Golden Retriever Dog Forums banner

Training Accountability - Jan 13 thru Jan 19

4K views 74 replies 10 participants last post by  quilter 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
I love the title Kate picked so thought I would repeat it :)

This week I have agility on Wednesday, Faelan and Brady will probably be getting on the training bus a few days and various other plans. Focus for the week

Get back to our hikes since it is now light around 6:45

I am starting a few new classes - Fit to be Tricked and a class for focus and drive.

Plus my usual agility and obedience training. Casey is now happy and demanding of his training time so whatever hump he was having has been resolved and I have my happy Casey back.

Brady will have more work with jump bumps and he started wait last night.

ETA: Ms Towhee (finally) came into season so will be enjoying the pampering she'll receive at Spa Barb for the next 3 weeks or so.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Megora and Nairb
#2 ·
This is a super exciting week for me. Agility class starts back up Monday night, and I have an agility private on Saturday.

It has been over a month, probably closer to 6 weeks, since I have actually really trained, and I am very excited to get back into it. Not only did I have a long time off from training because of the holidays, but I also had a big health scare. Luckily thanking God, I do NOT have liver cancer, it is just a hemangeoma(I have thousands of dollars of tests to prove that), my only issues are gallstones, aging female issues, and elevated cholesterol:D. I also rearranged my priorities during my time off from training, and am now only training Filly, and just in agility. Rivet is now my son's pal, and my husband's hunting dog. My house is cleaner, and more organized, I am making better use of my time, and able to spend more time with family now that I am doing less running with the dogs. I think it will really help me be more successful with Filly now that I am only focusing on her, and in just one thing. I also plan to do some hiking with her this year!! I am very excited to see what 2013 brings!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nairb
#9 ·
. . .
It has been over a month, probably closer to 6 weeks, since I have actually really trained, and I am very excited to get back into it. Not only did I have a long time off from training because of the holidays, but I also had a big health scare.
Nothing like a serious health scare to help you recalibrate your priorities. Glad things turned out ok.
 
#3 ·
Susan - Yikes!! That is a scary time you have had but thanking God too that many tests proved otherwise. I went 7 weeks while they did all kinds of scans, tests etc so determined I must have cancer that they missed a ruptured appendix although the signs were fairly classic :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nairb
#4 ·
They missed a ruptured appendix? Wow, that is scary! Good thing you are ok!! That is the first thing they checked(CT scan) on me last summer, before they found out I had a ruptured ovarian cyst. I can't believe they didn't rule that out on you first:(
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nairb
#6 ·
No. If it is a stand stay paw movement is scored, and on the sit stay, depending on how much they move and who the judge is it might be scored, but in both cases only as points off, not as an NQ
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nairb
#7 ·
I've been getting lazy, only doing articles once a week, but with trials coming up I need to do them at least 2-3 times during the week.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stretchdrive
#17 ·
I brought the articles in for the first time in about two months, and did a 17 article pile. Three sends, all successful.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stretchdrive
#10 ·
We have been concentrating on heeling and stays this week, while fitting in minimal work on fronts, finishes, moving downs, etc. This will be the focus for the next few days as well.

-8 F windchill means I moved furniture out of the way, so we could use four rooms and a hallway again. It's a good challenge with a lot of turns.

On the class syllabus for this Thursday: "Intro to off-leash heeling (Light Lines)." I anticipate this will be easy for Bella, since we're already using the light line to practice the figure 8, and we've been doing some slow off leash heeling in the house for at least two months.

My #1 focus for the immediate future will to clean up our heeling. #2 is stays.
 
#11 ·
Nairb, where do you go for classes?

I know what you mean about the cold. I have done a lot of heeling, and other obedience work indoors.
 
#15 ·
It is a great place for run thrus as well, since it is always so busy there on Thursday nights.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nairb
#16 ·
I nearly skipped training today, but between Jacks learning something new and Bertie learning everything, I figured I'd better stick to it. :)

Jacks - his articles were just like yesterday. Very good and accurate until we get to the last 2-3. And then he just starts guessing a little.

He then did stays while I trained - heeling, scoot sits, pivots, stays, watches with Berts. And Stands. He's started to get the stays, even though I can't circle around him just yet. I'm just stepping out in front, praising him, and pivoting back to heel position.

When I began to do treat toss comes, that was WAY TOO MUCH and Jacks broke his stay then. I put him back in a down stay and he got to watch retrieves next. <- I did so knowing that I better finish off with retrieves with Jacks or else he was going to shred toys when I released him. o_O

I played the multiple toy retrieve game with Jacks to finish. I got to work on pivots that way and make sure he only retrieved the toy we were facing.

The really adorable thing is Bertie is starting to figure out how to communicate with us. He came up and looked at me while I was putting my training stuff away. Whenever he comes up in front of me and looks intensely at me, he usually wants something. I asked him what he wanted and he led me right around to the water gallon where I keep it stored outside my room.

I thought that was just adorable<:

Of course when Jacks was the same age, we kept the water gallon on the floor in one of the closets. He went into the closet and picked up the full water gallon by the handle and carried it over to his bowl. Where he started to chew on the cap. <- We intercepted just then, but always wondered if he was going to pour the water next. :)
 
#18 ·
Went to training tonite and Nugget did a fair job other than we were in the open ring and a woman threw her dumbell and Nugget decided he wanted it and got it , then I spent almost 15 minutes trying to get it from him and this was the dog a month ago wouldn't put one in his mouth . Going again tomorrow training but will watch out for others throwing dumbells.


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com App
 
#19 ·
Really quickly.... *tired*

Took both guys to class and briefly got Bertie out for a little training. We did a little "heeling" with him prancing next to me and doing a good watch the entire time. :) Our instructor had me do a couple things and gave me a few tips. Then Berts went into the crate with a chewy and class started.

Jacks really heeled nicely! This was the second class in a row where I left the leash off and on my chair. It was nice not having it around my neck<:

Figure 8 - was perfect, except for me rolling my toes still. :)

We did two moving stands. The first one I tested to see how he would be with just the hand signal without a nose bump. He did stop, but took 1-2 steps. The second one we did a nose bump to stop him immediately. Both stays were absolutely perfect and I did an exaggerated hand signal for the finish to heel.

Broad jumps - we did 3. The first was our usual placed treat for a reminder. The other two were formal jumps. The awesome thing here is that somebody threw a dumbbell about the same time Jacks was jumping the second time. He looked at the dumbbell but did his 1-2 steps beyond the jump and went into his arc back to front.

High jumps - I did 20" jumps with the dumbbell because we haven't been practicing that much at home. And treat tosses for 24" jumps.

Retrieves flat - were fine. We need to work on our fronts with the dumbbells. He was a smidge crooked.

Drops/recalls - We did 2. He dropped both times. The second time a LOT faster. :)

Then we sat and waited for stays.

Stays - I did both out of sight. The sits were especially good because somebody for the next class came in and sat their dog right next to Jacks with their winter coat kinda getting in his space.

Talking with people - I'm REALLY glad I didn't enter Jacks in the big show this weekend. I gave it some thought, even just doing rally with him...

Apparently they are putting the performance type events all together in the same area. So the obedience ring will be right next to the mondo noisy agility ring?
 
#20 ·
Lots of indoor heeling tonight with the light line. it was the best heeling she has done since her beginner class graduation, but to be fair, we practiced 2-4 times a day for a week for that.

2 minute stand stay - had my son pet her on the back.
4 minute sit say.
3 minute down stay.

She hasn't broken a stay since she laid down on the sit stay in class last week, and we've done lots of them. As I said the other day, I jackpot her after each one. The past two days, I have also worked in about 30 seconds of play after each successful stay.
 
#21 ·
I have also worked in about 30 seconds of play after each successful stay.
I had been wondering if that is appropriate. I always reward and praise before releasing Molly from a stay because I was told the stay itself should be rewarded, not the release, so I don't reward stays with play. Only treats and praise before the release.


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App
 
#22 ·
I watched Michael Ellis's video on playing tug this weekend (5 1/2 hours of how to play tug with your dog!) so we've been working on our tug skills the last two nights.
 
#25 ·
Yesterday was the second class of Dog 2. We worked on Leave It, Heel, Recall, Polite Greetings, and play with the box.

Leave It. Casper just wasn't interested in any of the distractions other than the trainer and her assistant. I could barely get him to move towards the toy, ball, or treats provided by the teacher. Very weird.

Heel. Casper did famously! I still say this is loose-lead vs. heeling. He followed at my knee, did left, right, 360, and about turns. He even ignored the trainer while we were heeling. Oddly, he seemed to *enjoy* this activity. As though he knew what was expected and it was low stress.

Recall. The trainer set up a hallway of sorts with xpens. Then the assistant held Casper at one end and I called him to the other end. That went fine. The distraction was the trainer holding a bowl of food halfway down. Ha. It only took once to realize that the dog could not have cared less about the food, but the trainer, yes! But - the second time, he came to me and bypassed her. Yea! I said we were going to quit on that one. Finish on a positive note and all.

Not much to report on the box thing. I had Casper work on standing on the box.

Polite greetings. This is so helpful for us, and will be the most difficult think in the CGC. The plan is for Casper to sit next to me until I tell him Go Visit, and then he can go over the person. Once there, he has to stay sitting. So hard for him! He puts his whole body into it, leaning, squirming, and rubbing.

We have one dog reactive dog in the class. She's doing really well. We also have two birds in the class. Casper hardly notices them!

At home, we're working on Spin, Stand, Stay, and walking. It's been below freezing for a few days now. He's been so good not dragging me across the frozen streets. At least it is not raining. Last week, there was one day when it was 33 and raining. It can't get any worse, because when it hits 32 it snows, and snow is better than rain.

Oh, and he can now walk calmly from the car to the training building. Another huge improvement. Leaving the classroom yesterday, I had him, the gear bag, and the cloth crate, and wasn't in fear of being dragged to the ground.
 
#26 ·
Quilter -- Casper looks so handsome in your sig pic.

The past two days we worked on heeling, Figure 8, retrieves, fronts, stays, and emergency recalls at the park (haven't done that in way too long). Nothing really to say, except I think both her heeling and Figure 8s are getting better. I really have to hype her up for the Figure 8s.. and it's tiring me out! I think I'm overdoing it and I just have to stop on a high note. Her fronts are getting really good except sometimes Molly bumps her nose on my crotch when she comes in (I'm not very tall at 5' 3").

Molly's CGC certificate arrived today. I am SO glad I changed her registered name.
 
#47 ·
Quilter -- Casper looks so handsome in your sig pic.

Molly's CGC certificate arrived today. I am SO glad I changed her registered name.
Thank you! My camera always makes his nose look bigger than his head. (See today's picture.)

Congrats on the CGC!

Last night was the big graduation night. He got a *diploma*. My husband has been teasing me for weeks that only his dog, many years ago, has ever gotten an award. I took his bloodhound mix to obedience class and we got "Most Improved" because I managed to keep the dog's nose off the ground for about one minute after 10 weeks of practice. So now Casper has a diploma, not a mere certificate.

For graduation night, we all tried these exercises:
  • Sit-Down-Sit-Down - Accomplished, though his back end did not stay in one place.
  • Sit with a treat 6" away and owner 2' away - Accomplished. I held the stay too long and he jumped on me when I released him. Lesson learned.
  • Sit-Stay while owner skips 10 feet away and wait 10 seconds - Accomplished. Easy, as we've been working through the Relaxation Protocol by Overall.
  • Heel in three circles while owner carries treat in a spoon with the leash hand - Accomplished the first try. He started jumping around on the second try, and that, of course, was when the instructor was looking.
  • 10 Sits by hand signal only - Accomplished. The main work was getting him back up to sit again. He was in sit mode last night.
Casper's special trick was Back Up. He was pretty excited last night, so I had to ask three times for this usually rock solid command. I've heard it's hard for dogs to do it without barking. He looks like a windup toy when he does it.

And here's a pic:



Today, I took him on a walk around the campus at work. It's a huge place. We have sidewalks, athletic fields, parking lots, and even trails. He did extremely well in the populated areas, not dragging me off to meet people or getting excited and jumping around. A couple of times he tried to go visit, I said Leave It, and he actually did! Such a change from last summer, when he had so much trouble I had to send him back home with my husband before we could even start his walk.
 
#27 ·
Something you can do to help on figure 8's is to release forward to a treat or toy as soon as you take your first step to the outside. It teaches the dog to drive forward on that first turned step, and makes less work on your part.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Vhuynh2
#32 ·
Unless you have a crazily tolerant judge like I did as described earlier in the thread, you are allowed one shift in movement. Most people train their dogs to roll on their hip as they prepare for the down. The idea behind this is because they assume their dog will shift anyway and in theory the most damage will be the dog shifting back to the sphynx position. And in training it buys you time to correct the dog before he has a chance to get up (sit or stand). When you leave your dog in the sphynx position, they are much more likely to just pop up out of that stay before you have a chance to say or do anything to reinforce the stay.

^ Jacks was never able to roll on his hip. I believe it's his insecurity issues (he has to be absolutely relaxed before he rolls on a hip and tucks his paw). I tried putting training him to roll the hip, but I believe it came off to him like I was trying to pin him. So I went without - and sure enough he was my first dog to consistently pop up from stays. For the longest time I couldn't turn my back on him while walking away because he popped up that fast. Rolling on the hip would have bought me a little time to go in to correct....
 
#34 ·
Had a REALLY bad day training this morning if Nugget missed screwing something up I don't know what it was. He again stole a Sheltys dumbell and darn near swallowed it, his fronts and finishes were awful he wouldn't do a go- out heeling and Fiq.8 were less than he is capable of doing so all in all lousy day we should have stayed home


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com App
 
#35 ·
More heeling on the light line in the house, stays and a few fronts and finishes.

The heeling really seems to be coming together. The main issue has always been with Bella looking away. Carrying hot dog chunks in my mouth has helped quite a bit, but she still looks away too much. Tonight, I started off by taking two steps, halt, two more steps, halt, two more steps halt, etc. I probably did that 9 or 10 times...each time dropping a hot dog chunk from my mouth after the halt. This allowed me to keep her attention throughout the entire 5-10 minute heeling session.
 
#36 ·
We didn't really have time to do any training today except for a bit of heeling and marking. Apparently, Molly is going through a false pregnancy. The symptoms are not too severe and it doesn't seem to really be affecting her.. except she's lactating and nesting. She's been really clingy lately as well.
 
#37 ·
Huh. Compared to Open practice, Utility class seems to be both UBER fast despite us really only working on articles and brainstorming the exercise the rest of the time. :)

I guess - we got there early, but the lights were out inside the facility. Turns out I could have just gone in, switched the lights on and played a little more with Bertie... but I didn't know that! I did get a little walking practice in with him. And really just playing with him out on the floor and keeping his attention only on me while we were out there.

Put him away when our instructor came in... and class started.

I asked about peanut butter making the weaning process a bit more complicated. She didn't feel that would be the case. She said that thought that cheese was a stronger smell than peanut butter. Not sure about that. <- Of course I hate the smell of peanut butter. Blech.

I told her we pretty much just worked on week 1 (metal articles, around the clock 1 at a time), but I quickly went to not going in with him and expecting the retrieve.

She approved of me reinforcing the metal articles - she saw what Jacks was doing last week when it came to balking about picking up the metal article. That and I knew he would retrieve the leather articles easily. She didn't approve of me backing off too quickly (vs being right there to catch the collar or be on the spot to correct the dog before he can abandon the retrieve or pick up the wrong article).

When we went out to practice articles - she recommended I skip ahead to week 2.

When I asked about Jacks problems as far as him getting bored by the time we get up to the top of the clock, she suggested putting more articles down on the mat if he can handle that.

I need to read up (class handout) on the following weeks and figure out our training plan. Instructor said to focus on 3 days per week before advancing. I'm embarrassed to say I mainly focused on only the first 3 weeks.

She said that she's never had a class complete the "weeks" by the end of the session, but she thinks that our group has a good chance of being the first.

We did treat toss sits - the idea behind that is to really train the dogs to stop forward motion when they sit - and ohm. This is something I can work on with both dogs. Jacks does do sits on command fairly well (that's not the part of go-outs that causes us problems), but this is a good refresher for both of us. And of course everything is new for Bertie.
 
#38 ·
I was off work today and Jonah and I heeled a little in a parking lot. He looked really nice and even a bit flashy. I'm trying to teach him a new cue for watching me when we set up but I'm not sure if he's getting it. I am blowing out a breath with alot of loud exaggeration in the breath and the correct behavior is for him to look up and focus. I can't say he knows what I want yet but when I blow out and he is looking at me I reward him.
I have a private lesson on Sat. so I hope my new instructor sees improvement.......in me:eek:
 
#40 ·
The last couple of days after training, I reward Bella by letting her chase me around in a circle! Through the kitchen, through the sunroom, through the dining room, and back to the kitchen. This goes on for a few minutes. She can't catch me because I have better traction on the hardwood floor and linoleum. Today, she figured out that all she has to do is turn around and run the other direction.......LOL. On a less slippery surface, I would be toast.
 
#41 ·
We worked on heeling and moving downs at home. Still a little late on the downs. After a few of them she starts to expect it and will slow down waiting for the cue.

In class, we worked on stays with tension on the leash, heeling footwork, and introduced a scenting exercise with lids. We did well except my footwork is terrible. I must've made a complete fool of myself in my past dance classes :eek:.


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top