Friday, December 23, 2011

Coping with the environment

I am currently in the process of flying across the eastern half of the country towards New Hampshire. As if any has to ask, of course I hated leaving the dogs in Mississippi! I left a substantial amount of instructions regarding their care and, while I am sure that everything won’t be completely according to my directions and plan, I am sure that they will survive until Tuesday morning. The big question is going to be what will Steel be like with basically FOUR days of not doing anything. It is a scary thought as that has never happened before.  Calix will be fine as he will feel more important than ever, with the weight and entire responsibility of the house resting on his broad german shepherd shoulders. Or maybe it will be relaxing for him; he won’t have to keep track of me for four days. I am sure I am out of site/out of mind to him right now as all of his german shepherding skills appear to be visual – I don’t think my being gone bothers him as much as my coming and going and moving in seemingly random directions.
At any rate, as I was making my way through airports I got to thinking about what a challenging dog I would be right now for a trainer. First of all I don’t fly often; the last time I flew (and left a dog overnight for that matter) was when Dugan and I went to California for SAR training. That was in 2006. So I am not exactly a well seasoned traveler. I can get through the airport, because they are relatively idiot proofed, but I have to think my way through the process.
I am also not a big fan of flying.  I once was in an airplane in a thunderstorm (with a tornado nearby but the pilot didn’t tell us that until he had given up trying to land and diverted to another airport). It is not a disabling fear and I know all the stats, safer than driving etc etc, but if I could get from point A to point B WITHOUT being 35,000 feet off the ground I would be happy.
I am also traveling two days before Christmas. I have never left most of dogs overnight before so it was a project getting that organized. Plus doing last minute baking and then stuffing gifts and food into my suitcase (no way does that baby weigh 50 pounds!). So far things have gone smoothly (wishing I could take that thought back as soon as I wrote it, talk about jinxing yourself) however it is crowded. There are a lot of people. Many “festively” dressed (and I use the term loosely). Lots of people traveling with small children.  And lots of people wandering aimlessly around on their smartphones. The guy in the seat next to me actually called someone TWICE after our plane touched down – once to tell them he was on the ground and then again to tell them that we were at the gate.
So here I am, in an unfamiliar chaotic environment, moderately stressed, slightly nervous and trying to use a barely honed unfamiliar skill set. Hmmmm…I wonder why my mind drifts to dog training? I even arrived in the Chicago airport at lunchtime, not having eaten much for breakfast, and found my stomach turning at all the options at the food court. Good luck trying to reinforce me with food!  I feel perfectly normal, I just feel as though I have less brain cells, like I can't focus. I keep feeling I am going to set something down and forget it, like I did with my boarding pass in the Jackson airport. I had big plans to do some educational reading during the trip and even brought paper to take notes. However my brain could barely manage the reader’s digest I bought in the airport giftshop. I even had to bail on Sudoku, as it seemed to require too much mental effort.
If I were a dog I was training I would be suggesting that the trainer either lower the skill set required so I could be successful in the current environment, or move me further away from the stress/distraction or expect a lower than normal level of performance. I guess we are going to have to settle for the third option which would be my last choice for dog training!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Monday, December 19, 2011

Introduction to Obedience Competition Part Three

And finally the Sunday results.....

Sunday I did some more experimenting with Steel. Again he is manageable and other than breaking his stay on Friday everything has been solid. However I am still working on bringing out the flashy animated and attentive heeling I know that he is capable of doing. This time I brought him into the building in the morning, let him look around and then put him away for a bit. We were showing earlier so I had about a two plus hour wait.

About an hour before our class started I did some training in a moderately busy area outside (inside would have been better but I didn't really want to push the limits of the "no intensive training at the show" rule!). I asked him for attention (I have a cue word for this) and then did a short sequence of heeling. However I was pretty firm about the glancing and when I lost attention I would say "no" in a neutral tone and with my left hand move his head back into position. Once I got the duration I wanted I would then treat and release him and allow him a few seconds to look at the world (cue word for that as well). What I was trying to do was to make it very black and white when he could and could not break attention on me but I wanted to do it in such a way that I did not diminish his animation and enthusiasm.  I would rather not do this at all than create a "robot" dog or one who looks worried about making a mistake.  This seemed to work pretty well, at first all I got was attention but then his animation and enthusiasm improved as we worked.

I admit that I did not do as much Sunday with Jill, because she had been so good the previous two days. This was a bit of an error on my part, even though she had worked very well she is still very green and needs more foundation work. Which I knew. I had done very little work on teaching her to sit automatically when I stopped during heeling. This is because her heeling training is still progressing and I wanted to get impulsion and drive for the heeling and then add the sit. I felt, with her eagerness to please, that she would be anticipating the sit and it would inhibit her heeling. So for the sake of the trial, during the warmups I did a bunch of automatic sits for food right before going into the ring. Except for Sunday, when I forgot!. She came to a perfect stop both during her heeling pattern and during the figure 8 and looked at me with her usual adoring expression. Qualifying score but no placement for her!

Then it was Steel's turn. This time I didn't do much with him prior to going into the ring. Just a very brief, treat heavy, warmup near his crate and we went straight in. There was an Open class next to mine and they were all filing by for their sits and downs.  Yikes. Perfect "Steel TV". I got him in position for the heeling pattern and gave him his attention cue word and he snapped to attention. Holy crap! He did the heeling pattern almost perfectly. I lost him a bit on the figure 8 and then the rest of the exercises were excellent. He not only qualified but also managed to squeeze out a fourth place in a pretty competitive class.

Overall, taking into account the newness of it all and where we are in our training for this venue, I was pleased with the performance of each dog. I have a long list of what we will work on if we progress further but I met or exceeded all of my goals for the weekend.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Our introduction to obedience Part 2

I am currently sitting here trying to block out a unsolicited lecture a woman is giving the man next to me. He is struggling with showing his dog, in rally I think, and she is giving some kind of a lecture about establishing his dominance as a pack leader. Seriously? I think a more effective lecture would be for him to praise the dog for something and to actually look at his dog. And how about not wandering all over the venue treating the dog like a piece of furniture. My pet peeve is people insisting on dragging their dog around where ever they go for their own needs, at the usual detriment to the dog's performance. The dog is doing his own thing 99.9% of the time and then they expect him to magically develop attention and focus once he steps over an invisible line into the ring? Unfortunately this lady is so loud I cant tune her out very well. If I look at my screen she wont be able to see me roll my eyes....

Anyhow...back to the results so far.

FRIDAY
Friday was our first day of showing. I experimented with Steel in a couple of different settings. First I set him up where he could see a lot of what was going on. He did not get overly excited by the activity but he watched it ALL closely and with fascination. He never did get to the point where is lost interest for him - it was like a very interesting TV show. I then gave him a period where he was more covered up and couldn't see everything. I worked him for a few minutes after each session and didn't really notice any difference in his level of focus. He was much more focused than he had been Weds and Thurs and gave me some nice heeling in short bursts. Jill pretty much came in the building like she was going to camp. She was content and quiet when kenneled and up and bouncy when she was out. The environment was pretty irrelevant to her, it was still about me and the toy.

After a long day of waiting around, with a few very brief sessions of training,we finally got out chance to show. Jill went first and she was almost perfect. In fact she ended up winning her class! Her heeling could be smoother sometimes but that is a matter of us getting more mileage and learning to work as a team.

Steel was also excellent in the ring. His heeling wasn't bad although not as sharp as usual - we were in the middle ring and there was a lot going on. I guess I was fortunate he could still manage to remember why we were in there! He did great right up until the second to last exercise. He managed to resist the urge to flirt with the figure 8 people, he even managed to keep him feet on the ground during the sit for exam exercise (my biggest concern). He even sat in the middle of the ring and watched me walk all the way around the ring. However when I got close to him on the return the self control was too much for him and he threw himself into my arms. Clearly he was expecting some kind of reward for the amazing amount of restraint he showed letting me get that far away from him. He was like " THAT WAS SO HARD MOM! DID YOU SEE WHAT A GOOD JOB I DID?!"

We then did the matches in the afternoon after the show was over. With Jill I just took her in the ring and did a run through.  After each individual exercise I played with her and threw her ball after releasing her. With Steel I worked more on his heeling and attention in general. He had beautiful heeling in the ring but would start glancing when we got to close to the activity in the other rings. "But mom!! They are throwing dumbbells over there!!"

SATURDAY

Saturday was another similar day of showing. Jill was perfect and AGAIN won her class! She actually looks happier IN the ring than she does outside of it. It was tough heeling pattern, we started halfway across the short side of the ring and did an immediate left turn right after the start. Jill is a long dog and starts off fast so that turn felt a little bit awkward to me. We then had a slow almost immediately after a right turn so it took her about a half a stride too long to go to slow. The rest of the exercises were perfect, she even wagged her tail while waiting for the "exercise finished" following the recall.

Steel managed to keep his wits together enough to qualify without any glaring errors. His attention was not great although he stayed in position for the pattern fine. He sniffed the pantleg on one of the "posts" during the figure 8 and also swung wide on the outside turns so he could gawk at the crowd. He DID however hold his exam and he managed not resist greeting me with enthusiasm after the stay (I could tell he wanted to though). Although I giggle about what a goofy dog he is I also had to point out to his breeder that the list of police patrol dogs who can also compete in AKC obedience is a pretty short! He really is a special dog.

For some reason the show went late Saturday and I was too tired to hang around for the matches. I did some brief work with Steel again working on his focus. I let him watch things and then when he gave me attention asked him for a brief period of heeling (about 3-4 paces) and rewarding him. I am still experimenting with this seeing what works the best - he is easily cued or corrected from being distracted (and by corrected I mean a small movement on his collar, not necessarily a collar correction), the problem is that if I don't cue or correct I don't get the attention I want. I don't necessarily mean to make this sound like a huge problem, he is perfectly manageable but his curiosity about what is going around him prevents him from giving me the performance I know he is capable of. What appears to be working the best is trying to be very black and white about when he can look at "Steel TV" and when he cannot.

So the results so far are 2 qualifying runs for Jill with 2 first places and 1 qualifying run for Crazypants. Given the fact that this is all VERY new to them both, I am very pleased with their work. They each got lots of compliments. Jill and I however did get yelled to for being tardy going back into the ring for the results - she was being visited by a whole family of little girls and I didn't notice we were back in. Rottie PR trumps ribbons everyday though!!

Friday, December 16, 2011

Our introduction to obedience competition....

One of the results of my career change is that my dogs and I are no longer being called out at all hours of the day and night at a moments notice. They still do plenty of work, especially when schools are going on, however they aren't working as hard as they used to in searching and detection. They are however used to being very active and training a lot so I needed to find something else to take up all the copious amounts of spare time we now have on our hands/paws. Sport obedience training at the moment seems to fit pretty well into my schedule, doesn't require a lot of room or logistics to accomplish so I have been fooling around with that with both Steel and Jill for the past couple of months.

Steel, due to his prior training, is a bit ahead of Jill in terms of skill. He is very very flashy and animated and when he is on he is stunning. I get compliments on his work all the time. He is also very interested in EVERYTHING going on around us (ooh look! a squirrel!) and his nickname is "swivelhead".  He is not dog aggressive or unmanageable but he tends to come into a crowded show environment with a swagger as if to say "Anyone else here a police dog? Yea I didn't think so....."  Give a Yngo son a badge and a gun and really, what can you expect??  In addition, all of his prior training has reinforced his being aware of his surrounding and going away from me for reinforcement. So this new training requires A LOT of brain cells on his part! I am still experimenting with what works best management wise for Steel. Does he do better where he can hang out and see what is going on? Is he better somewhere more covered up? Does he need a long warmup or a short one. This is all so different from the way both dogs are used to working (coming out of the car at 100mph with no expectations of self control, just find something as fast as you can even if it takes you hours).

Jill OTOH is Ms. Dependable. She is easy to manage (although she can hear a squeaky toy a mile away).
All she wants is her ball and to make me happy (I am not sure in which order however). She is more business like and serious and her errors are more likely to be bobbles because she is overthinking and worrying about pleasing me perhaps a little bit too much.  She is like me - not being able to practice enough makes her worry. Her work is a little less flashy than Steel's but I would say that she enjoys doing it more, Steel pretty much enjoys what he gets for doing it more.

On a whim I entered them both in obedience trials this weekend. The trials were right here in Jackson so it was easy driving, they offered training matches every night following the shows and they offer a beginner novice class, which is literally the simplest level class there is. So I decided to set the bar very low, give them a shot and see where they were in their training. I also wanted to get them acclimated to the show environment and see how they did.

Here were my goals for the week along with results:

Weds - match only.
Goals: Have fun with both dogs in and out of the rings. Keep things simple. Reward short sessions of attention. Have fun.
Results: Jill was excellent. She was put off by the strange environment for a few minutes (mostly wondering about all the dogs in every direction) and then she worked just like she does at home. She was bouncy and wanted to work for her ball. She had good stamina and didn't get worn out so clearly the environment wasn't getting a lot of her focus. Steel was VERY up initially although he did some nice work in the ring. I had to do a lot of rewarding for his decisions to choose me over the environment and I had to keep the tasks simple and short. Four steps of perfect heeling and treat verse a whole pattern.

Thurs - match only.
Goals: Same as Weds but add more skills to sessions. Run throughs in ring.
Results: Jill was again excellent. Did complete run through with no major issues. The only error was her confusion on if we were doing a sit for exam or a recall because both require me to leave her in a sit and walk away. She still occasionally anticipates the recall and staying so close on the exam prompts her sometimes to start to come to front. I do not correct errors of anticipation, I just don't reward them. It might not matter in sport obedience like it does in my other working venues, but I will not correct a dog who is anticipating what I am going to want, to me that makes no sense at all. Far better to be more clear about what I want, if she were breaking a lot that would be a big clue that I need to back up and lay a better foundation.  Steel was better focuswise than he was Weds night. I did a lot of ringwork with him, just not a runthrough and other than the poodle in the next ring catching his fancy he was wonderful to watch. My biggest concern (huge actually) is whether he can manage the self control to not throw himself at the judge during the exam....

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Monday, December 12, 2011

It's not a drug deal....really

The little female rottweiler puppy looking for a permanent home is on her way to Florida!

Here is how it all worked out, thanks to the power of the internet. I posted her pic on Facebook and Mike, one of my former SAR teammates in Vermont, knew someone in Florida who had just lost her 12 year old rottweiler and she wanted a pup. However she was 13 hours away - too far to drive in one day.

I then posted the dilemma on a private rottweiler discussion forum and Kathy, who had just been in Texas showing her dogs, knew a dog handler headed to Florida. Ashley was leaving this morning from Dallas, headed to Orlando and said she would be happy to pick the pup up on her way through Jackson.

So the pup's "foster mom" delivered her to me this morning and I arranged to meet Ashley south of the city at a Mc Donalds off of the interstate.  I arrived about 20 minutes early and after a few laps of the parking lot (it was also a truck stop) settled in a spot where I could see the exit ramp. I had no idea what kind of vehicle she was driving but I knew it was big enough to hold a lot of dogs - so I was guessing motor home or big van.

I am sitting there with the engine running, watching the interstate, when I notice some activity across the parking lot. Three guys wearing body armour over their civilian (undercover) clothing, firearms in holsters, were walking a handcuffed woman to a nondescript vehicle.

So having been in law enforcement for a while, I got to thinking about my situation....

So you're waiting for a woman to pick up a puppy?
Yes.
Where does she live?
I am not sure....
What is her last name?
I don't know....
What kind of car is she driving?
I am not sure.
Who is getting the puppy?
A woman named Penny who lives in Florida.
Where does Penny live?
Somewhere near Venice....
Have you ever met Penny?
No.
Have you ever met Ashley?
No.
How do you know Ashley?
A woman named Kathy gave me her number.
Have you ever met Kathy?
No.
Is this your puppy?
No. It belongs to a woman I met in a vet hospital parking lot...
Is this your car?
No it's my boss's.

Add that to the scrap of paper with people's first names and random phone numbers on the console and the fact I probably wouldn't be able to find the registration or insurance - I am so stuffed into the back of that camry in handcuffs. I mean seriously, who would believe such a story?? Lucky for me I obviously got there AFTER the undercover surveillance was over....



I am headed to Florida....Lucy is going to jail....


Sunday, December 11, 2011

Amber Update

An update and a little bit more about Amber. She is a 2 year old Belgian Malinois. For those that aren't familiar with them, malinois in general are like german shepherds on crack. They are high energy dogs in a fast, athletic body. Amber is the offspring of two outstanding detection dogs. Her momma, Chuna, lives at the training center and is the boss's demo dog for detection classes. Her dad, Chico, used to live here but is now a drug dog for the Hinds County Sheriff's Department.

Momma Chuna - no she is not ignoring that ball,
she is just waiting until it is EXACTLY on the odor source.
Then this happens....


And Daddy Chico in action....

Amber has lived here at the kennels since she was born. Amber is very sweet and inherited all the socialness of both of her parents. However when she was tested she was much more interested in visiting with us rather than showing any interest in tennis balls. So she was not trained as a detection dog. She also is a bit environmentally sensitive - she has not seen a lot of things and often needs to check them out carefully before deciding that they are harmless. It is hard to know how much of that is because she has not been out in the world too much but there is a definite genetic component to that as well.

Since she was deemed as not having enough drive for detection work (we want VERY high drive dogs for that) the plan was to find a home for her. However that has not happened and since I liked her (I almost took her home as a puppy) I decided to take her with me and my dogs on recent training trip to VA and SC. It was good for her to get some socializing and see the world and my hope was that she would meet someone that would fall in love with her and want her.

My master plan (someone falling in love with her) backfired a little in that I really liked her and everyone who met her thought she should stay with me instead.  Amber didn't really do anything to convince them otherwise. She is pretty reserved with strangers - those of us who know her practically end up wearing her but she is barely willing to take food from strangers. She is a fun little dog though and I have been working her through her environmental sensitivity, she is learning a little bit of agility and obedience and has amazed me with how well she has taken to tracking.

She is still looking for a home but in the meantime I am learning what works best with a shy dog - quite the opposite o what I am used to, which is pushy obnoxious dogs who wont leave people alone! In the next post I will give more details on what specifically I am working on with her.

More of what I am used to! The opposite of shy and reserved!




Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Amazing creativity

I had planned to add another installment with the "critter quiver" in action (for dog training that is, not coyote hunting). However the weather did not cooperate with my plans but I will try to get video soon so you can all see poor Steel's eyes bug out of his head!

Over the weekend I went to a big crafts festival at the fairgrounds. "Crafts" covers a multitude of things, from someone making birdhouses in their garage to people carving beautiful bowls out of wood. This craft festival was a lot of the latter, over 200 amazingly creative people. Lots of jewelry, woodworking, all kinds of pottery and other unique things. It was like being in a museum; especially since most everything was pretty expensive!

However the best exhibit was the artist that created this:


Quite pretty but what is even more impressive is that the whole thing is made of metal, primarily tin and copper and then hand painted. The photos do not do justice to the level of detail in the sculptures. You cant help but touch them and even then it is weird because what you feel in your hand is nothing like you expect. You just can't believe that they aren't real plants.

They were amazing. Here are a few more:





The artist is William Wood, he lives in Clinton Mississippi. Sadly no website otherwise I would post the link.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

The timeclock in his head?

Maybe it is the scientist in me but I find one of the most enjoyable things about dog training is is when the dog does something "wrong" and, as a result, shows me that he is smarter than I thought and that he is doing exactly as I have taught him. Take Steel's training session today as a simple example. He is doing very nice attentive heeling, very animated and prancey with great eye contact. Okay he forges a tiny bit (by AKC obedience rules) and I need to work a little on that before it becomes a habit but his animation is often so beautiful to watch (I mean cars sometimes slow down to watch as they are going by) that I hate to mess with it.

Below is Steel heeling without a major distraction nearby. Please note - Although I am posting this I am well aware that he is not yet "perfect", however I guess that would depend on how I personally define perfect. This is training, training is a process, something to be enjoyed in my opinion. Videotaping is an excellent way for me to determine what I want to emphasize and work on. You wouldn't think I would need to say that but apparently I do....




Since he is getting pretty solid with the behavior and has had a lot of rehearsal time, today I decided to add a distraction. The distraction I used is called a "CRITTER QUIVER". It is basically a battery operated stuffed bunny that sits on a spike and has a little seizure in the middle of the training yard. Yea that's right.... I happened to see it as I was wandering through Dick's Sporting Goods. It is for coyote hunting, presumably the coyote thinks it is a real bunny???

"critter quiver"

Steel quickly reminded me that although we have not done much official sport obedience training, he is well used to distraction training in many other contexts. As soon as he spotted that bunny he was ready to go (those of you have met his father will have no trouble picturing this). However he also immediately saw it for what it was. It was A DISTRACTION. So he did not look at it, he just offered me VERY animated heeling. As if to say "how well do I have to heel to get you to release me to go play with that thing?!" After about 20 seconds of heeling his animation would drop just a bit and he would start making motions to go toward the distraction, without losing eye contact.  Why? Because this is what I had taught him. I have played similar games with him since he was a puppy - asking him for a behavior that required him to ignore what he wanted (person, toy, decoy, food) and then, when he is offering me the behavior that I want, releasing him to go to it. This is how all of his narcotics training has been. I show him the reward object, he finds the narcotics, he gets the reward. See the decoy, ignore it, get released to get a bite.That is the way it has always worked. And, like the rest of us, I am a creature of habit and Steel clearly has an idea in his head of just how long to typically offer a behavior before expecting to get what he wants. Everything in his behavior today told me just how well he understood the game according to the rules that I had clearly taught to him.

As an exercise when teaching I often ask my students to picture what the dog would write if he sat down with a piece of paper and a pen and described the exercise.  Steel's answer to the above exercise would go like this (he would write in bold with all caps and exclamation points because that's the kind of dog he is):

"WHEN I SEE SOMETHING I REALLY WANT, I DO THE BEHAVIOR THAT LUCY ASKS FOR  REALLY REALLY WELL FOR 22 SECONDS. THEN SHE RELEASES ME AND I GET TO HAVE IT!!!!"

I am guessing on the exact amount of time but I bet it is that precise. So you can see the points of confusion in this exercise - I was expecting him to hold the behavior indefinitely and I was not releasing him to the bunny. Was this a major problem for the training? No. It did make me laugh while I was training though when I realized just how well Steel understood the game by the rules that I had taught. And also how well the clock in his head worked. He would do about 20 seconds of prancing heeling with a big goofy grin on his face, then make a motion toward the distraction, then offer about another 20 seconds of prancing heeling (like perhaps I had not noticed the first session), then a motion towards the bunny. It was, to be honest, pretty funny to watch.  It also did remind me though how much dogs can teach us when we look at behavior a little bit deeper and don't immediately assume that they are wrong.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science
,
 the one that heralds new discoveries,
is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!)
 but 'That's funny ...'  -Isaac Asimov

Friday, December 2, 2011

Puppy looking for home!

I pulled into the driveway at home/work (they are the same thing) yesterday after doing some training with Jill and Steel. As I got out of the car I noticed this lady walking a little rottweiler puppy over to me. She picks it up and says "Do you know anyone who might want her? I found her on the side of the road." Seriously? I am looking around thinking this has to be a setup. Like I dont have 2 rottweilers, a german shepherd and a malinois in a tiny apartment. She is cute and feisty (but not in a bad way) and certainly seems none the worse for wear in spite of her rocky start. She was found dumped about a month ago (at probably at about 5 weeks old). She has goofy puppy ears and she also has a tail (very similar to Jill's). Here in the south there are no shortage of people wanting rottweilers or pitbulls and males are much more popular than females with those same type of people. In fact the woman fostering her has had several people call wanting the pup, but only if it is a male - which (rightfully so) raised a red flag with her.

Fortunately it is much easier to find a home for a cute rottie puppy than it is for a shy malinois girl so I have a few possibilities that I am working on.



Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Happy Birthday Noscha!!

This is Noscha! She turned 13 years old today and except for being a little bit slower and a lot more grayer, she is still going strong. She was buddies with both Dugan and Bevan. She is a retired police dog and also shared a lot of trainings with Calix.  He was too much of a jackass though for her to consider him her buddy, she likes men with a little bit more sophistication and better manners.

I always thought she looked a bit like Yoda....now she REALLY does!

Her handler Kim is a law enforcement officer for the US Forest Service and she now lives in Washington State. We worked together in Vermont, half of my Town was National Forest lands so we saw each other quite often.

Noscha didn't get a lot of deployments over her long career but she was with Kim on every shift while they worked alone out in the middle of nowhere. Noscha is a sweetheart but did not hesitate to announce her presence in Kim's vehicle when necessary. Noscha was also more than willing to show that girls could to be police dogs and bite just as hard as the boys to anyone who wanted to be her decoy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOSCHA!!! You are a teenager now!



Who are you calling old??


Dugan and Noscha hiking to spruce peak together years ago.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Horses and Cowboys...what's not to like?

Another thing you wont see much in Vermont - today I watched the US Team Roping Championships. I actually meant to go to a crafts festival and do some christmas shopping. However I had the wrong weekend for that so I went to the Farmers Market which was also at the fairgrounds. And then I noticed lots of horses (and cowboys) so I went and watched horses (and cowboys) compete in team roping.  A speedy little calf wearing a helmet (seriously, it is to give him tiny little horns I guess) is released from a chute. One guy ropes him around his "horns" and the other gets him by the heels. I am not sure when the time starts (they are required to give the calf a head start) but it ends when they have both ropes on him and both horses are facing the calf.

Being the animal trainer, I would love to know how much of this depends on the skill of the horse vs. the guys doing the roping. Obviously you have to have some precision "steering" to get the horse in the right spot to throw the rope? Anyway it was very entertaining. I wasn't sure about taking pictures because no one else watching was, maybe they are just not from Vermont and see this all the time? I grabbed some pics though, without using my flash of course, and no one yelled at me or gave me dirty looks so here they are.

That horse looks like he has a plan:


Stand-off: "You move." "No you move."

 Is it just me or does it seem like it would be easier to rope the horns rather than the back feet? Easy is probably a relative term.

Coming from the land of over indulged, catered to horses who are practically wrapped in bubble wrap it cracked me up how these guys left horses pretty much anywhere. This guy jumped off of his horse in order to get a calf through the gate. Look at his horse waiting patiently....
Same with this guy. I swear his rider said "stay" as he left him tethered to the fence.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

The pups and I spent a quiet Thanksgiving Day here in Mississippi. I worked a bit this morning and then Jill and I went for a run. We felt pretty smug getting our 6 miles in today, the bike path was all but deserted. Go figure? Amber talked me into doing a little bit of training in the yard, she has discovered that if she "shows" me where the tennis balls are I usually can't resist doing something with her. I just wish she would cleverly figure out that the quicker she does her business out in the yard the sooner I will play with her.  Amber is easy because she doesn't know anything, so it is not hard to find something to teach her. Today we did a little bit of jumping and she was introduced to weave poles.  If the perfect right home comes along for her I think she would make a pretty fun agility dog. She has not been out in the world much however and the world is brand new and sometimes a little bit scary. She has made great progress in the past few weeks. Mr Crazypants Steel also got to do some obedience training - he was VERY up and bouncing and made me laugh as usual.

I hope everyone (well at least the people in the states) had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.

I am grateful for my (far away family)....


my (mostly far away) good friends....



and my (very close) dogs....even the new one.



 I also have to admit that I am grateful for Mississippi weather as well as a work schedule that allows me to get enough sleep and to be able to exercise regularly.


Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Meet Amber!!

 Meet Amber! She lives here at the training center, well now she lives in my apartment with the rest of my crew but still... She is a very tiny sweet belgian malinois who is not a typical malinois - she is calm and she is quiet. It is like having a large cat in the house. She is however VERY sweet and has had her world expanded recently with road trips to Virginia and South Carolina as well as the most overwhelming trip of all - visiting the local petsmart during what had to be Black Friday come early. I imagine tonight she is dreaming about automatic doors and dachshunds dressed in pink polka dot sweaters.

The Pretty Girl:




At first she was not sure about the weird squishing thing in Dawn's living room. However by the end of the weekend she had a new favorite spot!


Demonstrating perfect form in jumping: 

Agility video:

And a tracking video:

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Things you wouldnt see in Vermont in November!

The greenhouse section of Home Depot looking like this:



Or Steel posing for a picture after a morning of tracking in front of these:

Friday, November 18, 2011

Foundation training for everyone!

I just spent the last 10 days on the road teaching. I did 4 days of private lessons with folks in Virginia, a combination of drive/motivation issues, reactivity problems or helping people/dogs improve their tracking skills. I then conducted a tracking clinic in South Carolina working with a group of novice but very enthusiastic dogs and handlers who have made great progress since my visit in the Spring (I have high expectations for them this spring too!).

The people were all receptive and interested in learning and everyone had things that they were working on that I felt very confident could be improved. I always worry about getting the dog that makes me go "holy $%^&, what do I do with this?". Kind of like how I felt when I picked Calix up many years ago!

So my students fell into one of the following categories:
a) wanting to improve their dogs drive/motivation
b) wanting the dog to not get stressed/stay focused in trial situations
c) wanting the dog to not be reactive in new situations/around other dogs/ or other triggers
d) wanting the dog to be more focused on the handler
e) wanting the dog to have more advanced tracking skills

Overall whatever the goal was, it was quite common to see the handler making big jumps in the dog's skill set/coping ability without laying a solid enough foundation. I am as guilty as anyone else of this (and it is good to hear myself remind so many people because it also makes me look at my own training). We all underestimate the necessity of rehearsal. The dog performs the exercise a few times, it looks great, so we think they know it and are ready to take it on the road. Unfortunately the dog does not know the exercise well enough for it to hold up under distraction or stressful situations or when things are drastically different from what they are used to.

I use the example of learning to play a song on the piano, even a simple one. Practice it at home until you know it pretty well and can make it through without any major mistakes. Now I will pull in about 5,000 people to listen to you. Who thinks they need to practice a bit more?

The foundation behaviors have to be solid so that the dog (to steal Dawn Neff's wording which I like) has to "own the exercise". To ask them to perform otherwise isn't fair to the dog and no fun for him or the handler.


The dog has to own the behavior....

...before adding distractions.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Random Observations from Columbia

The city in South Carolina that is, not the country....

This weekend I am teach a tracking class to a group of novice but very enthusiastic handlers and their dogs. Yesterday and today I goofed off a bit, caught up on some paperwork and scouted out good potential locations for training this weekend. Although dogs can and do track on just about any surface, I am a little fussy about the type of vegetation I work inexperienced dogs on. I want to shape habits and behaviors from the beginning and by manipulating the environment (in this case tracking them on grass of a certain height and thickness) I can develop correct habits and instill "muscle memory".

I also went for a long run with Jill in downtown Columbia. www.mapmyrun.com has sadly eliminated any excuse I have for avoiding running when I am away from home. Jill and I did a 5 mile out and back run along the greenway which is a railroad track converted to a bike path in the center (literally) of the river through the city. One of us (the one who has done a lot less driving lately) enjoyed the run a lot more than the other.... There was a guy fishing (and catching catfish) next to the damn where Jill is sitting. He asked me to watch his fishing poles while he ran to use the rest room. I said sure but then once he was gone realized that if someone tried to steal his fishing poles I might be of some use but if he got a fish he was seriously out of luck....




During the course of my tracking field recon missions I saw this tree.
I am not sure what it is (sumac??) but it reminds me of Vermont.




Then I saw this. Which did not....
You can't read the fine print but basically it said that the alligators can do and eat anything that they want....Yeah no kidding.




Thursday, November 10, 2011

Great time in Virginia!

I just finished four days of training and teaching in Virginia. I usually visit Roanoke at least once a year, where my good friend Dawn does a wonderful job of coordinating a training clinic as well as making my dogs and I feel very welcome in her home (even though we have to hide all the marrow bones from Calix). In the past I have usually taught a two day tracking clinic for various skill levels. However this time we made the tracking sessions private lessons and also included some people who wanted help with some other things.  Each dog was very different but lumping them all together I would refer to them as reactivity/focus/drive problems - some had more of one than the other but ultimately issues with one can affect the other. I however hesitate to call them "problems" but do so for lack of a better word. I didn't work with a single dog who wasn't a product of the combination of his genetics and his reinforcement. And I also don't mean to be critical of any handler, since I have been there/done that/received a lot of stupid advice that didn't work/bought the tshirt...  It is not like they don't want to have clear communication but sometimes it can be a challenge and what we are "telling" the dog isn't always what we think it is. I do find however that the longer I train, the simpler things are when I a) understand why the behavior is occurring and b) reduce its reinforcement and/or make something more reinforcing.

In addition to working with some great dogs and handlers I was also able to keep my dogs happy and entertained. Jill got to be the "bait dog" for some of the dogs who were reactive. This involves her and Dawn have a great time playing while I worked with the other dog. Steel also got to demonstrate how you can use the things that you dogs is crazy about (sleeve, toy, etc) and use it to completely create the behavior you want. He also had a chance to do several very nice tracks. One was a pretty simple track aged a couple of hours but as it aged we noticed a family walking their dog through part of it, even throwing one of the articles for their dog to retrieve. That made it more of a challenge than I had planned but Steel worked hard and was successful with it. Calix mainly got to run in and out of Dawn's house barking loudly (retirement has its perks) and Amber was introduced to obedience, tracking and a tiny bit of agility.  Who is Amber you ask?

Here is a hint.....


You will have to wait for more information on her. I am now in South Carolina teaching tracking for several days. Jilly Bean and I are headed into Columbia to go for a run and then scout out tracking fields for the weekend.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Dont blame the dog!

I generally track with Steel several days a week. I am a bit spoiled as there are some nice tracking fields down the road from where I work. It is pretty easy to lay a track in the morning, work for a few hours and then go back and run the aged track. Mississippi seems to appeal to Steel and he has been tracking very strongly the past few weeks. This is a big improvement over his tracking towards the end of the summer when "someone" fell into the overtraining trap in order to make a VST (variable surface tracking) test fit into the logistics of her busy moving schedule. Fortunately that unnamed person saw that she was rushing her dog and although he was trying very hard, he was less confident about his abilities. So she decided to actually wait until the dog was both skilled and confident before trialing him, regardless of how long it takes to win the "tracking trial lottery" and get entered.


Anyway....getting back to our recent work. On Tuesday I worked a 3+ hour track, mostly grass with a few changes of surface. It started out great but then about halfway through seemed to be a lot more challenging for Steel. He still had scent but he was doing lots and lots of circling and casting to determine a direction. He has a tendency to charge on ahead when he is out of scent (typical male, if you cant figure it out just give it more muscle <roll eyes>) and I have worked on encouraging him to slow down and be more methodical trying to avoiding cuing him too much. It does happen occasionally and I have to resist the urge to correct him for doing what I call "using his muscles instead of his brain". :-)

However we struggled on through the track, him casting and circling and progressing forward but with a lot of work. Seriously, this was one of those tracks that should have been relatively simple - my goal was age and length rather than difficulty.  I contained my frustration (mostly), Steel found all his beloved scent articles, got rewarded at the end (see below) and headed back to the car.  As I was leaving I looked to the far end of the field and see a convoy of trucks heading back towards me across the field. They had been beyond my track, presumably doing something around the natural gas pipes at the far end of the fields. I know they weren't there when I laid my track, which means they drove through it to get there (relatively short and dry grass so no noticeable tire tracks if you weren't looking for them). Umm....good boy Steel!!! As often as stuff like that happens in training, things turning out to be different than we had thought, why is it such an effort to remember that in the moment?? It is an excellent reminder, when we are tempted to correct the dog (after all he SHOULD know this right?) that things might not be exactly as we thought and the dog might be doing the very best he can.

Here is a video clip from another track.
 It is not the best tracking performance but the ending is pretty typical:


Monday, October 31, 2011

A three year old toddler....

Steel is a wonderful working dog, he is capable of excellent drive, persistent problem solving and technical accuracy. However....all that is sometimes overlooked because of his sheer enthusiasm and joy.  As I have mentioned before, his attitude towards life is: EVERY DAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!!" He can see the potential fun in anything and everything - I wish I could be like him.  Here is a clip of him working in the training yard. There is a canvas bag with drugs in it amongst all the toys and other distractions. There is nothing unusual about the performance; the commentary while he is working is pretty funny though and oh so true:




And another clip of the big circus monkey working minus the comments from the peanut gallery:


Wednesday, October 26, 2011

It is cliche - but it is still true....

Life is short....

A very good friend found out that she was seriously sick two weeks ago. She died two days ago.  Given her personality, it is no surprise to find that she left specific instructions about how she wanted her death handled. It is the way she lived her life - quality was everything. Even when you are very good, there is still room to be better if you think about it hard enough. We had a lot in common in that respect. Some people admire that trait; others cannot seem to understand that level of passion towards an endeavor.

Words that have been used to describe her include: creative, driven and altruistic.  The last seems like an understatement when used in reference to this person....

In one of our long philosophical conversations about dogs, when we were talking about what we would have done different or figured out sooner regarding our past beloved dogs (with each of us pretending that the other was not tearing up), she told me about a quote in a book "Eminent Dogs Dangerous Men". The author makes an expedition to Scotland to purchase the perfect border collie. In his travels the author has a conversation with a shepherd/dog trainer and is told "You can't be a dog trainer until you have some regrets." She later loaned me this book, it was set aside to be returned but managed to make the trip with me to MS instead. I pulled it out last night, remembering the quote, and I noticed she had highlighted a portion of that conversation in the book:

"I sometimes think....when I'm on my deathbed....they'll come back. All the dogs I've trained will come filing by..."

I sure hope they did - that must have been a very very long line of extremely happy dogs......


Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Rewards - what do dogs really want??

People get way too obsessed about the right thing to give the dog as a "reward"  - special toys, homemade treats, etc. Walk into any pet supply store and you will see a mind boggling display of food and toy items. However the best rewards will fall flat if not used properly.  Just because a dog takes a treat or is willing to play with a toy does not necessarily mean that they consider it sufficient motivation to modify a behavior or perform an action.

One of the criterias we look at in our detection dogs is their "fight drive" , we arent meaning aggression but rather how strong is their desire for an object and, most important, how willing are they to engage us in a game with that object. While not every dog is cut out to be a detection dog, the selection process weeds out most, a lesson can be learned whether you are training a pet, a sport dog or a working dog. If we look at the dogs they will tell us how important that engagement and interaction is, otherwise the toy is meaningless.

Here are a few pics of a dog being trained to detect human remains. It is an excellent example of how the toy is only important when they know that a fight/game is involved. And not coincidently we have conditioned them to believe that the fight/game only happens right at the source of odor! This allows them to manipulate us and to get what they REALLY want.


The dog below clearly has access to the toy. So why is he ignoring it and going to the box containing the odor?

Because he wants not just the toy but the fight as well.


He will even take the toy TO the odor box to make that game happen.


It's the game not just the toy.