The view from the "office"

Yes I quit my job, moved halfway across the country and took a pay cut. However.....here is the view from my "office" today. Fun students, training dogs all day and this view. I am not complaining....



Should have listened to Oprah.....

What Oprah Taught Me About Dog Training

This morning I was getting ready to head out and go tracking with Steel and Amber and had the TV on and happened to catch Oprah on her network. She was taking her audience through a series of examples from her show on where people should have listened to that little voice in their head warning them of something. Or people who did and it led to something monumental. She quoted someone (can't remember who) that said that life is full of whispers. If you don't listen to the whispers they become louder, then they become pebbles then they become rocks and then they become an entire wall falling down on you. Much of the time we are clueless until we get surprised by the wall - even though the clues or whispers were there..

Sunday is a great day for tracking here because most stores are closed until late and there are lots of good opportunities for variable surface tracking. However it's starting to get warm during the day so I was rushing to get going and opted to skip Steel's breakfast and feed him when I got back. His food prep is labor intensive and conventional wisdom suggests that dogs track better when they are hungry (because they are in theory looking for food). However the tiny voice in the back of my head whispered that Steel does not do well skipping a meal. He has zero body fat and due to some health issues does not tolerate a lot of foods that should provide long term energy. But I ignored the whisper, after all we were ready to go and I was in a hurry and was focusing on getting what I needed to bring. Since I wanted the track to age a few hours I was in a rush. Like all that hurrying paid off.....Not.

The track was basically a trainwreck. A sluggish start with some unimpressive problem solving, I stopped it 3/4 of the way through and should have stopped it halfway.  If I hadn't also tracked Amber (rockstar but she also got breakfast) it would have been a total waste of my morning.  So, like Oprah says, pay attention to the whisper. It was telling me what to do and I ignored it. Next time I will pay more attention - hopefully....

Steel sleeping in his kennel with his tongue sticking out....

The benefits of traveling...

In the past couple of months it seems like I have been away more than I have been home. Home to me however is very relative - I have my dogs, my computer and my camera with me. That pretty much makes it home, regardless of where we are....

Traveling does have its perks too...

Wonderful weather and scenery....

Seeing old friends plus making new ones.....

Eating things I would not eat at home
(and why didn't anyone tell me that "nestle tollhouse stores" exist??!!)...

Seeing interesting things....
(columns still standing from a plantation house that was  destroyed during the Civil War)

Meeting and training some neat dogs...
(this is a mini aussie, I have seen bigger rabbits but she has a serious motor in her tiny little body:

Someone for everyone....

I am never get tired of taking pics of Calix and Jill....This is because no one except Jill has ever liked Calix. Poor Calix is like that person who means well but talks too loud and stands too close. I have some theories on why this is, but he is quick to offend; every dog he has ever met has pretty much hated him immediately. He was fine with the other dogs in the house over the years but they were more like casual acquaintences (or the obnoxious relative they were stuck with??). Jill actually seeks out his company....much to my (and sometimes his) surprise....

Here they are enjoying their recent vacation in SC:

The Irony....

I just spent the last 10 days or so traveling and teaching various aspects of dog training. Mostly tracking, a lot of work with dogs with poor impulse control and reactivity plus a little bit of obedience. All the dogs were great and I had so much fun with both them and their owners. The ones lacking self control or are reactive however hold a special place in my heart. I guess it is because I see a little bit of Calix in all of them and can see that they don't want to make the wrong choices. They just often have no idea what the right ones are and/or how to make them happen. They just need someone to be very clear to them about what their options are plus someone needs to control the environment so that the only beneficial choice is the right one. Then it is as if they breath a sigh of relief that someone finally gets them. I find the best way to fix things is to give the dog more control rather than less.

This often doesn't take long however it does require some patience. I was thinking about the irony of what I do for a living vs. my personality. I mostly tell people to be patient....I can hear my parents laughing out loud right now.... However on thinking further I realize that I do not find it hard to be patient when training dogs. Overall I don't consider myself a patient person, certainly something that I find a challenge when it comes to people. With dog training however I find it easy to see small subtle approximations of the behavior that I am trying to create. So I don't feel like I am waiting for a change in a vacuum but rather taking tiny steps towards the final product. All too often people wait for the BIG change when the little tiny changes are right in front of them, just waiting to be reinforced.

I thank everyone who make my trips to Virginia and South Carolina so enjoyable.  My new rule however, thanks to Carol, is that I am going to start requiring someone at all my clinics to bring along a cute snuggley adorable puppy. You know like those rock stars who insist on m&m's of a certain color? Well that's in my contract now. :-)



Abbey schmoozing with Dawn



Carol did manage to get some tracking in too....




Perfect tracking weather....



Why dog training is like dieting......

For me the easiest way to diet is to never give myself the opportunity to mess up. Willpower is nonexistent - if there is ice cream in the freezer then it is gonna get eaten. If I buy foods sure to tempt me I buy them in individual portions - and contrary to what I tell myself late at night, a PINT of Ben & Jerry's ice cream is not a single serving.... This technique seems to work for me, although it is much easier here in MS than it was in VT where every corner store and gas station would sell things like these:

World's Best Brownies!

In dog training I have found self policing to work in a similar manner. If I am not careful I can overdo my training; especially when I feel like I am making progress on something new or when I have struggled with something and found a solution.  I have high drive eager dogs who love to train but I still want to quit when they are still in drive and loving their work. Training too long can take some of the joy out of the task and it starts to seem like work rather than fun. Even for the "serious" tasks like search and rescue or police work I want it all to be fun to the dog - something that I allow them to do as an outlet for the drives that they have in them genetically.

One way I have found to avoid that common pitfall of overtraining is to ration  my rewards and go out to train with a predetermined amount. For example, lately I have been tweaking Jill's heeling and I use a combination of small food rewards and her beloved tennis ball to shape the specific behavior I want.  I want something animated and strong so I need to keep the sessions short. Jill LOVES to heel and I am very pleased with the progress we are making. So it would be easy for both of us to overdo it. The solution to keep me "honest": take out a predetermined number of rewards and end the training session when I run out of rewards!

 


Natural Balance Roll ~ aka "doggie crack" ~ enough for 15 reps.



 ....AND SOME HAPPY HEELING!!

Start your day with a good track...

...because the rest of the day might be downhill from there. That is pretty much how my day went yesterday with me following up tracking with a major website glitch causing a slight panic at work THEN going and dealing with the DMV trying to get my new van registered. Apparently I am the only one in the state who has bought a vehicle from out of state....

I usually try to track in the morning, especially when I am initially laying a tracking foundation in a young or inexperienced dog. I don't get up at o'dark thirty but I like to take advantage of moister tracking conditions if I can. I try to do the same if I am challenging a more experienced dog to expand his skill set. I always advise my students that if they are increasing the didifficulty of one variable (surface, age, length etc) then they need to keep everything else within the dog's skill set. Contrary to most sport trackers however I also have no problem tracking at other times of the day.   The success rate might be lower later in the day when conditions are less moist and temps are higher but, unless it is physically harmful to the dog,  it is essential for working trackers who may be called upon to track at any time of the day or night. Calix once did a beautiful fugitive track through a busy recreational park at 5pm on one of the hottest days of the year. He even tracked along a running track, lifting his head as he passed each runner to take a quick sniff and then continued on. His track was later confirmed by the subject to be completely accurate - the kid made it to his house upon which his dad drove him to the police department. Gotta admire a dad like that...

Anyway my day yesterday started out with Steel running a beautiful track through a portion of the local mall complex. The stores had not opened up but there were cars as well as a few pedestrians around. I like working in the area because the concrete is very rough and tends to hold scent better than smooth pavement. This is really helping me shape an attentiveness to the hard surface. In addition to his work on the concrete I was pleased with how well Steel solved several tricky sections in the track - particularly the section of the track that ran through the mulch on top of the berm. Coming across the parking lot and making a sharp turn on top of the berm really set conditions up to where I would expect the scent to flow down the berm. Steel went under the barrier and made the turn very nicely, following the correct track and working just a small distance to the left of the actual track.

I was also pleased with his decision making on the road crossing - he wants to check each direction thoroughly but he is becoming more confident once he make his decision to cross. He also impressed me with how well he worked the track along the road edge. This is a excellent progression in his skill as this used to be more of a challenge for him. As cars drive by they blow scent away from the road - in this case there was a hill and tall grass and a treeline to collect scent. You can see Steel loop into that pool as he crosses the roadway but works through it and determines the correct track along the roadway edge. He gets caught into the tall grass but returns to the actual track for the remainder of the track.

Overall I am pleased with how well he is developing his skill set and also the level of confidence he is showing in his work, he didn't even let me throw him by trying to restrain him when he was correct. This was a test of my handling skills - if that restraint had affected him then I would know that my handling was overly influencing his decision making skills. Instead he just stops, puzzled, and then goes back to tracking. Which is better than his big brother Calix who would have screamed obscenities at me first.... <roll eyes>