This year, as mentioned before, Amika seems to have settled down a bit and is easier to work with. It began to happen at the end of last year, but it is dramatically different coming back after the summer break. She can focus on me, she can restrain herself enough to wait for things to be done. But there are still limits. I put her harness on in the car, and ignore the old school (“it must be done this way”) trackers. It is just about impossible to get a harness on a 30kg dog that is spinning in circles and lunging at the start flag!

On about our third tracking practice outing I passed a man out for a walk with his dogs as I walked back from the end of the track. The three dogs were pitbull types, but they were well behaved and sticking pretty close to their guy. The track was a big arc that looped back to the car, and the man was heading the way I’d come, so I knew there might be some dog conflict. I went and spoke to him, letting him know that I was going to be following the stakes with bits of tape on with my dog and that if any of his dogs picked up a sock, to just put it back where they’d got it. So my articles might end up contaminated and not quite where I’d put them, though he assured me that his dogs wouldn’t mess with them.

I let the track age to 30 minutes, hoping the guy would clear off. If I hadn’t needed to meet a quarantine officer at the airport and pick up a falcon, I’d have aged it longer! Amika was ready, harnessed up and wearing her “This dog is busy, do not disturb” vest. I was ready with my gloves on and tracking lead gathered. As usual, she had the sniff and pee ritual next to the car and we headed for the start. And who should be crossing the oval at right angles to my first leg? Yep, the guy and his dogs. Fortunately they were more than 100 metres out, and the guy couldn’t help but notice the loony shepherd barking and pulling in his direction. She gets excited on the start anyway, but having dogs out there as well, she couldn’t contain herself. It was a little trickier than usual getting the lead from collar to harness.

Once they were at least 50m clear of the track I let Amika start. She put her nose down between looking at them, but she is so focussed on a track. When her head came up for the dogs, I held her back, when her head went down to the track I allowed her to move forward. Once we’d covered the first 20m (and the well behaved pitties grew steadily more distant) she was sucked into the track. She DID check out their cross tracks throughout the track, but stayed committed to my scent. She even picked up a couple of articles without too much verbal prodding from me. And the other dogs had left them alone. I was thrilled to see how well she performed in the face of such a huge distraction.

Amika at 6 weeks old

Those who have followed the blog may recall that I started with an over-excitable puppy, graduated to an out of control teen-wolf and had a horrific conditioned emotional response (CER) stitched on by an incompetent dog trainer. And all before Amika was 1 1/2 years old. Falling in a hole for a year included, it has taken me until the beginning of this year at just over 3 years old to get back to “excitable” again.

I’ve had a tremendous amount of help and encouragement from the online reactive dog communities. I’ve also learnt a ton from some great books on the subject. And I have practised. The things that helped the most in the past year are a) joining the class so I have a regular ‘controlled dog’ practice session each week b) Chinese herbs and c) restored personal confidence and persistence.

In Feb. I went on holiday and had to leave Amika in kennels. Very not-good, but I could find no other workable option (cancelling holiday not an option!) I went to a local holistic vet who put Amika on “Xiao Yao San” and some other herbal formulas to help in general and with kennelling. We also switched foods for more ‘cooling’ ones. I remember the vet saying “Xiao Yao San” had “sedating” properties. Yeah, it sure did initially! It almost seemed to depress her. So I’m not sure if it helped or hindered the trauma of the kennels.

The day I got back and picked up my (now emaciated and reluctant-to-eat) girl, I decided to “just do it”. The next day we started short suburban walks again after a hiatus of over a year. Lots of management and distraction got us through. As she came out of the stupor of whatever the kennels had done (gradual over two weeks) the walk routine was already in place. I figured if she was already as flooded as she could be, I may as well push past it. She was still on her Chinese ‘drugs’ through this time, and I noticed that before we went away there was a diminished intensity to her reactions to things and general excitability.

Amika having a snooze

I stopped putting herbs in Amika’s food at the beginning of April. They seemed not to be doing much and she was doing lots better. It seems like the herbs showed her how to be relaxed, and once she got that they weren’t needed. Classes were going well, and tracking was starting. With these and walks and runs at the park, she seemed more at ease with the world. I kept noticing and keep noticing the lack of desperation and anxiety in her reactive outbursts. We even went to a sheep herding trial, and she did good!

My next target is to get her more comfortable working with other dogs around. She’s showing good signs of this already (more in next post). What I dearly wanted from her last year was proximity to other dogs, and it just wasn’t working. Now that I have been trained, and her focus has improved, I can start bringing that in as part of our work. It will start as brief trips into class followed by ‘switching off’ further out. Duration, it must be remembered, is an additional criterion!

For a start, I was away overnight and arrived home to an enthusiastic greeting from Amika. She doesn’t like it when one of her people is out of reach, let alone out of sight or away from home. She doesn’t have serious separation anxiety, but she does miss us. I’m sure that she doesn’t sleep as well when we aren’t properly settled under her observation.

Today she didn’t get any exercise at all before it was time to go to class, and she was the most excited I’ve seen her since before the kennels. To top that, we were both in the car, and that really gets her thinking she’s in for a good time. Usually she settled and dozes on the long roads, but not this time: she was up circling and whining for half the trip.

So we had a bit of extra adrenaline, some no-exercise-yaya’s and someone else to keep track of. She did self calm pretty well after the initial singing session about being there. I got eye contact pretty much straight out of the car and didn’t put her back in the crate again until it was time to go home.

We dealt with the yaya’s (excess energy due to lack of exercise) by taking her into the greyhound run. She’d run out ahead, run back when I called, chase a Hurley, bring it back as we ran away… It was a short bit of off lead exercise, and well worth it. Exercise in this setting does drive up her arousal level, so we went back to the car for a drink, stopping on the mat on the way.

The virtual separation anxiety is something I’ve mentioned before. I think it is sheepdog gene related. Amika wants to make sure that all of her people are rounded up in one spot so she can keep and eye on them. If the flock splits, it makes her uncomfortable. This was pretty easy to manage simply by parking the man next to the mat. She knew where she’d left him, and he stayed there and was still there when she returned. Though having him out of reach did concern her.

The extra hype/ arousal stuff turned out not to be a huge issue. My dog has developed coping skills!!! She was more on edge than last week, which wasn’t great, but she showed excellent eye contact as a default and most of the time responded to cues first time. My partner observed that the trigger for her to begin reacting (mildly in all cases) was another dog walking towards us. Distance wasn’t a big factor at the distance at which we are working. That is a big change over last year, when distance was a big issue, as was ANY movement from the other dogs.

I worked on a couple of things tonight. We got in two people greetings, and I managed to do good at both. I got her to sit and acknowledge my existence for a split second before I gave her a release and let her close the gap. She still does the singing, lunge-ing idiot routine as people approach with eye contact, but it isn’t quite as intense. A few times on neighborhood walks, she’s actually almost ignored passers-by in favor of smells. This is a good thing.

I wanted to work BAT with the criteria of her doing a calming signal before running back to the mat (and the man- a big extra reward!) This got complicated because I’ve taught her eye contact really well, so she looks for a bit and then turns back and looks into my eyes. That on its own is incredibly amazing considering what I was up against last year. So I just went with eye contact some of the time.

Amika doesn’t offer clear calming signals very often. Tonight I missed marking and rewarding two beauties: a look-away and a lip-lick. I’m not beating myself up about it because I know I’ll get there eventually. I ended up just going with relative calm body posture (so subjective) and that fantastic eye contact. I did some reps of BAT: she sees the dogs, looks and is relatively relaxed and I mark and run with her to her mat. I also did CU-ish stuff with her offering look-at-that (LAT) and then eye contact for a treat.

Something different about the last few sessions is that she is definitely no longer hauling me towards the other dogs. Yes, she heads their way sniffing when I cue her to have a sniff (which is a combo calming signal, stress reducer and just plain fun for her). But the frenzy to close the distance seems to have gone. Tonight her focus was also with the other human whom she’d left by her mat, so her motivation to go away from the dogs was a little more pronounced. Even so, I’ve noticed she goes for mat breaks during rounds of people greetings, so she does seem to be using it as a self calming space and choosing to go there.

Towards the end of class, while the class participants were circling each other fairly closely, I approached with Amika. We got closer than we have been (about 30m ?), and even with a dog looping towards us Amika was able to cope without a reaction. We did some un-cued LAT reps and called it a very successful night.

I do need to lift my game as far as responding to her signals. Part of the problem is that I haven’t decided what I want to do. This is because I don’t know what Amika wants. She whines and kind of wants to bark at them, and I tell her not to. That’s not great, because I’m asking her to suppress behaviours, which is a lot of effort and isn’t going to support her in changing her emotional state.

I’m thinking that I will try clicking those signals and move away from the dogs. I think we’re at the stage where I might be able to really discern “I want more space” from “I wanna run wild with them”. We started with the latter when she was a pup, but now I think it really is the former. Probably both “space” and “play” are forms of stress relief from social interaction anyway. I’m also going to try to capture some calming signals and put them on cue. Easier said than done, but I have made a start on “stretch”.

I hadn’t intended to give her the summer off, but that’s sort of what happened. Between my lack of enthusiasm some days, very hot weather and general “other stuff” she hasn’t been back for two months or so. We finally had a break from the horrible hot weather today, and I was determined to get back again.

In the meantime, we have been working on stuff:

Through January I was taking her out for a run almost daily, plus doing clicker training stuff at home. The run at our secluded park always begins with some heeling work.  I was using food, but then found toys were more motivating for her. I also started walking her to different areas adjoining the park and practicing loose leash walking.

The beginning of February was the annual holiday for 11 days. I got her onto some Chinese herbs and homeopathic stuff before leaving her at the kennels. I also fattened her up some since they had trouble feeding her last year. She came home skin and bones with almost no interest in food. Now, 3 weeks on, she is approaching normal food motivation. It took 3 full days for her ‘happy’ to come back too. The herbs are powerful things, and I think part of her lack of appetite may be a ‘don’t care’ thing related to them. But she also just flat did not cope. I’m not sure what I’ll do next year, but don’t think I’ll go back to that kennel.

Back at home, I decided to push the envelope. Amika had a nice restful night at home before I took her out on the street. I haven’t taken her on a neighborhood walk in about a year, I think. She gets hyped so quickly and I have not had the emotional stability to ‘deal’ with her having an outburst. For some reason that’s changed, and almost every day we go for a walk or two around the suburban streets.

We started short and have graduated to going around a whole block and a bit. The weather hasn’t helped this endeavor, but I’ve just done it anyway. She still gets more anxious about night walks, so have to make sure we don’t overdo them. And since she had no interest in food that first week, I take a pocketful of treats and the rest of the time have focused on building toy drive, and used “go sniff” as a reward. Yes, there have been a few dogs. I just keep on going and reward alternative behaviours (the non-reactive ones).

Back at class, I didn’t know what to expect. One thing I learnt a long time ago abut animal training (and life!) is that the less expectations you have, the more miraculous the outcome. As soon as you form ‘expectations’ of your learner’s performance, you will be disappointed. I still do this… but not tonight.

I did the standard thing you do after a break: went “back to kindergarten”. All the criteria were low, the rate and quality of reinforcement was high. I had one set of behaviours in mind based on what I learned on the Caterpillar Dogs group. However it wasn’t’ formal or scientific- I was very relaxed about it.

On arrival, she reacted to a distant dog while still in the crate. I was at the back of the car getting gear, so I was able to open the other door of the crate, hold her harness and help her into a down. I have been trying Dr. Dunbar’s idea of being a broken record in certain situations where she can’t think, so it was “down, down, down..” and gradually she did, and I gave her some dinner-on-a-spoon as a reward. This dinner had mackerel mixed in, and that got her attention. She was able to self-calm pretty well after that.

I put her back in her crate once. That was just after getting her out the first time, since she wanted to react at distant dogs. After that it was all mat work. Our mat work is pretty shoddy at the moment, since I haven’t revisited it in months, but she still knows the drill. We moved out onto the oval, and other than some over-the-top greetings of people, she was pretty focused. I think this has improved as a direct result of the stuff I have been doing the past couple of months.

We headed out onto the edge of the oval with the mat and the container of dinner-with-a-spoon. I also had some new toys: Hurleys made by West Paw Designs. These are near indestructable floating, throwing and chewing on things.  She loves them. The pattern was this:

• Start on mat in relatively relaxed position, reward eye contact and relaxation.
• Walk on loose lead while having a sniff then sit by me and look at other dogs calmly- click.
• The reward is to run back to the mat and get food.

I also played with the hurleys a couple of times. To start out, she wasn’t that interested. As a reward for tugging with me a bit, I sent her to sniff. At the end of the session, I used the extension on her lead and did the whole sequence of tug, throw, retrieve, tug, throw… Also, when on the mat, I asked for “tummy scratch” a couple of times and got happy, relatively relaxed responses. She wasn’t snapping back to attention after, but I kept it brief. That seemed to calm her, and she just generally offered ‘relaxing’ on the mat in order to earn not only treats but another round of “go sniff” and heading towards the other dogs.

Amika did bark a few times. Mostly it was pure happy-excitement. On a couple of occasions other dogs got a bit too close but the reactions were pretty small and short lived. She’s getting much better at calming herself down. Part of that is the herbs, but she is also learning. We didn’t get particularly close, but I was thrilled with her level of comfort. She still breathed harder than normal- this IS hard work for her- but she left the oval more relaxed than she arrived!

On the way home, I thought about stuff. One thing I have known about for a while, but not really taken in as a belief, is that you need to let their emotions lead you in order to gain trust and build confidence. I haven’t thought of it in quite that way before, and mostly it has been just an ‘out there’ fact. I’m happy to feel that I’ve internalised that some more. I’ll be trying to use that more with my birds as well.

I’ve posted before about wanting to push to the boundaries which makes her fail. That mindset comes from just looking at coarse / big behaviours. Is she reacting? No- push closer. Still not? Even closer… until she fails and practices the same old unwanted behaviour. The stuff I’ve read says this isn’t a good way to do things. If, however, you focus on the fine detail stuff that just relates to emotional state, you get a whole new “edge” that is further out than the big barking display. Happy ears? Yes. Move closer. Still happy ears? NO! There’s the new edge- we’ve failed in keeping her 100% comfortable, but we’re still several steps away from practicing the bark / lunge mess. We haven’t lost ground by driving her adrenaline up a lot, and she hasn’t added practice to the old pattern.

I’m going to concentrate on Amika’s new edge, honoring where she says it is, and try, so very hard, not to push her beyond it. The next thing I need to believe in / internalise is that the distance she needs will shrink without me pushing it.

Working with Amika

We got there, I set up crate and mat. She was excited well before we got there this time. To start out, I took her over to the greyhound run for some exercise. This is a laneway that runs the length of the property, filled with nice sand. It goes for over 100m. Rather than getting someone else in to call her back and forth, I just gave the “run!” cue repeatedly, between calling her back my way with a “c’mon!” So I mostly jogged in one direction, and turned to pretend to run the other way as she came past.  I probably covered about 30m and then doubled back to the gate we entered by, but Amika covered a lot more ground by running back and forth past me.

So this wore her out pleasantly, but hyped her up a bit. We headed back to the car through the car park. It was good to see that while focused on getting back to the car for a drink, she wasn’t too fussed about the dogs on the oval. Once recovered from fatigue, though, they became much more of a focus.

I did lots of in and out of car crate to mat, LAT dogs, GMAB / go sniff and reinforced lying in her crate with opening away from other dogs. I wasn’t very happy with her emotional state overall: she was edgy, wanted to go interact and not ‘happy’ to work. More like she was working with me under duress. Part of this would have been my mood- I wasn’t able to be particularly fun and upbeat.

She did offer lots of good eye contact, and only had one partial reactive episode when someone popped out from between cars way too close, and walking towards us. I dragged her back to the car for a break when that happened (no point trying to -make- her stay in soft crate, that’s counter to what I’m trying to do!) I brought a frozen kong for her to work on during breaks (gave her several) but she seemed to feel pressured to eat it NOW, and get it done so she could get on with stuff. The fact that it was a slow process just seemed to cause frustration, which I saw a lot of during the evening. Patience isn’t her strong point, and she seemed to have less than usual.

Though we were able to work in a fair bit closer to the action in short bursts, I am feeling frustrated that we seem to be stuck at this ‘level’. We aren’t able to be close enough to interact with the class, and it doesn’t feel like we are making progress as far as decreasing distance. Distance seems to be dependent on her frame of mind, rather than anything we are doing, but that could be in my head.

Moods

I was thinking about the ‘frame of mind’ thing last night after class. I find that many animals are complicated people, and Amika seems to be one of the more complex ones I know. She is a pushy bitch, wanting her own way NOW. She is easily aroused, and seems to want to get into an aroused state (adrenaline junkie). She is sensitive to my frame of mind over a longer time frame, and is currently suffering from stress due to my moodiness (I’ve taken on too much work= depression / anxiety). I also think I’m seeing a pattern of her stress leading to allergy flare-up, with resulting dullness of mind. To top this, I have been doing less stuff with her and her brain hasn’t had enough consistent exercise and there isn’t much of a routine in our days.

I’m floundering a bit, but am aware that my state of mind has a big influence over my dog (and of course, me!) I’ll be on the mend over the next few weeks. It will be interesting to note how Amika responds to changes in my state of mind, and see if the allergies disappear again.

Class progress

The actual class had several people and dogs in it last night (good to see!) and they are all starting mat work, with some able to so so in fairly close proximity in the pens. I’m really happy to see CU working well for them. I’m still hanging out for more “Night Three” stuff. But since I do feel that we are stuck and not making progress to getting closer, we wouldn’t be ready to join in anyway!

Behaviour Adjustment Training

I may try to tee up some BAT sessions. Assuming that I can make moving away rewarding for Amika, this may be a way of explaining to her what behaviours “work” in proximity to dogs. Right now, her pattern is to want to close the distance, get frustrated and fly right out of her mind. Apparently this gets rewarded by the “rush” of adrenaline.

One hitch that I have with Amika is that I have trouble getting her to move with me at the best of times. I keep working on it, but it is always an uphill battle to get Amika to stay interested in / connected with me. This brings me to: how am I going to be able to read (and reward) good body language if she is pulling ahead to check out that other dog? I can try to heel towards to other dog, and then turn and play before she looses focus on me, but then I’m not rewarding a new instance of behaviour. BAT (from what I understand) works best if your animal moves with you, you stop, they give a calming signal, you reward with distance / play. Maybe I just need to set up BAT with a big mirror?! Then I reward when I see the other dog do something good.

Seminar

The trainer was Steve Austin. (Name sound familiar? Maybe you’re thinking of the bionic man from the 80′s TV show!) Steve trains detector dogs and their handlers (among other things). These dogs are looking for things like drugs, plant material (for quarantine) and pest animals. Steve also does private training and has a state-of-the-art boarding facility over East.

There is a program running on Macquarie Island where they are trying to decimate introduced rabbits in order to prevent the extinction of Albatross and other rare species. They’re looking for rabbit detector dog handlers: http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=13013! Steve has been training up the dogs.

There were a few ‘take home’ bits for me from the seminar. Steve mentioned a couple of times that he wasn’t giving us anything totally new to us, and that these were his way of doing things, some of which some of us might not agree with. True on both counts, but I came away with some new ways of thinking of old concepts (which is why you go to seminars, right?) and some inspiration.

One thing Steve said was that if the dog isn’t dying to join you in a training session, if that training isn’t the bestest, funnest thing for the dog, you are doing something wrong. This is exactly the same as the old “you should be the most interesting thing to your dog” concept, but said a little differently. It made a lot more sense to me, and slid in beside the “motivation” jigsaw piece that has just dropped into place for me in the past couple of weeks. Somehow, the reality of training as creating a really fun game has solidified for me. Not sure why that hasn’t happened before now, but it sure is a big piece of the puzzle!

I also loved Steve’s description of how to break training a task into steps, and how and when to increase criteria, and how to use variable rewards (really good effort gets the good stuff, mediocre performance gets a piece of boring kibble). I’m hoping his book will arrive in the mail soon, along with the painfully slow-to-arrive Crate Games DVD.

The seminar was a full day followed by half day of practical problem solving with dogs. We had a few people with problems that are obviously big for them, but everyone else would die for dogs that well trained and motivated.

I took Amika along on the half day, but not so she could be part of the problem solving (I already know where I’m going, I didn’t want to throw her into that intense of a situation, and I wasn’t happy with the way Steve man-handled). It gave me an extra opportunity to train. I got her out, did crate in the car stuff, went for a walk and a sniff before it got busy. I was glad to have my home made dog vest to put on her, modeled below.

Amika shows off her vest

After the seminar was done and most people had left, I drove to the far end of the oval and got the soft crate out, along with the mat. The remaining people were mostly socialising down by the club house. I did basic stuff with going to mat, crate and GMAB with sniffing. Amika was understandably a little on edge because of all the activity in the distance and change of routine, but did really well.

A clicker aside

Which reminds me of something else that was posted on a forum. Apparently ‘African Giant Pouch Rats’ make good land mine detectors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eAGtAYW6mA. There are a bunch of these up on youtube, but they are all clicker trained to find TNT, and are light enough that they don’t set off the mines.

So there you go, clicker training can save human lives (in case you didn’t already know)! I think the way they’re training the little guys is very cool.

Fun and games

Despite another full on week of work, and the depression that’s been taking hold due to ‘doing too much’, I did lots of playing this week. Instead of leaving the dog bag and the mat in the car, they now live on the back porch. This means they are always easy to get to.

We played an off-switch game in the back yard instead of at training for a change. In a much less distracting environment, Amika really got into tug toy interspersed with go-to-mat. Another seminar take-home was to stop playing before the dog has had enough, and I’ve been keeping games short and motivational.

One day when dinner time rolled around, I was trying to think how to get Amika’s dinner into her without just throwing a bowl under her nose. I thought about hiding food around the yard. Then I thought of tracking the food. It was a race against the clock- and the chicken! I laid a track with food drops (spoon full of dinner) and left the mostly empty container at the end. This is decidedly NOT how to train a dog to track, but since she already knows the concept, it worked great.

Chook on patrol

She waited inside the back door (in confusion!) and then I came and got her, put on her tracking harness and line and took her to the first bit of food at the start and gave the cue “on track”. She followed my scent and almost missed the first few drops (using nose, not eyes!) but really got into the swing by the end. Again, this was a very short track, so motivational. I’m thinking I’ll do this again (with her dinner in the yard) but with food in articles, so she can get me to open them for her. This might do wonders fro her article indication if I quickly move to trading an empty article for food.

Another game is one I heard about ‘out there’ in cyberland. There is a toy you can buy that is like a cat toy on a fishing pole, but bigger and tougher. I went to the horse store and bought a cheap lunge whip, and tied a rag on the end. Amika LOVES this game of chase. During the week, I used it to reward heeling, and have worked on giving food or continue playing as rewards for her dropping it when asked.

So it has been an interesting week in dogland. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this fun stuff happening and get a more engaged got as a result!

Halloween eyes

Class #9

Last week’s reactive dog class was pretty ‘blah’ for me. It was an attitude kind of thing. We did the walk and sniff, we took the mat up the oval. We did mat work sort of stuff, a tad of ‘off switch’ with a tug. I also tried to get her focused on me while walking, which didn’t go very well. I even thought about doing BAT, but the setup and the enthusiasm weren’t favourable, so just played with distance. We worked even further out than the previous week, but Amka seemed to be having a bad day – her threshold distance seemed a lot bigger. Heading back to the car, I opened one of those little cans of smoke flavoured tuna to lure her past class dogs, so though she pulled that direction sometimes, she didn’t ‘go off’, which was good.

The positives from this class were that we did some good crate-in-the-car work before starting and afterwards. Also, Amika didn’t have any full blown reactive episodes, just some barks and a little pulling. I completely forgot her front attach harness, but was able to handle her on her flat collar tolerably well. And the main thing was that we went, we were there, and it was an OK experience.

New toy!

I ordered and got a giant size soft crate for Amika, which arrived the day of the class. (I don’t think it triggered the moods at class though, that was probably me being over worked and stressed.) For anyone who is curious, K9+ is the company, and the model is a Royale2 size XXL. I went against my usual conventions and got a red one. (Big red things are SO out with raptorial birds: you’d have a panic attack too if you met a 9ft tall, live, walking, talking steak.) It looks good.

New soft crate

Amika was great: she stayed pretty much on her bed in the hall while I dealt with the delivery guy on the porch (we’d been having trouble with her running into the front room, where she isn’t allowed to go). And yes, there was a handfull of kibble dropped on her bed on the way out, but that was gone by the time I came back in with a BIG box. I think she’s figured out delivery people bring toys, as she often gets the boxes.

This particular box was wrapped in many layers of plastic wrap, like the stuff you’d use to cover a bowl of salad before putting in the fridge. Only bigger an tougher. I had fun seeing if I could unwrap it, but gave up and got out the scissors! Amika was encouraged to help with the plastic, but she wasn’t sure how to get into it either. The cardboard she knows about! I let her have the box (huge flat one) once the crate was out, but she was quite interested in proceedings as I set up the crate.

I left it at that: the crate set up in the office, plastic out to the bin and most of box (missing several bits which were still in the office!) went into the kitchen for further destruction. This increased later when we threw kibble in the bottom. She had a great time.

Amika's mess

Amika has had a wire crate for a long time (she started in plastic airline ones, but outgrew them fairly rapidly!) It occurred to me that a dark, closed up soft crate might be a bit daunting at first, so I opened it all up: 2 doors and a roof opening. I also opened the shutters on the non-open-able sides. I took out the supplied mat and installed a Snooza brand ‘futon’ that is her office bed, with the foam play mats underneath as usual. The futon is great, because it is made to go on top of a trampoline bed, and has velcro on the corners. It fits perfectly in the crate attached to the uprights, so won’t slide or get crumpled into the corners.

Amika had a good time checking out my new piece of furniture. I didn’t use food, just encourage her to check it out and go in, and she sniffed all over and decided going in and out was a good game. That was Tuesday. I had a big day on Wednesday (7 half hour talks to noisy year 8 students in groups of about 30). When I got home and had finished feeding and putting birds away, I was ready to drop. So I did, right into that soft bed in the office.

Amika came to see what I was doing (she’d finished greeting me some time ago and was resignedly laying on her bed in the hall) and joined in. At first she nudged me a bit to see if I’d play (hey, I was laying on the floor, that could be an open invitation), but I must have smelled exhausted, because she wasn’t at all persistent about it. She laid down and snuggled up and was very content there in the crate with me, especially while I rubbed her belly and patted her. It was very mellow and sweet, and quite funny when my partner couldn’t find me for a bit (and we have a very small house).

Thereafter, Amika decided that snoozing in the crate was a cool thing to do. I praised her when she went in on the first day, and in the days that followed I made sure that I went and gave her attention when she went in there to lay down. I also played silly little games where I’d throw a kong in and ask her to hand it to me, or while she was in the crate would show her a toy through the window and ask her to ‘get it’ and then take it in with her. This meant she was learning about windows: can’t go throgh them, have to turn away, go through the door and go around the crate.

Chilling out in the crate

The funniest bit was after I had taken the crate out into the back yard. It was great- she showed interest while I set it up, went straight in and chilled out in it for a while. When I brought it back in (having swept the floors and picked up all the bits of cardboard!) I turned in 180 degrees, so the door was on the opposite end. She again showed interest while I set it up. Once done, I was standing on the non-door end next to her and said “in you get”. She bonked her nose on the end window where the door had been. You could just see the  wheels turning: “the door should be here, but this isn’t working”. It took her a second to get it, and then we played the game of putting the toys in. We have had fun with the new crate the past week.

Class #10

Last night was much better in terms of attitude and performance. This was despite my fatigue after helping run a camp for another bunch of rowdy year 8′s.  Can you say “sleep depravation”? I had a bit of time to prepare, so read the relevant chapters of Control Unleashed and packed the new crate.

I decided that we wouldn’t go up the oval. This week, I didn’t even want to deal with proximity and stuff (so still no BAT). I wanted to focus on mat work and her orienting to me just in the environment. There were two other handlers and dogs there, and I went and talked to the instructor and handler who would be closest to let them know where I’d be staked out. Before class, I skipped the run around and sniff thing and did go to mat / car crate stuff with short sniff breaks and a bit of off switch with the tug.

Once class started I did more going to mat, sniff breaks, into car coming out when calm etc. I also took her to the crate, set up a couple of metres in front of the car on the edge of the oval. I had to encourage her to check it out verbally, as she was focused on what was happening ‘out there’ with the other dogs. Once in though, she seemed to immediately understand that this was like the mat: lie there and get treats! She also didn’t get up and leave until I released her.

We did quite a bit of LAT on the mat beside the car. There were dogs out on the oval, and people. That took some of her attention, but I was happy to see that she wasn’t particularly getting aroused by them. What had her popping up off the mat was the COWS! Across the car park, past the chainlink fence, verge, road, verge and fence, there were a couple of brown and white cows. So she divided her LAT left and right at the cows and dogs.

What I tend to do is play LAT, which is click for looking at… I do this for a bit until I think it is starting to get a bit old, then I switch to clicking for eye contact (often without a cue, though I do use her name to interrupt if the stare is going on too long and intensely). This transferred really nicely in the crate later on. I had intentionally set it up with all the windows closed, but with open door facing the oval. Once in and settled, she started playing LAT and then switched to looking at me intentionally after checking out the dogs. While in a relaxed down in the new crate! WOW! I kept these sessions short and she jumped out for a sniff as soon as I gave a release cue, so I’ll need to not push it.

After I finished, I did a little work on “quiet dogs get good things when owners come back to the car”. This involved another can of good old smoke flavoured tuna. And she was good in the car too- some barking triggered by hearing other dogs, but not over the top or stressed out. And yes, I did remember to bring the big dog blanket to go over the crate. Blocking her view is key. Once Amika was settled in the car, I went to see the two new people and how they were going.

What’s up with class?

The instructor had a new guy and his dog in one of the runs off leash. They were doing box work type stuff while mostly stationary. When I came up, the dog run forwards and barked, so I got to use some calming signals. Wow, that worked well! I turned away obviously, and she settled right down, and I also did some lip licking and she seemed to get that and be even better. Nifty! I watched as they tried a ‘mat’ (beach towel). The dog picked that up quickly as well, though it was a brief session.

We had a dogless class ‘meeting’ afterwards (a new thing) which was great. It meant the people cold talk together. Our instructor has really gotten into CU it seems! I’m over the moon, because when some of these students get the fundamentals down, we can start doing more interactive CU stuff. I can do circle work at a large distance now, but if we can get dogs on mats reliably and in a structured way, we’ll all be able to take turns to do circle work while other dogs are on mats at a much closer distance.

I’m also thinking that I am going to ask for a specific BAT setup at some point. This would make it less stressful for me, as I’d be able to have a dog ‘parked’ in one spot not doing anything that I could advance and retreat from. This way I can just focus on what Amika is doing and not worry that the dog is going to head in our direction. I really do tend to have a narrow focus when working with her.

I’m really looking forward to being part of class once the others get into mat work.! I am also really happy with how things are going with Amika training-wise the past week or so. Meanwhile, I’ll refine our mat work, and I have the Crate Games DVD on order (a motivation and self control program centred on a crate / mat). Now that some of the really hectic work weeks are behind me, I may be able to get a more productive dog training (and exercise!) routine going.

Going in and out

The main reason I didn’t get the degree of calm attention was a state of mind thing. As ever, we seem to be doing synchronised physiology. We have hayfever. Of course, in dogs this means itchy skin, but just like us they get fuzzy headed. As I’ve mentioned before, I think the antihistamines make her a bit dopey too (but at least she isn’t itchy).

Class part 1

I had trouble getting out the door (what did I say about fuzzy headed?) so we weren’t early. At least those extra two trips back into the house meant we had water and the big blanked to go over the crate in the car. I got her out with the usual choral whining, but she sat and stayed sitting while I clipped her up. She even turned back to me in a reasonable time once out (had to sniff grass first). Pretty good for a fuzz brain.

I’ve found that the best thing to do when we arrive is to take her on a sniffing expidition. She’s so excited just to be there and the sniffing helps her settle into that environment. I don’t let her tow me, and she was really good at moving with me tonight on the way out there. I didn’t need to do the ‘stop and wait for dog to notice owner’ routine. So she IS aware of me at some level. She also turns back to me when I call a fair amount of the time (this is a work in progress).

Having sniffed our way away from the area the other dogs were going to use, and seeing that some of the jitters were gone, I started asking for stuff. Earlier in the day, I showed Amika a new game in the back yard. We’d heel a short distance, then I’d say “turn!” in the same high voice I use for “run!” and use my body language to show her which way I was going to go. She thought that was a pretty good game. I tried it out (now on lead) and she ‘got it’ and came with me. So that one will work nicely for moving away from triggers once there is some more groundwork. I left it at that for tonight, as I had lots of other things to think of and work on.

While working up the back, I tried some BAT work (behavioural adjustment training) just a couple of times. Yes, I can see how this would work now. Basically, I walked Amika towards the dogs in the class, stopping before she would react. After seeing a lip lick or -something- calm, we turned and moved away as per the “turn!” but I didn’t use the cue or make it too exciting. Then we were back to doing other stuff for a bit at that slightly bigger distance.

Now, just sitting here writing this I’ve had a ‘duh!’ moment. The biggest excitement this evening was when our trainer came over to talk to us. “Oh boy, it’s my friend!!!!” says the dog. Ya know, using BAT with approaching the trainer as reward may be a really good thing. In this first instance, I -sort of- rewarded calmer behaviour, but there was a big distance and a conversation that needed having. So I allowed some pulling between asking for reinstatement of brain (stop, ask for eye contact, get it grudgingly after some seconds, go forward). To do BAT with this, I think I’d need to use a barrier so there isn’t so much ground to cover.

Amika the Star

It turns out my ISP had eaten an e-mail, and that class was learning about using mats CU style tonight. Could Amika demo? Oh, wow, my reactive dog class is using CU!! So the other dogs went back in cars for a bit while I managed Amika back down the oval to the car, collected mat (I’d been wondering how we were going to get past the other dogs to collect it) and moved towards the people. Oh, she was thrilled. A bunch of people looking at HER! Fortunately, they weren’t all clustered together, so she wasn’t sure who to apply her charms to first. That seemed to difuse the tension a bit.

I had her mat, which she did manage to notice after I squeaked and waggled it and bounced around a bit. “Oh, yeah, mat, calming down right now might be good.” And there in front of several people, she got on the mat, I clicked and she laid down to eat treats. She stayed there to eat treats. She stayed there while waiting for more treats. I released her to sniff and picked up the mat. Then when she noticed me again, I put the mat down and on she got for more treats. Then she stayed there while I backed up a few steps and then geve her another treat etc. I was really amazed at how good she was at being on the mat in such an aroused state with an audience.

Part 2

The demo over, the other people headed for cars to retrieve their mat and dog, and I headed up the oval again. We’ve got a second instructor / helper (they’re all volunteers btw) who came to help with Amika and greetings. After the first one, where Amika has trouble keeping her feet on the ground, she becomes a lot less aroused and more polite. She can also shift her focus off the person to other things.

The second half of class for Amika was being on the mat, interspersed with tugging (off switch),  sniffing and going over to say ‘hi’. She was really good with that. She was even able to stay on the mat while our person walked away and then came back! We also did a fair amount of LAT for the other dogs. We weren’t able to get true relaxation on the mat with all of the prior arousal and continuing activity. She did “tummy scratch” which is to roll on her side, but could only ‘not look’ briefly. I’m thinking now that it would be really good for me to choose to move another 20m out and specifically work on passive attention / relaxation for several minutes as a ‘break’.

Long skinny oval.

When I thought it was time to quit, I realised we had a dog we’d have to squeeze past. First, I made sure we didn’t do a direct approach, but came in on a tangent. Second, we got onto the dirt road at the edge of the oval, other side of trees. This made it fairly clear where we were going. Amika was pulling, and I accepted that mostly, just keeping a very short lead. Periodically, I stopped to get eye contact. I also body blocked by walking into her, pushing her shoulder with my thigh (she was on my left as we passed the dog on our right). I didn’t bother with food, and despite getting some barks from the dog (whose owner was moving him further away) Amika did not have a big reaction. I think a big part of it is that she knew that we were not going TO the other dog, but heading back to the car.

Putting Amika in the pressured situation wasn’t my first choice, but I was extremely pleased how well she did. She didn’t go berserk, and took treats as soon as we were past and calmed down rapidly. I let her have a drink, put her in the crate with treats and praise and covered her up.

As I was going to say goodbye to the others, I did some crate training. Amika has been barking a lot when I leave her in the car. She’s always had a tendency to have a tantrum about being left. At the moment, she waits a bit, then barks for a while and eventually (I guess) gives up. This doesn’t do her any good, so I’d like to get her out of the habit.

I left her in the covered crate, closing the car door, and walked off a few paces. I then returned, opened the door and gave more treats. Repeated that several times, increasing duration between visits. There was no barking. Then I went and said goodbye, but remembered I had some books to return. Went back to car. She was barking, but I think hearing one of the other dogs barking may have started that. I went and got the books (no treats) and left again, briefly. Since she was quiet I repeated the exercise (treat and leave) several times, again with more duration.

After returning stuff to the library and more chatting, I went back to a quiet car and gave Amika more treats before heading home. Nice finish to the night. I am just so happy with how she is doing and how well the class went (they commented on the dogs being less reactive while learning to be on mats). If the two new students practice mats at home, hopefull they’ll be able to get into some relaxation and games too.

The biggie for tonight- no lungeing (pulling, yes) and one or two wuffs, but no agitated barking. Yay.

Reactive dog class 5: 22/9/09

After having a good rant about how we should be our dog’s advocates and stand up for ourselves, I got ‘done’. I’m relieved to read tonight in “Bones Would Rain from the Sky” by Suzanne Clothier that following authority despite misgivings is a thoroughly human trait. If a ‘teacher’ is asked to give a ‘student’ (really an actor!) electric shocks by a scientific researcher 60-85% will zap the heck out of the student as per instruction. This is from some studies that are cited in the book.

So there I was, doing my own thing as I had planned. I had brought Amika’s mat along and was determined to do stuff with her outside of class if needed. So we were moving closer and further and stopping on the mat for treats. But when our instructor said “alright, in you come” I obligingly went right into the pen with Amika- barking and lunging as I knew she would at that proximity. There are three ‘runs’ made of wire fencing. They are side-by-side with a walk space between each. I unclipped her and watched her run the fence barking at the dog two runs over. A mere7 or 8 paces away.

Here is what I saw: over-excitement that did not abate, quickly rising body temperature as a result which quickly tired her out so that barking and speed reduced. A ball was tossed in her direction a few times, as were treats. People moved outside and chatted to her. She responde to movement and briefly redirected her arousal onto the ball (pick it up and shake). It took several minutes after the dog left the other run and walked away for her to calm enough to notice the dropped food. She consumed it in an intense, must sniff the grass sort of way.

I was upset. I knew what would happen, and I let it happen anyway. Once I was there, I considered saying “nope, we’re out of here” but then thought- no, I’ll give this idea a proper go. I had difficulty not crying then and there. Once Amika had somewhat regained cognitive ability, I took her back to the car for much needed drink and break. And tried to calm down myself.

The trainer came back from working with another dog. She said she had seen good stuff- progress. I hate it when I cry, but I did. But I was able to say that I wasn’t happy with how it had gone and why. Is seems that my perception of “stress” is different to the trainer’s. What she saw was a dog that calmed down, was able to play a bit and was not unduly stressed. We agreed to disagree. And I give full, top points to our trainer here- to have someone blubbing at you and saying “I think you are wrong about this” and say “that’s OK” shows a lot more maturity than you get from the average person. I am so very grateful for that!

I went home feeling rather foolish (after the big words on a forum about how I should act, and then doing just what I said I shouldn’t do!) and guilty for putting my dog in a situation where she was set up for failure. But I did get over it relatively quickly. Amika was a little high but was apparently recovered from the stress hormones within a day. She was nowhere near that extreme she had when she was flooded.

The Show 28-30/9/09

( Happy 3rd Birthday Amika – 28/9/09 )

She saw the inside of the pavillion (shed) when I set up a few days prior, and even went nose to nose with a hand reared lamb. Lots of barking and wanting to run up to everything and everyone. She was either in the crate in the van, in the pen where I was setting up stuff or on lead in between. A couple of the helper kids wanted to meet her, and one even took her outside on lead for a pee. Given she was on the front attach harness and the kid had handled calves, it was all good. And Amkika was very well behaved, if a bit excited.

The lamb was funny- from the crate she barked as if it were a dog. So I picked it up and let her sniff its butt through the wire. “Huh? Smells interesting.” Then the manager (Dad to the lamb) said, turn its face to her, so I did. Sniff- bark, bark, bark! So I took pitty on the lamb’s eardrums, took it away and let it totter after Dad to see if he was handing out bottles of milk. It didn’t seem too upset.

Another encounter, which probably gives insight into my evil side, was as we were leaving. Past the pen of lambs, whom she sniffed at and barked at, towards the door and the van. But before the door is a stall. In the stall is Norton. At this time, he was laying down quietly chewing his cud, as 3 ton Brahman bulls often do. Amika hadn’t noticed him, so I veered in that direction and pointed hime out “who’s that?” Initially, she followed the nose to the sweetish, fermenting grass scent, and then her eyes caught up. First a pull forwards, then a startled stop, and then backing up a few steps while barking. Yep, I’m just mean, I laughed. I didn’t stick around, as I didn’t want to upset the big boy’s digestion, and I didn’t want Amkia to keep barking. I figure the best thing to do in such stressful, mind blowing situations is for me to just act as if “yeah, whatever, no big deal” and keep moving steadily and calmly.

Given that we’d be out for 9 hours each of the three days we were displaying birds, I arranged to keep Amika in a little cubby run at the back of the pavillion, out of sight of the public. I took along a frozen stuffed kong and a meaty bone on each of the first two days. The third day, I asked my Mom to drive to our place and let her out for a while. (I do not trust my fencing or my neighbours with Amika’s safety, and I don’t trust Amika with the safety of Chook or the free range ginnea pigs.) This was a compromise- it was too much to ask Mom to drive out each day, too much to ask if she could stay at their house and I just wasn’t going to board her. It was hard on her to be left locked up with all sorts of stuff going on (she could hear and smell it all around). But she was safe, and her bladder wasn’t going to explode. It was a bit stressful, and she barked a fair bit, but all in all handled it very well.

Thinking about arousal

The Show did give me pause for reflection. In one context, I am greatly upset by my dog’s agitation. In another situation, I am OK with it- to the point of setting her up for a surprise! This is a distinction that I make on that “gut instinct” level. So in reflecting, I am using my intelect to pose questions to my ‘gut’ to find out how and why these situations differ.

All that I can verbalise at this point is that it is in the quality of her response. Are we jumping out of the plane for fun, knowing that we have a parachute strapped on, or are we being thrown – for all we know – to our death? The physiological response is very, very similar. The emotional experience is far, far different.

From what I can tell, with the big, wide world and people, Amika is just under-socialised. New stuff is just exciting, and she’s an excitable dog. With dogs, she was given a very bad Conditioned Emotional Response (CER). While I am counter-conditioning to restore a happy CER, I don’t want her to jump out of that plane with another dog. This seems to be why my instincts are screaming at me to keep her beyond that point at which she shows signs of arousal. It IS working – the quality of her response is not as frantic now, but cc/ds requires that she experience her ‘triggers’ at a distance that doesn’t call up aroused responses and old habits. We want to practice new ways of being around those old dogs.

Class 6: 6/10/09

We missed a week due to the Show. None of us needed or wanted more activity in our day! The following week, I still hadn’t quite recovered, but was determined to get my dog out of the house and do some good work with her.

We did more with the mat, playing GMAB and then open bar just for being on the mat. Played a bit of LAT. At one point, another dog was coming towards us, and she barked, but I just moved on and it was OK. I found that Amika was able to focus a little better on walking -with- me on lead which was nice.

I was happy with what we did, and I finished on a good note. I also quit a bit early rather than pressing on.

Class 7: 13/10/09

Interesting night. Happy excitement on arrival. Hard to get out of the crate (I don’t open the door until she is sitting and relatively quiet). Not much was happening when we arrived, so I just got out the mat, walked out across the oval and did CU stuff with the mat.

She hadn’t had a lot of exercise, so I made sure we moved fairly briskly, I asked for and got attention, which was rewarded with treats and a suggestion to go back to sniffing (Premak principle). I lowered my crieria and clicked (hey, I actually got the clicker out) for her just getting on the mat. As soon as I did, though, she would lay down (because that’s what dogs do on mats, as far as she knows).

There was a dog working on obedience stuff at the end of the long, narrow oval. Amika was OK with that until it headed in our direction and was moving around in an animated way on a long line. I just moved away. I also didn’t realise, at one point, that I was moving towards a dog walking along the track on the edge of the property (there are trees and it is darker under there as the sun goes down). Barking and lungeing were brief and not particularly intense. Amika’s walking -with- me was really good at times, and she offered heeling some of the time too.

Class started late and we had arrived a little early. As I arrived back at the car we had a visit from our trainer, who unfortunately got jumped all over. I have got to figure out a better way of managing Amika for this. We had a new student / dog and a regular with her dog who was going to work with her. I wanted to work on my own again. I put Amika in the car as class got under way, as they started at our end of the oval and were going to do paralell walking. Very soon, they moved off and I got Amika out again.

At this point, I thought I’d go back on the oval for a bit. But first, another drink for the dog, a bit more mat work and then… But then I realised that there were two gleaming brown eyes looking at me. Attentive but relaxed. Happy. “What do I do for the next treat?”. The anxious component was missing. Gone. It was an amazing 10 or so minutes in which we played mat, go sniff, look at that dog over there and even tug on the rope like mad and then drop it on command. An actual off switch game where you rev the dog up with play and then have a break, then play again.

For this blissful span of time, I had a dog who was happy to work with me. She was minimally concerned with the dogs on the oval, and we were just doing our thing (including looking at the dogs). This was quality time. I showered her with praise and played and gave her lots of treats. And I quit on a high note. I didn’t push it and make us go closer. She happily jumped into her crate and hoovered kibble.

Unfortunately, she did end up barking from the car for a while. I just had to chat with the people, and the blanket that blocked her view slid off the crate some time after I left. Not sure how that happened, but I was disappointed hearing her on the way back to the car. I need to get a bigger blanket so it won’t slip so easily. Oh well. -sigh-

Long drive: 15/10/09

Given the impending rent inspection and that I wanted to do something with the dog, I dragged her out to Bunbury. I had a meeting to go to, and figured we’d get some walks in. Which we did. We also need to practice that bit where the dog gets to stay in the car, no matter how she complains. It was a non-stop 2 hour trip each way.

There was a short pee break and drink with a quick sniff around when we arrived. Then I was gone for an hour or more. We then did a longer exploration of the little waterside park. There were very few people around, which was nice. We went for the longest walk after meeting part 2, just before hitting the road again.

Amika is getting fairly good about giving eye contact, though she still pulls with the excitement of all those smells. The front attach harness is pretty good. She got in a few small barks and bounces about a person some distance away, but figured out pretty quickly that they weren’t on offer and went back to sniffing all the fascinating smells.

The usual stuff: 15/10/09

Finally up to today. I realise that I need to get Amika back out into the world again. For more than a year, I kept her away from triggers. This was to reduce stress – hers and mine. In that time, I extricated myself from the burnout (depression and anxiety) that hit shortly before I came home with an 8 week old pup. She was my tipping point, my straw, and I am very grateful for that, because it was she who made me realize that I needed to deal. And I did. Now I just have to make it up to her.

So this morning Amika came along for errands. She’s done this many times before, just not as much lately. We do like the new van- it fits the big crate so a dog can stretch out if she needs to, and it stays cooler than the station wagon did. She had a bit to say about some of the people and things she saw, but no mad barking.

She was concerned a little by the guys installing shade sails on the frames at the shopping centre car park, but figured out they were OK. We took a short turn about the little park next to the library, which she found quite exciting. She saw some more people who didn’t pay her much attention. At the pet shop, she was so excited I left her in the car twice before she was quiet enough to be let out for a short walk around the edge of the car park (which we’ve done a couple of times, explaining the excitement).

This afternoon, we all (including my partner) went to our usual off leash spot. As usual, I get her to reorient when coming out of the car, and then practice some heeling. The difference today is that I did it without the lead, and she did really nicely. So I made it a really short session and then repeated it a bit later.

It was a warm day, so there was less flat out running. It was really nice for a while as the people sat in the shade and the dog came to join us with a stick to chew on. My partner commented on it – how calm and content she was. This lasted until she jumed up and went to the edge of the creek a metre away, looking intent and tense. There were people over there. They were walking together, and they could potentially greet a dog.

I was very pleased with Amika’s recalls today, and this instance was the best of them: despite seeing potential greet-ees, she came to me and got rewarded with lots of treats and praise. Unfortunately, she remained hypervigilant after that. I tried getting her to lie down and settle, and to some degree she calmed, but the anxiety component was still there. Interesting. She also did some very nice walking on lead on the way back to the car.

My, what a long post I’ve written..!

The work I have been doing at the local park is paying off. Amika now knows she has to sit quietly in her crate before I’m going to open the door. She then knows she has the lead clipped on and that she’s expected to hop out, turn around and sit in front of me. This last bit doesn’t always happen, but she also knows that when she forgets, she has to go back in the crate and start over. Despite the excitement of being at the tracking place, I didn’t have to wait long for the initial sit, and only had to put her back in once (and only briefly).

The other thing I’ve been doing at the local park is to practice heeling work for a little bit before letting her off. She did a pretty shocking job this morning, but it was to be expected.  When she ‘disconnects’ to sniff, I stop suddenly or turn the other way. Once I got her to do a half decent job of heeling with attention for a few steps, I released her to sniff on lead for a bit. When she’s fresh and thinking, she can walk very nicely on lead with only the slightest pulling. After wandering up and down the road I called her back in to heel for a bit, got a sit, took off the lead and got a little more of a heel before setting her loose.

She ran, she romped, she sniffed at speed. She circled and kept an eye on me. I went back to the car to get some gear organised, and she stayed fairly close, checking in a few times. She got kibble dropped on the ground for this, but was enjoying running around so much that she barely sniffed it. I usually go for a run with her, so she was probably wondering why I wasn’t playing.

When I was done, and did walk up and down the road a bit, she sprinted around some more, but really was keeping pretty close. I had slipped a little something special in my pocket this morning, and wanted to jackpot a recall. I was surprised I had to encourage her to run off! An opportunity presented itself (dog headed in other direction) and I called her loudly. She turned pretty much instantly but without great enthusiasm. On arrival, she found a pile of pink smoked salmon! Yum!

Actual tracking was also fun. We loaded up and moved back down to the main road. The usual suspects (whom I train with) were not there, so I joined some other people. The usual people did eventually show up in dribs and drabs, but I stayed with this ‘new’ crew since I already had a tracklayer lined up. I was glad I did, as they’re more cheerful and out for fun than many of the others.

Amika’s first track was amazing. Awesome, really, when I think of where we’ve come from. She mostly didn’t tow me to the start. A couple of times I turned back towards the car and she did her “Oh, all right then, you annoying bitch!” thing and paid me some attention without incessant pulling.

Other dogs had run across the area where our start flag and article were, so I had some trouble getting her to focus. It was the frantic running back and forth thing. This was a perfect opportunity to try that idea the reactive dog class instructor had: I cried, high pitched and loudly. Amika bounced at me immediately. The eye contact / body orientation towards me was only for a split second, but it did work to get her back briefly. And I think it was so odd that she had an ear on me afterwards. Whatever, I was then able to get her to kind of notice the scent article (the ubiquitous sock) and let her start the track. She didn’t go on to follow the dogs back to their car, so it must have worked!

The speed of the track was much different to what is used to be. She didn’t sprint, circle and surge nearly as much as usual. Her pace was much more steady. Her head was fresh and she was able to concentrate and think. She indicated two of three articles completely on her own. Whe I say indicated, I noted her crossing through a scent pool (zigzag or circling across track) and then she located the item. She then picked it up only long enough to flick it away and keep going on the track. The second article, I had to hold her back on the line- she was stepping on it. When she figured out what I was on about, she did the flick thing and I let her go on. Continuing the track is her reward.

Her corners were really good on this track too. Because they were flagged, I could see how far off she goes, and watch how she indicates loss and re-aquisition. She was pretty spot-on the track most of the time.

Our track layer followed us up, so there was an article with treats in it at the end. And of course, the tracklayer arrived just after she found it (since she was right behind me). I was surprised that Amika was interested in the kibble on the end article and wasn’t desperate for a drink. She was, however, very easy to walk back with. Another dog was in evidence closer to the road, and she started to react a bit, but I was able to get through to her that we were not going to see the other dog, and she came pretty well.

Track two for Amika was more typical. The change was due to barking and frustration in the car. She wore herself out and fried her brain slightly. Walking to the start was interesting. She knew there was a track out there somewhere, so was getting aroused and pulling into the veg at the side of the road to try to find it. I was able to get her to turn back to me, but had to do so repeatedly.

The people were chatting together, and pretty much ignored her approach, and she was looking for a scent so not pulling towards them. Given that these were dog people, and that she was not trying to mug them- I let her run right up to them when she did decide to take an interest (as we were passing the group). She bounced up, went “eee!” and briefly said hello, and then came back to look for that track, which we were almost upon at that point.

The start article was investigated without me having to interfere this time, and she was off. There was a lot more loosing the track, circling and taking off when the scent was re-aquired. I held the lead shorter than I had on the previous track so that she wouldn’t be spending so much time searching. She settled into it a bit better by the second leg, but was wandering to the side of the trackleyer’s path for large chunks of track. This meant that she bypassed articles. The last leg was fun, because the tracklayer had walked through some damp grassy stuff and I could see her footsteps. Amika did really well on this leg too, so it was fun to “see” what she was tracking (the vegetation portion, anyway).

The end article also had her toy with it, but I think she was just as pleased to hang out with the crowd of people who were praising her. She was too tired to bounce or sing, so was patted too. Oh, and yes, she did want that drink. Freed of her harness, and having had a sip or two, she took her toy and went and laid down several metres away, and just smilled at us for a bit. I’ve got no idea what that was about. Tired? She certainly was! But not as tired as some days we’ve tracked. She walked ever so nicely back to the cars- this time we were walking a little ahead of everyone, and she was willing to wait up.

I also got to follow up another handler and dog team on two of their tracks. They were fun to watch work. The Border Collie had really easy to read body language, and just did very well at the job So today was a far more enjoyable tracking day than the last one, with good tracks, good dogs and good company. Hope I end up with this mob again next weekend.