There is No Crying in Dog Sports…

A friend and I were recently commenting on people who cry while competing with or training dogs. While not prone to crying in public - EVER I guess I can sort of understand where the emotions come from. Dog training is challenging on so many levels. You are attempting to communicate with another species. Sometimes the stakes for success are high. We often invest a lot in our success financially, timewise and emotionally. We put lofty expectations on ourselves and our dogs. We unfairly compare ourselves to others who may or may not have the same challenges. However it seems that many people who participate in dog sports forget the most important part - it’s a “sport”. Something that we do for fun (even if we get paid for it, if you are getting paid and still not having fun then that is whole 'nother conversation). Crying tears of frustration or unhappiness is taking the sport way too seriously, I don’t care what level you are competing at. If a failed start line stay or crooked heeling or a missed weave pole entry are our biggest problems then I think we are fortunate. Fortunate that we have the time, money, health and knowledge to focus on training our dogs. 

I recently drove to Chicago to compete for Steel’s VST title. Given the low odds of passing the test, making the long drive was a gamble . I am far from well off financially and had to plan my trip carefully (hotels that offer free breakfast are also providing a free lunch whether they know it or not). It would be nice to not have to pinch pennies quite so tightly. However I am also thankful to be well off enough to be able to buy food, put gas in my car and participate in something that I love doing. Having not passed would have made the drive home much longer but it would not have been the end of the world. Winning is nice but certainly not worth tears when it doesn’t happen. Being relatively new to dog sports, I am amazed at how cranky and unhappy people sometimes seem to be. I pretty much always think this but am particularly reminded of it this week. I was going to include one of my favorite movie clips – Tom Hanks screaming “There’s no crying in baseball!!” but thought I would add a few things instead that should make us cry....

It's not really that complicated....

Suddenly having an unexpected new "training project" has resulted in my recently watching some training videos and giving a lot of thought to planning the details of my project. Thanks to the internet there is a vast amount of very useful information - not a lot is new to me at this point but some of the information serves as reminders or hints on how to tweak my own training. Note that I usually only access information from people that have a training philosophy relatively similar to mine. Open mindedness is good in some things but I am comfortable in the choices I have made regarding how I will or will not train. There is a HUGE amount of training information out there. Given human nature it is easy to make things very very complicated; sometimes to astonishing levels.

I teach dog training to a lot of great people for a living - not pet dog people but police and military dog trainers, search and rescue dog trainers, professional dog trainers etc. People at the top of their game and who usually really want to be in our classes and are passionate about learning to train better detection dogs. That in itself makes my job fun. The other bonus is seeing dogs learn in a clear manner, we don't complicate things but just allow the dog to channel his drive and teach himself how to satisfy that drive. And they continue to impress and amaze us in their ability to do just that - if we dont confuse them by making things complicated. Yes detection work is important. If it fails things blow up, people die, large amounts of drugs get missed etc. However the teaching is very simple - I merely explain through a series of steps that if he gets to the source of the odor then I will give him something that he badly wants. We need to take steps to ensure that the dog does not use other clues besides scent to be successful but otherwise all we need is a dog with the correct drives. We then get out of the way and let him work.

Below Steel demonstrates this concept. Notice in particular his response to the tennis ball when I start working him. He sees it and immediately starts searching. He knows the fastest and most efficient way to get the fight that the tennis ball symbolizes. He also incidently demonstrates that I am about as relevant in narcotics detection as I am in tracking....

"Puzzles"

I have been slacking off at blogging lately. It is ironic that the times when I do the most thinking about dog training are also the times when I am too busy to write about it. I have just finished teaching two great tracking clinics, one in NC and one in SC. In addition we currently have a three week long detection trainers course in session here in Jackson. Really fun group of people and they have made some great progress with the dogs they are learning to train. I also have a few other dog training projects and updates that I will cover in the blog in the near future. While our schedule is not yet completed it is looking very likely that the dogs and I will be “on the road” for the first half of 2013. Should be a fun and interesting year!

In the meantime, although he is now an official AKC Champion Tracking, Steel is not about to kick back and let me get away without tracking him. Problem is that although I am not really concerned about “titles” or winning; I am very goal oriented and am sort of struggling with how to keep Steel entertained and happy without a current goal to work toward. I have also been tracking some young dogs so can’t spend as much time aging his tracks right now, at least not the three to five hour old tracks that he was working. To keep him happy I have been setting up tracks with little weird scent pictures for him throughout the track. Stealing a term from detection training, I call them “puzzles”. Our goal is to challenge the dog and expand his skill set by setting up a puzzle. However the dog needs drive for the puzzles to be effective, the more they want to succeed the quicker they will progress through working the puzzles.  However we don’t want to overface the dog and create in his mind about whether he can solve the puzzle. We want the dog the enjoy the challenge and to go away from the puzzle having gained knowledge and confidence solving it.  Steel is at that point in his tracking and gets a big thrill working through tricky (at least for his current skill set) scent pictures. Here is a clip of a short track we did a few mornings ago. For those that are interested I have listed the "narration" below the clip.

0:00 The Start Routine. This is important and something that I really harp on when teaching. It has many purposes. Initially it gives the dog important clues about what is going to happen. It also creates a habitual mental state in the dog - they then have the attention and drive to do the task at hand. Through management and channeling drive in the proper direction I have a dog that comes out of the car, does his business and then charges over to demand to be harnessed and directed toward the start.

0:33 Starting the track facing the wrong direction and article not exactly at starting point.

1:28 Right hand turn was made in a stairstep pattern. If you look carefully you can see Steel do the stairstep.

1:52 Isn't this a cool shot??

1:55 road crossing. This is an access road to the marina. Lots of vehicle traffic, people etc. A steep berm on one side, a rock slope and water on the other. Steel successfully crosses and then decides to double check other options, then obviously convinces himself that his choice was right.

2:33 You can see him start to correctly cross the road here. He then loops back and works the area more heavily before crossing. Do I know why? No. I DO however know that the only way to progress is to let him make his own decisions. With both detection work and with tracking I have observed that as the dog gains experience (on his own) the "wasted motion" decreases. That step cannot be rushed.

3:30 Article!

3:57 track runs to left along edge of ditch. Scent is likely to be pushed down into the low lying area.

4:23 This part was fun. There are a series of berms that run to the right of the ditch. The track winds through the berms, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right and then sometimes up on top.

5:30 The End....

The Accidental Agility Dog - Chapter Four

I am home briefly between seminars – we just completed detection seminars in TN and IN, last weekend I was in NC for a tracking clinic and I have another one in SC next weekend. I have also been busy with another “project” but I can’t talk about him, at least not yet….In the meantime a bit more about Amber....

After taking her into my house and socializing her and spending time with her I have become rather attached to the little space alien. She is not overly outgoing with strangers but she is VERY bonded with those people she knows. However, having three dogs already, I was determined to find a good home for her. A person came along who I thought would work out and took her home for a trial visit. That didn’t work out so well for a variety of reasons so she ended up being returned to me. Sort of like a little boomerang.... she keeps ending up with me.

I am still looking for a good home for her, provided it is the right one. However I have not been working very hard at finding one. She is a tough dog to place because it is hard to get to see her real personality initially and she needs a LONG time, like weeks, to settle in. I left her with my friend Dawn for three weeks while I went to Australia. I guess initially she was beside herself but Dawn wisely ignored her and let her retreat to her room/kennel whenever she wanted to and after about a week she decided that since I was gone she had better align herself with the new leader!

Without actively seeking a new home for her though the question is – what am I going to do with her? Along the way, although she hasn’t completely overcome her environmental issues, she learned to channel her inner Malinois and discovered she has DRIVE. This development along with her high energy level meant that I needed to do something with her.

Since we were teaching a course at the time I took her through one of our detection trainer’s schools and trained her for narcotics detection. Although her role was to be an example of the problems with training improperly selected dogs (environmental confidence is our most important trait when selecting dogs) she didn’t do half bad. She continues to perform very well as we travel around the country teaching detection classes. We have had numerous people attend our detection seminars who are interested in the sport of nosework and I am considering adding those odors to her repertoire and titling her in that venue. While teaching tracking clinics I also started her tracking and she quickly picked that up as well.

Amber detecting narcotics:

Amber tracking - first hard surface crossing:

However there is one sport that she both LOVES and seems to be naturally adept at and that is agility. So the plan, until a new home comes along, is to train her for agility. It is also a bit of an adventure for me because, although I have trained a lot of obstacles for other reasons, I have never trained agility with the intention of competing in it. So the goal of the "The Accidental Agility Dog" blog posts is to chronicle our journey into the sport of agility. In the next post I will clarify the "rules" of our little adventure and provide a synopsis of where we are so far....

It's that time of year again!!!

We have an annual tradition every year a few weeks after Steel's birthday. The start of this tradition is a long story involving a $14.00 plastic pumpkin, lots of driving in circles, Tylenol with codeine and a tiny little puppy that I had no intention of taking home....That day ended with this pic...I was toast and the puppy went home with me a few weeks later.

So it has been an annual tradition to update the original pumpkin picture.
This year, in light of our achievements over the weekend I came up with this brilliant idea:

Steel however, being his father's son, was less than amused.
To him this was a waste of a perfectly good pumpkin (and ribbon).
Don't you just love the pained look on his face?

He did hold his stay though and of course I had to reward good behavior
(plus take about 200 pictures)

"Champion Tracker"

I will get back to Amber’s story in a day or so but thought it was only fair that Steel got a little bit of “press”. This weekend, after a long drive north, Steel and I participated in an AKC Variable Surface Tracking test in Wheaton IL. Steel passed the test and is now officially “Champion Tracker" Esmonds Will of Steel. For those of you familiar with the sport you know that the VST has a very low passing rate. The odds of actually winning the entry lottery in order to even make the attempt are also low.

My happiness with him passing the test has very little to do with many of the reasons that people compete in dog sports. I did not do it in order to brag about him; although I think I am justifiably pleased with his performance. I did not do it for my own ego. My biggest feeling following the test is gratitude to Steel for cheerfully being the perfect “laboratory” and allowing me to experiment with training techniques on him. There is a saying “when the teacher is ready the right student will come along”. This has been so true during my career as a dog trainer and I have been fortunate to have numerous students come along at just the right time.

Another saying that has stuck with me was the following "There's are three ways to do something; the wrong way, the proven way and a better way." I have always been dissatisfied with the traditional ways to train dogs to track. Especially for tracks that are aged and/or the scent conditions present challenges to the dog. I have trained a lot of dogs to track (mostly for search & rescue or police work) and also taught tracking to a lot of handlers. However it is not easy to take chances and stray too far away from traditional methods when working with client dogs. Steel on the other hand, was mine, and also provided the perfect amount of raw material to the endeavour. He was not however a “freebie”. He was willing to become what I wanted but it still required no small amount of effort and planning to get him there. He tolerated my analyzing and over analyzing my training methods; striving to find a better way to teach and train and using him as the guinea pig to do it. I will never forget once making a radical change in handling him and the first day he stopped in mid track and looked over his shoulder at me. Giving me a “what the hell!!??” look and then I am sure he went down the track muttering to himself “there she goes again”….

He also taught me several important lessons along the way which effect not just how I train tracking dogs but training in every venue.  We likely could have succeeded without those lessons which makes me even more aware of what a gift they were – almost as if he did it on purpose. Just when I thought I had everything figured out he would open my eyes yet again and show me a better clearer way to train.

This weekend was our second attempt at the VST – we tried at the Rottweiler nationals in May of this year. We drew the alternate position so thus went last in the lineup. By the time we got our turn it was well over 90 degree F. Steel started great and was progressing well but overshot a 90 degree turn on pavement and made the turn on the (much cooler) grass. In no way was I disappointed with his performance although how cool would it have been to pass at the Nationals, with his breeder there and him not being even four years old yet? However he performed the best he could given the conditions and I could not complain.

It did mean however that I would have more time to spend training, not knowing how soon I could get into another test. So I had the freedom to look at my training further and experiment with some things. It is quite common for people to refer to this level of training as a “partnership” or requiring “teamwork” on the part of the dog and handler.  This goes against how we train our dogs for detection. In that case we do our best to teach the dogs to work independently of the handler. We don’t do this by abandoning them but rather shaping their training so they learn that they can successfully solve problems on their own.

So using that premise I looked at my tracking training critically. My goal was to get him to the level of training where I could allow him to run a VST type test basically off leash. This would require him to demonstrate that he had developed the understanding of the unique scent picture “puzzles” that might come up during the test and also have the skills to work through them. So I made some minor but important changes to my training and discovered an amazing thing – my dog knew what he wanted to accomplish and, with me out of the way, was so much better able to self teach himself how to handle weird scent pictures. He has always been a strong and eager tracker. However following that change there was a noticeable change in his demeanour – as if a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. This was so noticeable that I almost felt like I had to apologize for my previous training. And it not like I was a heavy handed handler in any way! I just over thought things and in my desire to teach him the correct method just got in his way - probably more mentally than physically. Although my intention was to "read" him and handle accordingly, thinking I was being part of this so called "partnership", I was in fact in the way and a distraction.

I am not able to fully explain the significance of how grateful I am to Steel for putting me in the position to have that (as Oprah would call it) "ah-ha moment". Fortunately for me he doesn’t require such gratitude or explanations. I do however have to thank my good friend Mary Davis for our long, open ended philosophical discussions of dog training. But most of all I thank Steel for being the right student at the right time. Steel just barely turned four years old so we are a long ways done from training and learning and I can only anticipate what else he has to teach me....

Below is The Superhero following his successful track. The one where I spent 13 minutes hanging on to the end of the tracking line watching him do his thing.  Speaking of that tracking line, I think  I could have easily dropped it on the ground  and walked with the judges
for all the help that Steel needed from me.

The Accidental Agility Dog - Chapter Three

OK one more post and then I will get to the fun training stuff – at least fun for me and Amber. It might be like watching paint dry for readers….

From the start my approach with Amber was that she was allowed to avoid and/or retreat from anything that scared her. I know the logic initially sounds weird but in hindsight it worked. Knowing she had the means to get herself out of an uncomfortable spot gave her the courage to stick around to appease her curiosity. It was not that she didn’t like people - she just didn’t trust them. Conventional wisdom would have suggested that I give lots of people treats and let people feed her.  The theory being that this would make them less scary. There were a few problems with that. First she was too nervous to eat from people – if she won’t approach then it is hard to get the treat. Secondly I am not sure how well that actually changes the dog perspective – I suspect their new outlook is that sometimes the scary people dispense food. If they offer food then they might be safe enough to approach.

This also gets back to my discussions about reactivity – threshold is very important. If the dog is over threshold then they are overwhelmed by the scary thing and anything that we do is relatively useless. Yes they might be responding to a correction or be eating a treat but their ability to connect either of those events to the trigger (what they are reacting to) is limited. Similarly if they are way under threshold then the “threat” is gone and they don’t learn from the experience. I have some tools that work well with reactivity but in Amber’s case I pretty much allowed her to control her own threshold. Too close and she was free to move away. However what I did not allow her to do was to bolt in a blind panic – if she tried I stopped her. Once she collected herself for even a second we moved away from the fearful thing. We can retreat but we have to do so gracefully….

I also avoided setting her up to have to “deal with” her fearful things. We just went out into the world for travel or training or whatever and if something was spooky then we dealt with it. In a lot of training venues I think people can go crazy with the proofing and I have an issue with it a lot of times. If a dog is reactive (whether it be prey drive,fearfulness etc) how does it help them to teach them that the stimulus that makes them reactive is going to be there each and every time they perform the task? All too often I think proofing goes to a place where the dog feels like he is being setup to fail.

Anyway, getting back to Amber. She has made amazing progress in her ability to cope with the world. She will always be a little environmental “twitchy” I think. She is not crazy about strangers although she can handle them under the right circumstances and on her terms. Like a cat, her first instinct when encountering something suspicious is to retreat to a safe distance and assess the threat level. She also travels like a trooper, going in and out of strange houses, yards and motel rooms willingly. She even spent two weeks hanging out in the van while we were at the FBI Academy. Why was this impressive? Because the van was parked alongside  firing ranges – lots and lots of firing ranges. I don’t think there was a caliber of firearm that did not get shot while we were there. She even did some narcotics detection in the yard while that was going on. Pretty impressive for a girl who freaked out when some kids set off firecrackers last new year’s eve near our yard in MS; if she could have got out of the yard I don’ t think I would have seen her again….

The brave little munchkin alerting on narcotics in a big scary warehouse...