New Puppy

I have been watching and waiting to get my next puppy. A breeder friend of mine, Joyce Carelli, has some very pretty and athletic Standard Poodles. I have watched her train Janie (CH Carlyn Calamity Jane NA JH), for hunt work, then watched Janie's puppies come along. Derby (CH Carlyn's Foolish Pleasure) was from Janie's first litter. Both of them are brown. Janie's second litter produced MaGregor (CH Carlyn Hard Spun), who is a awesome dog and very pretty. My next puppy will be from Derby, she was bred March 24th, so if all does well she will have puppies the end of May. So, late this summer I will be bringing home a new puppy to play with and train. I have a lot of plans, but also am being realistic about how much time we have to work on everything.

Higher Learning (For Dog & Handler)

We have been doing a lot of training since I last posted. Chauncey is now getting ready for open competition. She has made great strides in her retrieving work. We had a a lesson last night with Maggie. We spent the beginning discussing our rally trial this past weekend. We were entered in Eustis trying to earn our 7th RAE leg. Our first class was the Excellent B. We started class fairly well, but at the Back up 3 Steps Chauncey wasn't able to get it correct. After that exercise Chauncey started lagging more and more, I could feel myself getting frustrated with her. We qualified in Excellent with an 81. I then put Chauncey in her crate and walked outside to calm down. I walked around and took several deep breaths. I then sat down relaxed and reviewed the course for the Advanced class. A couple dogs before the start of our class I got Chauncey out of her crate, gave her a few treats and started to warm up. I ran through several exercises and and then played around with her to get her revved up.

Our turn was up, we entered the ring. As we started, I could tell that Chauncey was not with me. We made it to the Off-set Figure 8 and Chauncey was lagging and I didn't get her up with me and she went around the wrong side of the cone, so we had to repeat the exercise. As we came up to another exercise I completely misread it and forgot the halt sit before giving the stand command. I did the exercise wrong and then realized it as I came back into heel position, and then redid the exercise. I was completely flustered by then. We managed to sloppily finish the course. We NQ'd and deserved to.

Maggie and I discussed what happened at the show. Basically, Chauncey was getting mixed signals from me and I wasn't there for her. I have been dealing with ring nerves, so I apparently still have more to deal with. Maggie also decided that Chauncey is too dependant on food/treats during training.

We started our lesson by doing heeling, I hid my treats and used praise and playing as a reward. Maggie wants me to use that to be able to engage Chauncey's focus on me in the ring. If I notice her lagging or freezing up on me then by adding praise and play, I can regain her focus and give her encouragement in the ring. We want to finish our RAE title, but also have to prepare for open and the failure rate in that ring is tough so we are trying to prepare. Chauncey really liked the playing and praise and I was able to see her re-focus on me when she was drifting.

After heeling, we worked on our retrieve. Chauncey's retrieve has come along way and taken a lot of work to get here. I got to the point where she was taking it from my hand anywhere, but when placed on the ground she refused to pick it up. At one lesson Maggie said that she was taking too long to make her decision so she forced her to pick it up by pushing on the back of her head towards the dumbbell. Chauncey screamed like Maggie was killing her and even placed her mouth on Maggie's arm at several points. After a few sessions Chauncey picked it up on her own. We started adding small steps to each one. I am now throwing it about 6 feet in front of me, sending Chauncey for it and calling her to me while running backwards for about 20 feet. She is also retrieving over a 12" jump and jumping back to me with it in her mouth. Last night we worked on both and she is really making nice progress. Our goal is to be ready by Labor Day weekend to compete at DOCOF with my club's, ODTC, team.

We then worked on the broad jump. Chauncey knows the broad jump very well when I am in the correct position. Now we are working on her jumping correctly when I am standing in any position in a 360degree radius around the broad jump. The first time I was in a different position, she couldn't figure out that she was supposed to jump. Now I am giving the command from numerous positions and she is clearing the jump with no problem.

I then left Chauncey on a sit stay while I worked Jasmine. We started with our warm up routine of heeling, getting her relaxed and heeling smoothly. Jasmine really heels well and tries so hard to go slow and keep in heel position. She is by nature very fast and forges, so we work slowly with many about left turns to get her controlled and using her rear to drive. She catches on so quickly and is a very high drive dog. As Maggie says I will never have to worry about revving her up, but keeping her under control. I love high drive dogs, so much fun. After working on heel work we did some figure 8's and then Maggie held her while I changed Chauncey from a sit to a down.

We worked with Jasmine on her dumbbell. We are just starting, so she is just doing a take, hold, give right now. She is getting the idea now so we have progressed to the touch game. I put a small amount of squeeze cheese on the dumbbell and hold it it different positions for Jasmine to move and touch it. She got the idea very quickly, so over the next week I will vary the touch game with cheese on the dumbbell and then try having her touch it without cheese and the cheese will be added after the touch. Once we were done with the dumbbell work I released Chauncey and put her in the truck to relax while we finished up with Jasmine.

We worked Jasmine over the broad jump, doing the same rotation around the broad jump as Chauncey. Jasmine loved this game and never missed a jump command. She catches on very quickly, so I have to be very careful to teach things carefully or it gets in her brain wrong.

Okay, so that was a very long post to catch up on what we have been doing. Will be back soon with more.

Breakthrough

We had our obedience lesson Tuesday night with Chauncey and Jasmine. It was raining off and on all day, so I met Maggie in Orlando at the dog training club's facilities. I arrived about 8pm and paid for 2 run throughs. Most of the classes were finishing up, so I just worked with each one on focus while others were working around us. Once the classes finished Maggie and I used an empty ring. She is an instructor there, so she has a key to lock up and we get the building to ourselves.

I started with Chauncey and we did an open pattern backwards. We did the broad jump first and Chauncey sailed over, hit the target plate and had a beautiful front. The high jump was next (we are not doing any dumbbell work with the exercises right now, just target plates and rewards) and another perfect jump and front. Maggie also does not have me doing any finishes with Chauncey right now, we work on those separately as she does not want her to start any automatic finishes. The retrieve on flat, with no retrieving, to a target plate was very well done. We did the drop on recall and she did pretty good. I am still moving in to her with the signal and reward her once she drops. She is getting much faster with the hand signal, but it still needs a little more work to polish it off. We then did a long heeling routine and she did really good. Another gentleman was there so he came over and was a post for our figure 8. I was pretty happy with what Chauncey was doing, she and I have made a lot of progress. I am going to borrow a video camera next time so I am able to see what she does. After we finished our routine, then Maggie had me get Chauncey's dumbbell out to see how we are doing.

I have not been very good at making sure I practice the dumbbell every day, so at our previous lesson Maggie threatened me if I didn't practice every day, if possible twice a day. So, I made a huge effort and we practiced almost every day. Up to this time I was at the point of holding the dumbbell in front of Chauncey's mouth and giving the take command. After thinking a moment she would take it, which was a huge progress for a dog that would not touch it. As I was getting her dumbbell to put in our training bag, she ran up and tried to grab it. So I told her to take it and she did, no hesitation or refusal. I was thrilled. At class I told Maggie and she did it again repeatedly for us. Now I am able to hold it a couple inches out from her and she will reach forward, take it, and hold it for me. We are definitely making progress and there is light at the end of the tunnel. I have been working her since and she is taking it consistently and now I am moving it around a little and she is still reaching for it. I never thought that we would get to this point as retriever has seemed to me like banging my head against the wall with her. Maggie has been very patient with both of us, trying different methods until we have success.

Jasmine was up next and did very well on her run through, we are still working on getting her ready for pre-novice. Jasmine's heeling is doing great, it is the stand for exam and the stays that are the hardest for her. Holding still when she thinks she needs to be kissing and playing is very difficult. She finally managed a stand without moving and held a nice sit stay, but the down stay was so hard for her. I worked Chauncey and Maggie did Jasmine, while another man put his English Cocker in the middle of us. I am leaving for Chauncey's work, so Jasmine kept crawling to Maggie until Maggie had to give her a pretty good correction and she managed to hold still for a minute. It is coming, but we have to really work on settling down and focusing with her.

We have started dumbbell work with her and she took it in her mouth. so hopefully she won't be as tough as Chauncey was. I think I have made this part of our training more difficult than it ever had to be. I will let you know* hos it goes this week with them.

We Are Back...

....and working again. I know life has been a little busy lately, and I have not kept you all up to date on what has been happening with us. We are still training and finally entered Chauncey and Jasmine in a rally trial in St Pete. yesterday. It has been a few months since Chauncey's last trial in Advanced A, where she had a 98 and earned third place. We lost that leg because I mistakenly entered her in the wrong class, so oops lesson learned, read the rules first. Jasmine has not been in the ring for a couple years and when I last showed her, she was all over the ring and definitely not under control.

I arrived at the trial early (7am) to find a place to set up my large crate that holds three of my dogs as this trial site is very small and crate space is very limited. I didn't even have to prepare for the first walk-thru until 10:45, so I settled the girls in, gave them a little breakfast and took a nap in my chair, hoping it would help steady my nerves. After resting for a little while I went over to the rally ring and watched some of the Excellent runs and studied our courses. This judge, Brenda Critelli, did not give out individual maps, but posted the course maps on the wall. I copied them down in my book and went back to my seat to study them and make sure
I understood the movements. We finally had our walk-thru for Chauncey's Advanced B course and the course was set up very smoothly. It was an easier course, no serpentines, weaves, or off-set figure 8s, so the judge said that she would really be judging tough on handling as the courses were easier to work. Talk about adding pressure! We waited a while to go as we were 6th from the end of 30 dogs. You can read the sign descriptions here. Below is the course we ran:
Start
#1-360 degree Left Turn (Sign #12)
#2-Halt-90 degree Pivot Left-Halt (Sign #38)
#3-Send Over Jump-Handler Runs By (Sign #34)
#4-Left Turn (Sign #6)
#5-270 degree Right Turn (Sign #9)
#6-Slow Pace (Sign #17)
#7-Normal Pace(Sign #19)
#8-Halt-About Turn Right-Forward (Sign #32)
#9-Left Turn (Sign #6)
#10-Halt-Turn Right One Step-Call To Heel-Halt (Sign #35)
#11-Left About Turn (Sign #29)
#12-Halt-Sit-Down (Sign #4)
Finish

We finished Chauncey's course with a 97, losing a point on #4 as she was forging aftr the jump and bumped into me as I turned. We lost a point each on #8 and #10 for Chauncey lagging on the about turn, or she lagged because I left too fast. Chauncey did a very nice job of keeping her attention on me and we worked well together. I can see our hard work of the past couple years starting to pay off. The judge said that she was a very nice working dog and had very nice attention.

Jasmine was entered in Novice B and I was nervous to see how she would act in the ring and if I would be able to keep her focused on me. Her class did not even have the walk-thru until 1:30 and we were towards the end of the class of 8 and the judge actually combined the A & B classes as there were even less in A. The buildings had emptied quite a bit as the only regular obedience class still finishing up was Open A, so most people had packed and left. This made it much easier to walk Jasmine around and let her settle down, so she wouldn't be so hyper in the ring. I let her stand ringside and watch the dogs work. It seemed to help and she kept her focus fairly well in the ring. I only had to keep her from forging most of the time, I have never had a problem with lagging from Jasmine. Here is her course:

Start
#1-Halt-Walk Around Dog (Sign #30)
#2-270 degree Right Turn (Sign #9)
#3-Call Front-Finish Right-Halt (Sign #15)
#4-Left Turn (Sign #6)
#5-270 degree Right Turn (Sign #9)
#6-Slow Pace (Sign #17)
#7-Normal Pace (Sign #19)
#8-About Turn Right-Forward (Sign #32)
#9-Left Turn (Sign #6)
#10-270 degree Left Turn (Sign #10)
#11-Left About Turn (Sign #29)
#12-Halt-Sit-Down (Sign #4)
Finish

As you can see both courses had many of the same signs, so I was glad I took Chauncey through first. Jasmine lost 6 single point errors, probaby for tight leashes, forging, and extra bounces thrown in. We lost 3 points for redoing #3, as when I gave the command for her to finish right she went in another direction. We also lost 10 points for an incorrectly performed station, which I believe was #12. The judge did not write down which sign # it was, but as I gave Jasmine the down command as she went to down she stood up and then downed. Me, being the nervous person I was forgot to redo the exercise. So, there were some handler and dog errors on this course, but overall I very pleased with Jasmine's attention and how far she has come in her training.

I will do my best to keep this blog regularly updated. We have a lesson at Maggie's tomorrow night, so I will post that after I get home.

Tall Grass, Standing Water

I took all three of my Poodles tracking this week. That was fun as I had to fit three crates in my truck. We met Joyce and her Goldens at a different location. When we arrived we saw surveyors in the fields marking off areas with flags, this is very upsetting because it is hard to find land to track on. These fields are not supposed to be developed for at least another three years, if they are markings with flags then it will probably be earlier than expected. This is area has very nice fields to track in and a lot of different cover for obstacles. The only drawback is it is very near a huge airport and the fields are right in the middle of the flight path, so a lot of loud jets going over our heads as they land.

We decided what we wanted for each of our dogs and started laying tracks. Joyce laid Ziggy's as she is working on TDX with him and knew what she wanted and it would be run last with the most aging. I laid Micah's on the other side of the road. Joyce wanted to test him with a full length track, so I made it about 475yds with 4 turns. There was a lot of tall cover as the fields had not been mowed in while, most of it was over 4' tall, but it was not so dense as the field where Joyce laid Ziggy's track. It had rained very hard all night so there was a lot of standing water on Micah and Ziggy's tracks.

After laying theirs we decided which of mine to lay, so Joyce headed to the opposite end of Micah's field to lay a track for Blueberry (the map will come later as I left it at home). After she laid Blueberry's we went off in another direction with Jasmine. Since she is just beginning I held her while Joyce laid some straight tracks in front of us. She would lay it and we would run it. She started with a 20yd track, then built up from there, 35, 45, and then 60 yds. Jasmine did very good keeping her head down and working it out. Joyce is really correcting me if I don't stop the instant my dog's head comes off the track or they drift off the line. I have been bad about moving with Chauncey and I think that is why we have so many problems now. Jasmine loved it and Chauncey was able to see us and it really made her jealous.

We ran Blueberry's track next. She started very well and kept her nose to the ground. Blueberry is a very serious tracker and takes me with her as she tracks. She works the turns very simply, a double check and she is off down the next leg. Due to the heavy cover she had to find her way around some large bushes that Joyce walked around instead of through. On the last leg we came to a definite change of cover, it went from tall, thick grass clumps to shorter, very dense weeds. Blueberry went back and forth in front of the new cover looking for a way around and then just plunged through and found the glove on the other side. Her track was about 300yds long and had aged for about 40 minutes.

Micah's track was next and it had been aging almost an hour. Micah started well and right after the 30yd flag was a car path that was driven over before and after I laid his track about 4 or 5 different times by the people surveying the fields. When Micah came to the car path, he went left and right a couple times and the crossed over to pick up the track on the following side. I wasn't sure how he would handle cross tracks that early, but he did fine. Once we got back to the truck Joyce reminded me that he has had cross tracks a couple times now, accidentally, with no problems. Micah did very well with his track and each time he came to a turn he would pick up the next leg and be pointing directly at the landmarks I picked out to lay the track. Water and tall bushes did not slow him down at all. He happily worked his way to the glove in nice time.

Joyce then headed off to another field to lay a track for Chauncey. We are not aging hers very long right now, but really focusing on turns, keeping her working and focused on the track. There were about 5 turns (again my map is at home) with 3 articles on the track. She started okay and then after the first turn she found article one halfway down the 2nd leg and really started working better. She worked the turns okay, but Joyce was very good at telling me to stop if she wasn't working. Sometimes it helps to have someone watching you and keeping you straight during training! Chauncey does not give a very clear signal when there is a turn, so we are working a lot of turns to help me read her better and help her give more signals. We finished the track and she found her glove. A much better effort on her part than last week.

Ziggy's was last to be run, in the tallest and thickest brush, and aged the longest (almost 2 hours). He started well and worked through the brush fine with no hesitation on going from shorter grass to tall thick grass. He found 2 of his articles, but missed the third one. He also had standing water and went right through it. Ziggy has been in 3 TDX tests so far, the first two he took the cross tracks and the 2nd one he missed his articles.

It turned out to be a nice day for tracking and even warmed up quite a bit. Not much breeze and it didn't rain on us even though the ground was wet. We did see a coyote that ran across the field Chauncey tracked in. He took off when the dogs barked at him. I will try to track some this week at home, but we won't meet up for another 2 weeks.

Blueberry As A Model

Since I am an amateur photographer I am always using my dogs as models and forcing them to pose for me. Blueberry is one of the easiest to work with and she gives the right expressions for the camera. Here are some recent photographs I have taken of her.

Always learning something new!

Yesterday Chauncey was entered in a tracking test by Orlando Dog Training Club. The time for the draw to see what running order we would have was set for 7am, so we were up and running by 4:30am. I have never enjoyed getting up in the dark. We arrived at the area for the draw at 6:40, so I had time for a potty break and to say "Hi" to everyone. Once everyone arrived, we did the draw. I was the last person to draw, of 7 entries, and picked track #2. After the draw we waited a few more minutes before heading to the area for the first 3 tracks. The dog to run track #1 was called and I watched the beginning which was very strong. I headed back to my truck to walk Chauncey around and take deep breaths to relax. I heard the spectators cheering and clapping, so I knew the dog found the glove. The judges walked back and had me follow them in my truck to the starting point for my track. It was in the back of the field area and much taller grass than the front area, very wet, and I could see an outline of the tracklayers path.

I took Chauncey to the start flag, had her down at the sock, changed her lead from the collar to harness, and to her to "Find it". She started out pretty well, but when she got to the first turn Chauncey indicated to the right and then circled around to double check. She then kept going back and forth and never committing to the track. After doing that for a few minutes, I called her to me and let her sniff the sock again. She then went out and headed down the second leg. she was strong down the second leg and picked up the second turn, circled to check and the headed to the left down the third leg. This is where we made a couple mistakes. We hadn't gone very far when Chauncey veered off to the right at an angle and I just followed right along. I knew we hadn't gone fifty yards and I knew it was too early for a turn as we had just made a turn. I didn't stop and question her I just followed right along, so it wasn't surprising to hear the judges whistle. Once I looked at the map, I saw where she cut the turn and instead of picking up the next leg, just kept on heading out into the field. They started us back at the turn and Chauncey found the last turn and the glove with no problems.

We always know what we should have done when we look back. I should have held my ground and questioned her early turn. I don't know if that would have stopped her, but at least I would not have blindly followed her along. We made it much further down the track and she kept working an didn't do too much sight seeing along the way, which is her usual problem. She also did pretty good considering she hasn't tracked all summer and I just did some fun tracks the week before.

So, I will need to re-certify both Chauncey and Blueberry before March. The lady I have tracked with in the past, Joyce, had entered one of her dogs, Micah, and he had the track right after me. I didn't get to watch him as we were busy hiking back to our truck. Micah was whistled off on the first leg, he just was not focusing and looking at everything else. He finished up the track fine and found his glove. I did get a picture of Micah returning with his glove. Joyce and I are going to get back out and track together after the Christmas holidays.

I will add the track maps once I get them scanned in and loaded.

Micah returning with his glove!!

Chauncey wet and ready for breakfast