competition, because he’s not moving as fast, he doesn’t have the momentum to throw those big jumps in and save himself, so he instead he slams on the brakes, throws another stride in and then pops over. That would account for his over-collection on the ground and his compacted appearance when he’s jumping. I like this theory, it feels about right, but I have no idea how to improve it. More work needed, I think …

There’s been loads of talk recently on almost every forum and blog I visit about dominance theory, behaviourists, clicker training. I think most of it has kicked off from the Cesar Milan tour in the UK, which has brought him into the sights of people who don’t normally talk about him. I don’t much want to talk about Cesar Milan either. He doesn’t do anything for me, but I don’t watch his shows and I try to avoid the online clips. But reading all these threads and posts has got me thinking, and in some cases left me a little uncomfortable. Maybe I’m just reading it wrong, maybe I don’t understand. (That’s perfectly plausible!)

I’ve read some really passionate arguments demolishing dominance theory recently. I don’t buy dominance theory, so that’s great! A lot of it focusses on clicker training, and again, great! However — and maybe this is just the way they’re choosing to present examples – most of the clicker training, (or even just the non-dominance training), outlined by people seems to suggest that it should be approached as a clinical exercise, between trainer and dog, even when free-shaping.

That’s what makes me kind of uncomfortable. The detached way people assess their dogs, look at training as a kind of curious, scientific interaction between human and dog. Or that you should approach it as a meeting between strangers. And the one that really bothers me; if isn’t done right, you will ruin your dog forever. If you make a mistake, or punish your dog with a verbal correction, it will ultimately be the cause of your dog’s spiral into depression and perhaps death. (Ok, perhaps I exaggerate. But that’s what I was beginning to feel like!)

Allow me to establish that I don’t think my dogs are people; I know that they’re dogs, a completely different species who don’t work like we do. I can see that they do manipulate us for their own selfish needs and wants, and I don’t think my dogs feel the same way I do about … anything!

But. The but! I don’t want to own dogs as a training exercise. I stopped reading all those long threads and passionate arguments. I made a conscious decision that I don’t want to know. I like making mistakes, I like figuring it out. I don’t think my dogs suffer for it. I do think that sometimes my dogs are naughty, and it’s not because I’m a bad trainer, it’s just because they’re feeling playful and silly and don’t want to concentrate. I think sometimes they are over-exuberant or over-cautious because they’re feeling that way out, or perhaps because it’s in their personalities to approach things in such a way. Sometimes, when I’m clicker training, I’ll make a negative verbal “ah!” sound, which doesn’t appear to have turned any of my dogs into neurotic, stressed or anxious dogs (I swear Dyl was like that when we got him!)

So if I don’t comment on your blog post, or reply to your thread on whichever forum, please don’t worry. I know I usually write long, argumentative, opinion-based rants, but I am actually healthy and happy, because I’m giving this one a miss.

It feels like this week has just flown by. I’ve been out every evening from Monday to Thursday, at work all day, and pre-occupied making decisions about other people’s dogs. I’ve been neglecting the dogs I do have, and I felt very guilty about it, so we had a fun hour playing some clicker games this evening, which we don’t do nearly as often as we used to.

Kim worked on her “fetch the cauldron” trick. Kim is a little witch, so she needs a cauldron! We made huge progress on this today, she went from being a little bit hesitant to being totally confident and throwing the cauldron across the room at me. Not quite what I was aiming for! We chilled that down a bit, and she’s fetching it nicely. The only problem I’m having is that the handle is very thin plastic, and it’s a bit sharp on her gums, so she’d prefer to pick it up by the rim. I’ll try and fleece-line the handle for next time, so she has something to grip.

Dylan worked on putting toys in the cauldron. He too would prefer to throw it across the room at me, but we made a tiny bit of progress. Dylan’s fetch wasn’t very strong a couple of months ago, but we’ve been working on it and he will now bring things right to my lap, which is good! Getting them in the bucket is a bit more difficult, but we had a better hit rate towards the end.

I love watching both dogs getting annoyed when they’re working with the clicker. I know that’s a naughty thing to say! But it makes the pay-off for both of us so much more rewarding. Kim is always frowning when she’s figuring something out, you can see the cogs whirring away, but she goes all sparkley when she figures something out, all excited and happy and barking at me in her smiley voice. She likes it complicated, she wants something to puzzle over. Dylan, on the other hand, is always impatient and huffy when he’s doing something new, he makes lots of noise and complains a lot. I always have to break it right down for Dyl, he gets too annoyed about complicated things. He reacts differently when he eventually gets it right too, by just relaxing and offering it again and again. I don’t think the tension (pressure?) he feels when he’s working on something is entirely negative, he doesn’t shut down or give any stress signals. He just finds it frustrating!

Looking forward to tomorrow, flyballing at Doncaster, and then my month of agility which I’m very excited about! I have four shows, and am running three dogs, although thankfully not all at the same competition! I have Dylan and Katie’s lovely Jet at Waldridge Fell, and then Dylan and my lovely Kim at Newton Heath. Should be fun!

I was stood in a field at 9:10am this morning, setting up flyball jumps and holding a tape measure on the snow covered ground. The weak winter sun was just coming up over the bare frozen trees, and all the sensible people in England were in bed, warm and snuggley and not losing touch with their extremities.

Here are my reasons.

At 10:30am, I was beginning to think my reasons were bloody stupid.

Some other people turned up too, and some of their reasons looked pretty daft as well.

Still, we didn’t leave until my fingers and toes had actually servered all contact with the rest of me, with my other limbs seriously thinking about going the same way.

I then had 20minutes at home to begin thawing out before I was whisked away to begin re-freezing, whilst doing the results for the annual Holmfirth Harriers Tinker Cup Handicap, which I do every year. I finally got home at 5pm. The dogs have spent the afternoon in their nice, warm, snuggley beds asleep. My jealousy knows no bounds.

I don’t do cold. Please can we have summer back?

More photos on Flickr … http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayanem/

This is what we worked on at training this week. It was fun! It was also not intended to be as difficult as it was; on paper, we thought it was pretty simple, but then we all tried it and suddenly it was not quite so easy.

Everybody initially ran it with the handler basically stationary at the top wing of 2, pushing out to 4 and then bringing the dog across your feet to 5 and then pulling back for 6 and wrapping the right wing of 6 to the weaves. This method? Did Not Work. Nobody managed to successfully pull their dog through the gap smoothly. The back of 2 was just way too tempting, and there was no good way for the handler to block it off clearly whilst stood on the bottom side of 5.

We all stood and frowned for a while, so Emma and Bailey went and did it perfectly so we all hated her for a while. Why would you want a Medium dog with amazing weave entries and 100% running contacts who can turn really tightly without losing any speed? We couldn’t fathom it either, but there you go.

The next attempt was to handle 1-2-3 the same way, but to step through the gap and front cross to flip the dog over 4 to 5. The back of 2 immediately stopped being tempting and none of the dogs took that one, but Dylan really struggled to turn wrap the left wing of 4, so we sacrificed a lot of speed to keep the turn tight.¹ (Emma and Bailey did it this way too, perfectly. We hated them some more). At this point, we also decided that flicking the dogs around the far wing of 6 was quicker when handling on the top side.

Cue lightbulb moment.

Third time lucky … 1-2 with the dog on the right, turn to pull them through to 3, front cross to take them over 4. Wrap the dog around the right wing of 4, bring them back alongide 4 and then flick them out for 5 and 6 and away. Everyone sees the light. It’s the longer way around, but it was so much faster and smoother.

No one had any problems with the weave entry, which was good!²

¹This is my fault. I have been trying to teach Dyl to wrap wings ala Silvia Trkman for months, and we fail. Dyl is afraid to turn his body mid-air in case he falls over (or even worse, knocks a pole). I’m working on it, I promise!
²I call these soft sided weave entries. Apparently they are also called flat weave entries?