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: