While writing that last post, I got to thinking about failure.
I know that I'm going to fail in the ring occasionally. It always sucks to lose, and it sucks exponentially more to lose like we did last weekend. But I know right at the outset that it's something we're going to have to accept, because the nature of trialing with a genetically fearful dog is that you will lose ALL THE TIME.
No matter how much you practice, how good your dog is at home, or how many fun matches and show-and-goes you do, you will fail. Your dog will get scared or stressed and melt down. There's nothing you can do about it but make fun of yourself, give your dog a cookie for trying (because trying counts! Trying counts for a lot!), and go home to practice some more and hopefully do better next time.
Keeping Pongu out of competition until he's "more comfortable" isn't a viable approach (although we've had a couple of instructors who recommended it) because I've learned that the only way this dog gets more comfortable is by being exposed to those environments again and again, and being asked to work in them again and again. He needs that history of success to build his confidence.
So we fail. A lot.
Our road to every achievement we've ever gotten in dog sports has been littered with a huge proportion of NQs and crappy scores in relation to our Qs and good scores. Again: we racked up 22 NQs in Level 3A alone before we got the 3 Qs needed for that title. We've gotten well over 50 total NQs this year. When I say we fail a lot, I mean A LOT.
That's okay (I can say now, after nursing an awful lot of pride bruises over the past 14 months). What matters is not the fact of failure, but how you handle it. Eventually, over the long haul, if you are patient and encouraging and willing to cheer your dog through enough failures, you succeed. Your dog will learn that nothing terrible happens when he freezes up or panics, and that great things happen when he overcomes his fear and works.
And that builds his confidence. He's more willing to keep trying, because he thinks that he can't lose -- he can only win.
For a fearful dog, in my opinion, that is a crucial lesson. It needs to be taught early and often: you will always try, because there is no reason to be afraid of failure.
I don't care (much) if Pongu NQs. I do care, very much, that he goes into the ring and tries. That's what I count as a win. And he knows it, so he's willing to go in there and work to the very best of his ability. Sometimes that gets us a good score and a nice placement, and other times it doesn't -- but because he keeps trying, and keeps being rewarded for trying, the former is true (and true under circumstances that would have been unimaginable a year ago) more often than the latter.
Anyway, the reason I was thinking about this yesterday was because I think one of the reasons I've gravitated so strongly toward force-free training methods is because I have a dog whose success depends on failing X number of times and being given constant encouragement to "fail upward" each time.
Sometimes I wonder what my perspective would be like if I didn't have this near-certainty of failure to look forward to (and back upon). I know that there's no point getting mad at Pongu for being overcome by terror, and I also know that's the only reason he ever screws up, so therefore the only reasonable response to his NQs is to be supportive and encouraging. And since we've been doing this for a while, I can also look back and see that being supportive and encouraging really works for my dog.
I can't punish my dog for being afraid. He's not being disobedient or defiant or "giving me the finger." He's doing the best he can, always. And because the ring is already such a terrifying environment for him, it's incumbent upon me to make the work as enjoyable and inherently rewarding as possible -- which means using lots and lots of R+ training techniques to build up its value in his mind.
I suspect the same is true for an awful lot of dogs whose owners don't see it, though, because their symptoms aren't as severe. When your dog breaks down because he's a shivering, tail-tucked, panicky wreck, everyone can see that he's failing out of fear. But when the symptoms are a little subtler -- maybe just a slightly glassy stare, a distracted loss of eye contact, and a suggestion of a fear grimace that could be mistaken for a "smile" -- then I wonder if the handlers always catch it, or see it for what it is.
And I wonder if they're afraid of failure because they haven't had to deal with it as often, and if their increased attempts to regain "control" reflect that fear.
I'm not afraid of failure anymore. Maybe I'm lucky that we've gone through so much of it this year, early in our shared dog sport career, before Pongu or I had a history of success to worry about losing.
For us, failure is the precursor to success, not the first sign of its loss. It means we're on the way to gaining control, not losing it. And it's nothing at all to fear.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
On Dropping Out
A couple of weeks ago, I dropped out of the competition obedience class I was so ambivalent about.
In part, I dropped out because the logistics were too hard to finagle. Fighting rush hour traffic across the entire length of Philadelphia meant leaving work at 3 pm in order to make a 5 pm class, and even then I was always a few minutes late, which made the beginning of each session a minor exercise in embarrassment.
The larger reason I dropped out, though, was because after a few sessions it became apparent that the class was not a good fit for what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be.
Here's the thing: When you are a beginning student (as I still mostly am), the world of possibility is wide open. You have no investment in developed skills. You are a blank slate, unformed clay, insert-your-cliche-of-choice; you have complete free choice as to which methods you wish to learn and how good you want to get with them.
It's much harder to walk away from a particular methodology once you've invested a ton of time and money into mastering its skills. If you've had success using those skills, you have to be willing to risk losing that success; you have to un-learn old habits and develop entirely new ones. It's difficult and discouraging and I suspect the monumental nature of the task is one of the reasons that people can get so defensive about whatever their preferred training philosophy might be -- because if they're wrong, then suddenly all those sunk costs look like a really bad investment. And nobody wants to make (or admit they've made) a bad investment.
I used to think that forcible methods were faster to learn/teach, more reliable in producing competition results, or otherwise "better," because why else would people choose to use them for this sport? I took it on faith that this was so. Those were the reasons that people who chose to train this way gave me, and I assumed they knew what they were talking about, since after all they had done it and I had not.
So I wanted to check out the alternatives before going all-in on my original investment. I wanted to see, and try, a different school of thought firsthand.
I'm glad I did. And having done it, I feel reassured that I made the right choice for me and my dogs.
What I saw (and here I'm doing a thing that I hate: jumping right over discussion of concrete specifics to arrive at conclusory labels) was that compulsion-based methods aren't better, don't work faster, don't produce more consistent or precise results, and don't hold up more strongly over the long haul of competition and maintenance. The fallout of using them, on the other hand, was actually greater than I had anticipated, even though I dropped out before the harder "corrections" came into play.
Someday I might be able to analyze and discuss the exact reasons that I came to those conclusions. I don't feel entirely comfortable doing that today; I feel like I need more distance to be able to bring hindsight into full focus. All I can say now is that it wasn't a road I enjoyed walking, and it didn't take long to see that it wasn't leading where I wanted to go. Plus the scenery was pretty discomfiting, for both me and Pongu.
So we decamped for a more pleasant path, and I feel much more confident that we're heading to the right destination.
In part, I dropped out because the logistics were too hard to finagle. Fighting rush hour traffic across the entire length of Philadelphia meant leaving work at 3 pm in order to make a 5 pm class, and even then I was always a few minutes late, which made the beginning of each session a minor exercise in embarrassment.
The larger reason I dropped out, though, was because after a few sessions it became apparent that the class was not a good fit for what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be.
Here's the thing: When you are a beginning student (as I still mostly am), the world of possibility is wide open. You have no investment in developed skills. You are a blank slate, unformed clay, insert-your-cliche-of-choice; you have complete free choice as to which methods you wish to learn and how good you want to get with them.
It's much harder to walk away from a particular methodology once you've invested a ton of time and money into mastering its skills. If you've had success using those skills, you have to be willing to risk losing that success; you have to un-learn old habits and develop entirely new ones. It's difficult and discouraging and I suspect the monumental nature of the task is one of the reasons that people can get so defensive about whatever their preferred training philosophy might be -- because if they're wrong, then suddenly all those sunk costs look like a really bad investment. And nobody wants to make (or admit they've made) a bad investment.
I used to think that forcible methods were faster to learn/teach, more reliable in producing competition results, or otherwise "better," because why else would people choose to use them for this sport? I took it on faith that this was so. Those were the reasons that people who chose to train this way gave me, and I assumed they knew what they were talking about, since after all they had done it and I had not.
So I wanted to check out the alternatives before going all-in on my original investment. I wanted to see, and try, a different school of thought firsthand.
I'm glad I did. And having done it, I feel reassured that I made the right choice for me and my dogs.
What I saw (and here I'm doing a thing that I hate: jumping right over discussion of concrete specifics to arrive at conclusory labels) was that compulsion-based methods aren't better, don't work faster, don't produce more consistent or precise results, and don't hold up more strongly over the long haul of competition and maintenance. The fallout of using them, on the other hand, was actually greater than I had anticipated, even though I dropped out before the harder "corrections" came into play.
Someday I might be able to analyze and discuss the exact reasons that I came to those conclusions. I don't feel entirely comfortable doing that today; I feel like I need more distance to be able to bring hindsight into full focus. All I can say now is that it wasn't a road I enjoyed walking, and it didn't take long to see that it wasn't leading where I wanted to go. Plus the scenery was pretty discomfiting, for both me and Pongu.
So we decamped for a more pleasant path, and I feel much more confident that we're heading to the right destination.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
CDSP Trial at Bella Vista, 11/9
One thing I often say (probably more often than I should) is that being involved in dog sports is a little bit like being involved in a Lifetime Channel bad relationship: abuse abuse abuse and then a glimmer of good and glorious sweet true love, just enough to keep you going through another round of abuse because you think "this time it'll be different."
Pongu took home a 193 (third place) at yesterday's CDSP trial to finish his CD-C with a string of three okay-but-unexceptional scores in the low 190s. I'm proud that he has his Novice title in obedience now -- a goal that once seemed unimaginable for us -- and I'm looking forward to trialing him in Open next spring.
At the same time I have to admit that I have a lot of mixed emotions about our showing yesterday. It pointed up a number of trouble areas and reminded me that as far as he's come in the past year, Pongu still is a fearful dog and always will be. I will never be able to take for granted that he's bombproof. He isn't. He still falls apart with very little prodding.
And it tantalized me with siren promises of just how good he could be if I keep working at it (and/or if I had a better dog, which is a devil voice that I shall do my utmost to ignore. At least for the next few years).
And it gave us our two worst NQs ever.
So, on to the recap.
Yesterday's trial was held at BVTC, a venue with which Pongu is very familiar and where he's normally pretty relaxed, or anyway as relaxed as crazypants dog ever gets. However, deer season recently started in our area (on the way home we passed several enormous pickup trucks with two or three freshly killed deer apiece strapped onto the back), and there were a lot of people shooting guns on the properties around the training facility. Not hunting, but doing target practice -- and doing so much of it that the percussion of shots was unending and you could actually smell the gunsmoke drifting across the fields.
Pongu did not like that. He was more of a wreck than I've seen him in months: shaking, drooling, wild-eyed, totally unable to focus. It hearkened back to our bad old days starting out in Rally last year. He calmed down somewhat as the day went on, but he was never in good form that entire trial.
Nevertheless, he held it together enough to eke out a Q with a score of 193 on his first run, finishing his CD-C title. We lost points on more anxiety-driven mistakes like Pongu jumping into me (and knocking me back a couple of steps) instead of doing a clean Front after his Recall Over Jump. He also popped up into a Stand when the judge spoke, which hit us for more points. argh.
That was the only Q I was going to get out of him the whole day.
Midway through Pongu's second run, he flipped out and ran wildly around the ring for a solid 20 seconds or so. I have absolutely no idea what set him off, other than general anxiety. It was between exercises so it didn't cost us anything, and I got his focus back after a couple of prompts, but it wasn't a good omen of things to come. (An alternative view, though, is that he was able to calm himself down and become semi-functional once I started asking him to work again, so looked at from that perspective, it's not all bad.)
Right before we set up for the Recall Over Jump, a metal shutter rattled loudly on a window directly behind Pongu. He did not want to have his back to that shutter, and he was super tense holding his Stay on the far side of the jump. So this time when the judge spoke, he broke his Stay and took the jump and that was an NQ.
However, the judge apparently forgot to write this down, because when it came time to read off the scores and pin the class, she had us down for a score of 196, which was also first place and High In Trial. I had to shamefacedly admit that no, actually, we NQ'ed that run, and watch in agony as the big glorious HIT ribbon moved down to the next person who had actually qualified.
argh.
Pongu's third run was even worse. Once again he turned in a performance that had a couple of minor flaws (lagging on the Figure 8 was particularly bad that time around) but was overall pretty good... until he POOPED IN THE RING right before setting up for the Recall Over Jump.
That was a total wtf moment, because Pongu does not have housebreaking issues. At all. Ever. He hasn't had an accident since he was five months old. He has always been flawless in other people's houses and rental cottages and every training or trial facility we've ever visited... and then he just laid a massive stinker right in front of the jump.
I have to think that was another anxiety issue but I honestly don't know. He isn't sick. And he's never been anxious enough to poop himself at a trial before, even though he has done it a couple of times out on the street. So I guess Pongu must have been even more frightened at that trial than he was letting on, and that makes me feel bad that I didn't see it.
(As an added humiliation, I don't know what our final score would have been on that run because he didn't do the Recall Over Jump so that part didn't get scored, but based on the points we lost up till then, I believe it would have been in the neighborhood of 195, maybe better. argh x3.)
Here, for posterity, is the Poop Run:
So... that was that. Pongu finished his Novice obedience title and he gave me humiliations galore. He came infuriatingly close to capturing a HIT on his second (or third, depending on how you're counting) obedience trial ever... and then he didn't, because he was a nervous wreck, but he almost did it even though he was a nervous wreck, so I still don't know how to think about that.
On the way home I stopped at the Valley Forge rest stop and got him some chicken nuggets from Burger King. I feel like overall that day deserved a three-dollar box of chicken nuggets. It wasn't a Barclay Prime filet mignon day. But it was a chicken nuggets day.
That (probably) concludes our competition obedience trialing for 2013. I'm planning to make our debut in Open next spring, and hopefully progress to Utility in the second half of 2014 too.
Pongu took home a 193 (third place) at yesterday's CDSP trial to finish his CD-C with a string of three okay-but-unexceptional scores in the low 190s. I'm proud that he has his Novice title in obedience now -- a goal that once seemed unimaginable for us -- and I'm looking forward to trialing him in Open next spring.
At the same time I have to admit that I have a lot of mixed emotions about our showing yesterday. It pointed up a number of trouble areas and reminded me that as far as he's come in the past year, Pongu still is a fearful dog and always will be. I will never be able to take for granted that he's bombproof. He isn't. He still falls apart with very little prodding.
And it tantalized me with siren promises of just how good he could be if I keep working at it (and/or if I had a better dog, which is a devil voice that I shall do my utmost to ignore. At least for the next few years).
And it gave us our two worst NQs ever.
Yesterday's trial was held at BVTC, a venue with which Pongu is very familiar and where he's normally pretty relaxed, or anyway as relaxed as crazypants dog ever gets. However, deer season recently started in our area (on the way home we passed several enormous pickup trucks with two or three freshly killed deer apiece strapped onto the back), and there were a lot of people shooting guns on the properties around the training facility. Not hunting, but doing target practice -- and doing so much of it that the percussion of shots was unending and you could actually smell the gunsmoke drifting across the fields.
Pongu did not like that. He was more of a wreck than I've seen him in months: shaking, drooling, wild-eyed, totally unable to focus. It hearkened back to our bad old days starting out in Rally last year. He calmed down somewhat as the day went on, but he was never in good form that entire trial.
Nevertheless, he held it together enough to eke out a Q with a score of 193 on his first run, finishing his CD-C title. We lost points on more anxiety-driven mistakes like Pongu jumping into me (and knocking me back a couple of steps) instead of doing a clean Front after his Recall Over Jump. He also popped up into a Stand when the judge spoke, which hit us for more points. argh.
That was the only Q I was going to get out of him the whole day.
Midway through Pongu's second run, he flipped out and ran wildly around the ring for a solid 20 seconds or so. I have absolutely no idea what set him off, other than general anxiety. It was between exercises so it didn't cost us anything, and I got his focus back after a couple of prompts, but it wasn't a good omen of things to come. (An alternative view, though, is that he was able to calm himself down and become semi-functional once I started asking him to work again, so looked at from that perspective, it's not all bad.)
Right before we set up for the Recall Over Jump, a metal shutter rattled loudly on a window directly behind Pongu. He did not want to have his back to that shutter, and he was super tense holding his Stay on the far side of the jump. So this time when the judge spoke, he broke his Stay and took the jump and that was an NQ.
However, the judge apparently forgot to write this down, because when it came time to read off the scores and pin the class, she had us down for a score of 196, which was also first place and High In Trial. I had to shamefacedly admit that no, actually, we NQ'ed that run, and watch in agony as the big glorious HIT ribbon moved down to the next person who had actually qualified.
argh.
Pongu's third run was even worse. Once again he turned in a performance that had a couple of minor flaws (lagging on the Figure 8 was particularly bad that time around) but was overall pretty good... until he POOPED IN THE RING right before setting up for the Recall Over Jump.
That was a total wtf moment, because Pongu does not have housebreaking issues. At all. Ever. He hasn't had an accident since he was five months old. He has always been flawless in other people's houses and rental cottages and every training or trial facility we've ever visited... and then he just laid a massive stinker right in front of the jump.
I have to think that was another anxiety issue but I honestly don't know. He isn't sick. And he's never been anxious enough to poop himself at a trial before, even though he has done it a couple of times out on the street. So I guess Pongu must have been even more frightened at that trial than he was letting on, and that makes me feel bad that I didn't see it.
(As an added humiliation, I don't know what our final score would have been on that run because he didn't do the Recall Over Jump so that part didn't get scored, but based on the points we lost up till then, I believe it would have been in the neighborhood of 195, maybe better. argh x3.)
Here, for posterity, is the Poop Run:
So... that was that. Pongu finished his Novice obedience title and he gave me humiliations galore. He came infuriatingly close to capturing a HIT on his second (or third, depending on how you're counting) obedience trial ever... and then he didn't, because he was a nervous wreck, but he almost did it even though he was a nervous wreck, so I still don't know how to think about that.
On the way home I stopped at the Valley Forge rest stop and got him some chicken nuggets from Burger King. I feel like overall that day deserved a three-dollar box of chicken nuggets. It wasn't a Barclay Prime filet mignon day. But it was a chicken nuggets day.
That (probably) concludes our competition obedience trialing for 2013. I'm planning to make our debut in Open next spring, and hopefully progress to Utility in the second half of 2014 too.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Oakes K9 Rally Trial 11/2
Slightly bumpy trial at Oakes K9 yesterday.
It was considerably smaller than their Rally trial last year -- I overheard other people saying that this time it hadn't been advertised anywhere except the Rallydogs website -- so the day only took 8 hours instead of 11 or 12.
That was good, because we didn't get off to a great start. I dropped the leash on our first Level 1 run, knocking us down to 205 points. On our first Level 2 run, we got hit for two extra Sits, each of which cost 5 points for a final score of 199 (the last point was on a crooked Sit). I hadn't seen either of those two extra Sits and thought we'd done pretty well on the run, so I was completely dumbfounded when I saw that score on the board.
Our first Level 3 run was pretty shaky too. There were several really vocal dogs at this trial and although barking/yowling from the crating area doesn't always faze Pongu, that day it did. On top of our other glitches, the bonus exercise was the Stand With Distraction, which I hadn't seen in months and had forgotten how to do. The exercise is actually a Sit then Stand (as opposed to a moving Stand), so I cued it wrong and poor Pongu got confused and went Down on his Stay halfway through.
It was a messy, bad run all around. Final score: 197. Ouch. I was feeling pretty bad by the time we limped back to the car for the lunch break.
The second round went better though. We got dinged for some minor errors (bumps, lags, crooked Sits, a split sign, etc. -- all stuff that I'm working on polishing out, but we're not 100% there yet) but Pongu was beautiful on all the things that used to be so hard for him. His Stays were solid, he flew through all the jumps without hesitation, and we even heeled right up to a jump without his taking it uncued (a booby trap that has gotten us several times before). AND his bonus retrieve was perfect.
Scores: Level 1 207, Level 2 209, Level 3 209.
Pongu finished his RL1X3 and RL2X2 level championships at this trial (which are not particularly impressive titles, insofar as they really just demonstrate that we NQ in Level 3 a bunch, but they do come with nice ribbons!) and picked up another two QQs toward his ARCHEX. We're halfway to that title now and have a good chance of finishing it this year, which makes me happy.
What really blew me away at this trial was seeing Edith the border collie put up six straight runs that all scored perfect 210s. That was amazing. Edith and her handler have been one of the top teams for as long as I've been doing this -- they rarely score below 208, and that's with a sharp-penciled judge -- but I've never seen a string of six perfect 210s before.
Man, I'd like to be that team someday.
It was considerably smaller than their Rally trial last year -- I overheard other people saying that this time it hadn't been advertised anywhere except the Rallydogs website -- so the day only took 8 hours instead of 11 or 12.
That was good, because we didn't get off to a great start. I dropped the leash on our first Level 1 run, knocking us down to 205 points. On our first Level 2 run, we got hit for two extra Sits, each of which cost 5 points for a final score of 199 (the last point was on a crooked Sit). I hadn't seen either of those two extra Sits and thought we'd done pretty well on the run, so I was completely dumbfounded when I saw that score on the board.
Our first Level 3 run was pretty shaky too. There were several really vocal dogs at this trial and although barking/yowling from the crating area doesn't always faze Pongu, that day it did. On top of our other glitches, the bonus exercise was the Stand With Distraction, which I hadn't seen in months and had forgotten how to do. The exercise is actually a Sit then Stand (as opposed to a moving Stand), so I cued it wrong and poor Pongu got confused and went Down on his Stay halfway through.
It was a messy, bad run all around. Final score: 197. Ouch. I was feeling pretty bad by the time we limped back to the car for the lunch break.
The second round went better though. We got dinged for some minor errors (bumps, lags, crooked Sits, a split sign, etc. -- all stuff that I'm working on polishing out, but we're not 100% there yet) but Pongu was beautiful on all the things that used to be so hard for him. His Stays were solid, he flew through all the jumps without hesitation, and we even heeled right up to a jump without his taking it uncued (a booby trap that has gotten us several times before). AND his bonus retrieve was perfect.
Scores: Level 1 207, Level 2 209, Level 3 209.
Pongu finished his RL1X3 and RL2X2 level championships at this trial (which are not particularly impressive titles, insofar as they really just demonstrate that we NQ in Level 3 a bunch, but they do come with nice ribbons!) and picked up another two QQs toward his ARCHEX. We're halfway to that title now and have a good chance of finishing it this year, which makes me happy.
What really blew me away at this trial was seeing Edith the border collie put up six straight runs that all scored perfect 210s. That was amazing. Edith and her handler have been one of the top teams for as long as I've been doing this -- they rarely score below 208, and that's with a sharp-penciled judge -- but I've never seen a string of six perfect 210s before.
Man, I'd like to be that team someday.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Dori Goes Home, Pongu Goes to Work
Busy busy weekend out here in Casa de Dog Mob.
Friday evening, Dori collected her packed bags and went home. I'm so happy for her; I think she'll be happy and well loved, and I hope she makes her new people happy too.
Saturday morning, I got up at 4 am to drive Pongu to the Obedience Training Club of Harrisburg for his very first competition obedience trial.
We entered two runs in CDSP Novice, because I figured Pongu might need a couple of extra attempts in order to earn his CD-C at BVTC in November, and with the help of my beloved Student Driver sticker, I'm totally willing to drive two and a half hours each way for a chance at dog ribbons.
Despite my total willingness to wake up at ungodly hours and drive more ungodly hours to the trial, however, I hadn't really spent much time training the Novice obedience exercises. We'd done the Figure 8 heeling pattern a few times in class, and beyond that I figured Pongu's Rally experience would carry him through Novice. Other than the Stand For Exam (which is still just really a Stand with a pretty hefty distraction), all the exercises are very similar to Rally exercises, so I thought we could just kludge our way through.
My main concern wasn't really so much getting high scores in this trial as just finding out whether Pongu could qualify, anyway. Little Mr. Crazypants's confidence has improved immeasurably beyond where he was a year ago (one year ago, almost to the day, we had just bombed out in our second-ever Rally trial -- the Day of Many NQs -- and I wasn't sure we'd keep going with dog sports at all), but I didn't have a ton of faith that Pongu would be able to tolerate the Stand For Exam, given his reticence about being touched by strangers. And he still refuses the Recall Over Jump occasionally in Rally, particularly when it's an unfamiliar jump, so I wasn't sure how he'd do with that exercise, either.
As it turns out, he did okay. Here's the video from Pongu's first ever attempt at competition obedience:
He earned Qs in both of his runs, scoring 192 and 190 for second- and first-place finishes. Those aren't super awesome scores, to be sure, but it was a small field -- only 4 Novice dogs total, and one of them was in Novice C.
Because Pongu did pretty well on his Saturday runs, I got greedy and entered him for a morning run on Sunday, hoping maybe we could pick up the third Q needed to finish his CD-C title. (What can I say? The venue had nice title ribbons. Dog sport addicts know the power of a nice title ribbon. It overrides any and all rationality we might still possess. It's hypnotic! Next thing you know, you're hitting your alarm off at 4 am and blearily dragging your dog into the freezing cold of a still-dark parking garage.)
Sadly, Pongu NQ'ed his run because he anticipated my cue on the Recall Over Jump and started moving on the judge's cue instead of waiting for me, which is an instant NQ under CDSP rules. In retrospect, I might have seen that one coming; Pongu is used to Rally, where the judge never speaks once you begin the run, and he gets tense enough while holding a Stay on the far side of an obstacle that he's on a hair trigger to move as soon as anyone says anything.
That's the sort of thing that made me wish, looking back, that I'd actually spent some time training for this specific venue. In a way I'm glad we NQ'ed on our last run, because it gives me a reason to prepare more seriously for our next trial. Not that I expect we'll get dramatically better in two weeks -- the downside of scheduling trials close together is that you don't really have much time to fix stuff! -- but hey, we'll do what we can, and we'll see how it goes.
I bought Pongu some consolation chicken tenders from Steak N' Shake on the way home. We sat in the back seat and shared the chicken, listening to The Supremes sing "My World Is Empty Without You" (a song I put at the beginning of our playlist as we left, too).
One thing I noticed at the obedience trial was that some (not all, but some) of the competitors got VERY AGITATED when their dog NQ'ed. It was too bad, because often their dogs were very good dogs who just made one small mistake at the higher levels (which is all it takes), and you could watch the dogs stress about their people's unhappiness.
I didn't care too much about Pongu's NQ. I mean, yeah, sure, it would have been nice to get that hypnotizing title ribbon. But the NQ itself didn't bother me. We already have something like 50 NQs in Rally (I don't even count anymore), so what difference does it make if the number is 52 or 53? Ooh, yeah, crushing.
I'm just thrilled that my insane little pound muppet can do competition obedience at all. That is huge for this dog, and it makes me so excited about where we can go in the future. If Pongu can handle the SFE, and can even do it with strangers in unfamiliar venues, then really there's nothing holding us back from moving full steam ahead in this sport -- no more than holds back any "normal" dog, anyway.
I never dreamed that my fearful dog would be able to do this. And he can. And that's amazing to me. I'm so proud of my little guy.
Friday evening, Dori collected her packed bags and went home. I'm so happy for her; I think she'll be happy and well loved, and I hope she makes her new people happy too.
Saturday morning, I got up at 4 am to drive Pongu to the Obedience Training Club of Harrisburg for his very first competition obedience trial.
We entered two runs in CDSP Novice, because I figured Pongu might need a couple of extra attempts in order to earn his CD-C at BVTC in November, and with the help of my beloved Student Driver sticker, I'm totally willing to drive two and a half hours each way for a chance at dog ribbons.
Despite my total willingness to wake up at ungodly hours and drive more ungodly hours to the trial, however, I hadn't really spent much time training the Novice obedience exercises. We'd done the Figure 8 heeling pattern a few times in class, and beyond that I figured Pongu's Rally experience would carry him through Novice. Other than the Stand For Exam (which is still just really a Stand with a pretty hefty distraction), all the exercises are very similar to Rally exercises, so I thought we could just kludge our way through.
My main concern wasn't really so much getting high scores in this trial as just finding out whether Pongu could qualify, anyway. Little Mr. Crazypants's confidence has improved immeasurably beyond where he was a year ago (one year ago, almost to the day, we had just bombed out in our second-ever Rally trial -- the Day of Many NQs -- and I wasn't sure we'd keep going with dog sports at all), but I didn't have a ton of faith that Pongu would be able to tolerate the Stand For Exam, given his reticence about being touched by strangers. And he still refuses the Recall Over Jump occasionally in Rally, particularly when it's an unfamiliar jump, so I wasn't sure how he'd do with that exercise, either.
As it turns out, he did okay. Here's the video from Pongu's first ever attempt at competition obedience:
He earned Qs in both of his runs, scoring 192 and 190 for second- and first-place finishes. Those aren't super awesome scores, to be sure, but it was a small field -- only 4 Novice dogs total, and one of them was in Novice C.
Because Pongu did pretty well on his Saturday runs, I got greedy and entered him for a morning run on Sunday, hoping maybe we could pick up the third Q needed to finish his CD-C title. (What can I say? The venue had nice title ribbons. Dog sport addicts know the power of a nice title ribbon. It overrides any and all rationality we might still possess. It's hypnotic! Next thing you know, you're hitting your alarm off at 4 am and blearily dragging your dog into the freezing cold of a still-dark parking garage.)
Sadly, Pongu NQ'ed his run because he anticipated my cue on the Recall Over Jump and started moving on the judge's cue instead of waiting for me, which is an instant NQ under CDSP rules. In retrospect, I might have seen that one coming; Pongu is used to Rally, where the judge never speaks once you begin the run, and he gets tense enough while holding a Stay on the far side of an obstacle that he's on a hair trigger to move as soon as anyone says anything.
That's the sort of thing that made me wish, looking back, that I'd actually spent some time training for this specific venue. In a way I'm glad we NQ'ed on our last run, because it gives me a reason to prepare more seriously for our next trial. Not that I expect we'll get dramatically better in two weeks -- the downside of scheduling trials close together is that you don't really have much time to fix stuff! -- but hey, we'll do what we can, and we'll see how it goes.
I bought Pongu some consolation chicken tenders from Steak N' Shake on the way home. We sat in the back seat and shared the chicken, listening to The Supremes sing "My World Is Empty Without You" (a song I put at the beginning of our playlist as we left, too).
One thing I noticed at the obedience trial was that some (not all, but some) of the competitors got VERY AGITATED when their dog NQ'ed. It was too bad, because often their dogs were very good dogs who just made one small mistake at the higher levels (which is all it takes), and you could watch the dogs stress about their people's unhappiness.
I didn't care too much about Pongu's NQ. I mean, yeah, sure, it would have been nice to get that hypnotizing title ribbon. But the NQ itself didn't bother me. We already have something like 50 NQs in Rally (I don't even count anymore), so what difference does it make if the number is 52 or 53? Ooh, yeah, crushing.
I'm just thrilled that my insane little pound muppet can do competition obedience at all. That is huge for this dog, and it makes me so excited about where we can go in the future. If Pongu can handle the SFE, and can even do it with strangers in unfamiliar venues, then really there's nothing holding us back from moving full steam ahead in this sport -- no more than holds back any "normal" dog, anyway.
I never dreamed that my fearful dog would be able to do this. And he can. And that's amazing to me. I'm so proud of my little guy.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Florence (Dori) and the Shell Game
Well, Dori (formerly Florence) will be leaving us to go home late this afternoon, so I guess I'd better write up her progress on the Shell Game even though we didn't quite finish the trick. She came really close, though!
The Shell Game is a scent discrimination trick in which the dog is presented with a set of "shells" (Kyra Sundance recommends, and I use, overturned flowerpots because they're heavy enough to withstand a paw touch without being easily knocked over, and the drainage hole allows the scent to escape easily) and must choose the shell that's hiding a food treat via sniffing out the reward instead of seeing it. The dog indicates the correct shell with a paw touch and then you-the-person lifts up the shell so the dog can get the food.
I think it's a fairly difficult trick for a dog with (almost) no prior training to tackle, which is why I was impressed that Dori made it as far as she did and not at all surprised that she didn't quite finish it. There are a lot of component pieces here: the paw touch, the scent work, understanding that the paw touch is used to indicate the correct shell, stimulus control in waiting for the person to lift the shell instead of just knocking it over directly, etc.
The first step was to introduce Dori to the concept that a paw touch to the shell would result in her getting the treat that she knew to be hidden under the shell.
At this stage, I was showing her the treat because I didn't want there to be any mystery about where the treat was, only what she had to do to get it. She caught on quickly; she was offering hesitant paw touches by the end of the first session and more confident ones in the second session (the one I videotaped).
Once she was giving quick and assertive paw touches, I moved on to the second stage.
The next step was for Dori to learn to choose between multiple pots and indicate the correct one with a paw touch. Again, I let her see the treat instead of hiding it, because the goal of this stage was for her to learn to choose, and adding the "find" component would have been too much at once.
Again, she picked it up quickly, and was confidently indicating the correct pot by the end of the first session on that step. I switched up pots almost (but not quite!) every round to avoid teaching her that one or the other was always going to be the "treat pot," and also to avoid pattern training.
The third step was to hide the treat so that Dori had to sniff it out instead of seeing it dropped.
Here's where she started to run into a little more trouble (not surprisingly, since a lot of dogs have trouble making the transition from "see the treat dropped" to "sniff out the treat without seeing it"). To make things easier, I rubbed the treat around the pot's drainage hole before dropping it in, leaving a VERY strong scent signature to point the way. If she didn't get it immediately (as in the second repetition on this video), I'd repeat it with a different type of treat to make the scent signature even stronger and more distinctive. She always caught on at that point.
That's as far as we got with the trick before running out of time. I think she would have finished it in another three or four days, probably -- I've said it before, but Dori is a bright little dog and has a good work ethic, so it's very easy to teach her things -- since at this point all we needed to do was strengthen her confidence in sniffing out the treat, improve stimulus control on the paw touch (on some sessions, Dori would just hit all the pots without trying to sniff at them, under the theory that if she banged them all, she would get the right one faster than if she spent time sniffing out the correct one), and add a third empty pot.
The final version, had we gotten there, would have looked something like this:
But far more important than finishing the Shell Game is going home, and that's where Dori is headed in just a few more hours.
She'll go home with a mixed repertoire of pet behaviors (decent leash manners [mostly, except when another dog passes or, for some reason, occasionally a bicyclist after dark], a very strong Sit default behavior, and a pretty good start on housebreaking), foundational sport behaviors (eye contact/offered attention, beginning Front [which I just spent one session on to see if I could get a close, straight competition Front with Dori in five minutes or less. answer: yes. why can't I do this with MY dogs?!], nose touch), and the Shell Game.
I took her out to a soccer field yesterday just to see how she did with an untrained recall. We've spent exactly zero time practicing recalls, so this was purely a test of Dori's innate affiliativeness. It's also the only video I was able to make, because once I called her back, she would not leave long enough for me to set up a second attempt, so welp. Here it is in all its harsh overshadowed glory:
And that's it for our time with this fluffy girl. Her bags are packed and she's ready to go. I'm SO happy for her going home and excited to hear about her future adventures. She is a lucky, lucky dog to have gone from a trash pile in rural North Carolina to the wonderful new life that awaits.
The Shell Game is a scent discrimination trick in which the dog is presented with a set of "shells" (Kyra Sundance recommends, and I use, overturned flowerpots because they're heavy enough to withstand a paw touch without being easily knocked over, and the drainage hole allows the scent to escape easily) and must choose the shell that's hiding a food treat via sniffing out the reward instead of seeing it. The dog indicates the correct shell with a paw touch and then you-the-person lifts up the shell so the dog can get the food.
I think it's a fairly difficult trick for a dog with (almost) no prior training to tackle, which is why I was impressed that Dori made it as far as she did and not at all surprised that she didn't quite finish it. There are a lot of component pieces here: the paw touch, the scent work, understanding that the paw touch is used to indicate the correct shell, stimulus control in waiting for the person to lift the shell instead of just knocking it over directly, etc.
The first step was to introduce Dori to the concept that a paw touch to the shell would result in her getting the treat that she knew to be hidden under the shell.
At this stage, I was showing her the treat because I didn't want there to be any mystery about where the treat was, only what she had to do to get it. She caught on quickly; she was offering hesitant paw touches by the end of the first session and more confident ones in the second session (the one I videotaped).
Once she was giving quick and assertive paw touches, I moved on to the second stage.
The next step was for Dori to learn to choose between multiple pots and indicate the correct one with a paw touch. Again, I let her see the treat instead of hiding it, because the goal of this stage was for her to learn to choose, and adding the "find" component would have been too much at once.
Again, she picked it up quickly, and was confidently indicating the correct pot by the end of the first session on that step. I switched up pots almost (but not quite!) every round to avoid teaching her that one or the other was always going to be the "treat pot," and also to avoid pattern training.
The third step was to hide the treat so that Dori had to sniff it out instead of seeing it dropped.
Here's where she started to run into a little more trouble (not surprisingly, since a lot of dogs have trouble making the transition from "see the treat dropped" to "sniff out the treat without seeing it"). To make things easier, I rubbed the treat around the pot's drainage hole before dropping it in, leaving a VERY strong scent signature to point the way. If she didn't get it immediately (as in the second repetition on this video), I'd repeat it with a different type of treat to make the scent signature even stronger and more distinctive. She always caught on at that point.
That's as far as we got with the trick before running out of time. I think she would have finished it in another three or four days, probably -- I've said it before, but Dori is a bright little dog and has a good work ethic, so it's very easy to teach her things -- since at this point all we needed to do was strengthen her confidence in sniffing out the treat, improve stimulus control on the paw touch (on some sessions, Dori would just hit all the pots without trying to sniff at them, under the theory that if she banged them all, she would get the right one faster than if she spent time sniffing out the correct one), and add a third empty pot.
The final version, had we gotten there, would have looked something like this:
But far more important than finishing the Shell Game is going home, and that's where Dori is headed in just a few more hours.
She'll go home with a mixed repertoire of pet behaviors (decent leash manners [mostly, except when another dog passes or, for some reason, occasionally a bicyclist after dark], a very strong Sit default behavior, and a pretty good start on housebreaking), foundational sport behaviors (eye contact/offered attention, beginning Front [which I just spent one session on to see if I could get a close, straight competition Front with Dori in five minutes or less. answer: yes. why can't I do this with MY dogs?!], nose touch), and the Shell Game.
I took her out to a soccer field yesterday just to see how she did with an untrained recall. We've spent exactly zero time practicing recalls, so this was purely a test of Dori's innate affiliativeness. It's also the only video I was able to make, because once I called her back, she would not leave long enough for me to set up a second attempt, so welp. Here it is in all its harsh overshadowed glory:
And that's it for our time with this fluffy girl. Her bags are packed and she's ready to go. I'm SO happy for her going home and excited to hear about her future adventures. She is a lucky, lucky dog to have gone from a trash pile in rural North Carolina to the wonderful new life that awaits.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Weekend Updates
Busy busy weekend! We had a bunch of friends in from out of town, so much of the weekend was devoted to non-dog stuff, but I still managed to sneak a few things in here and there.
On Saturday I dragged my ultra hungover ass to Chester for the 2013 WUSV world championships. This is an international competition among the best of the best in IPO/Schutzhund, although only German Shepherds may compete in this event. (Belgians, the other major category of IPO dogs, have their own breed championship, and then there's a third major international tournament that is open to all breeds.)
I got to watch a few rounds of the protection and obedience phases. Tracking was at a different field that you had to take a bus to reach, so I missed that one.
It was pretty pretty spiffy. SUPER impressive teams, awesome helpers, tough judges. It was incredible to watch teams trialing at that level -- inspiring and intimidating all at once.
The next morning I went out to do an obedience practice match with Pongu. We did two Novice runs; the ring steward was a little puzzled when I asked to do CDSP instead of AKC, but she improvised quickly and we did our runs with only the minor adjustment of needing to use a high jump instead of a bar for the Recall Over Jump exercise.
Pongu refused the high jump his first time, but (to my considerable surprise) jumped it cleanly on his next two tries, so if it had been a real match we would have earned one imaginary Q and one NQ. His performance on the other exercises was pretty good -- not awesome, but for our first stab at a new sport with crazypants dog, I'll take it. I will be thrilled (and, again, considerably surprised) if he does as well at the actual trial, especially since we're going to be attempting this at a new venue.
After we got back from the practice match, I took the other two dingbats out to the Sunday farmers' market at Headhouse Square.
For the most part, they did quite well. I tethered them to a post across the street from the actual market while I was shopping, because it's not practical for me to try wrangling two dogs while also attempting to purchase assorted sacks of apples and grapes.
To my surprise, though, Dori (as Florence has been renamed, after Hodori, the mascot from the 1988 Seoul Olympics) snarked at a couple of passing dogs while she was tethered to the post. It wasn't anything serious, just a little posturing, but it still came as a bit of a shock to hear a growl from a dog who's otherwise been super sweet and almost completely silent except for "he he he" eagerness panting when she wants cuddles.
As soon as I untied her, she quit behaving that way. I don't know whether it was a territorial thing where she wanted to guard her space, or whether her intent was to frighten off the other dogs while she felt vulnerable being tied to the pole, or whether it was frustration that she couldn't greet them properly... but either way, it was a peculiar, if non-serious, incident.
Once I got her loose, she was fine again, and reacted with her normal sociable interest and pulling toward other dogs with no sign of snarking. Just like before, she was very easy to redirect with "Watch" and hustle-walking past the other dogs, with lots of treats and praise for coming with me. Dori has great focus, and it's been a joy watching how quickly her attention span develops. (Major advantage of starting with a grown dog -- no puppy would have that much concentration in less than a week's work!)
Later that night she also did some alarm barking and growling when my husband came home late and walked in through the downstairs lobby door as I was exiting with the dogs. As soon as she recognized who it was, she melted back into her loose happy tail-wagging self, but it seems that Dori's got a teensy bit of a protective streak when it comes to strangers after dark. And I'm fine with that; I think a lot of people would prefer a dog who barks and growls a little when someone unfamiliar comes into their homes. Better than one that tries to hide under the couch, anyhow! And if it's an undesirable behavior in her final home, it should be one that's pretty easy to fix, at least, since Dori was quick to calm down from her initial state of wariness.
On Monday morning, Dori had her spay stitches pulled. She was fine at the vet. Reasonably calm in the waiting room, tolerant (if unhappy) about being rolled over on her back on the cold tile floor and having her wire sutures pulled out. She weighed in at 42 pounds and is probably still a couple of pounds light, so I'm guessing her healthy weight is around 45.
Once she had her stitches out, Dori was able to play (a little, supervised) with Dog Mob... by which I mean, of course, "Crookytail," since Pongu still wants nothing to do with her.
(Pongu is not just ignoring them in that clip. I put him on a Down-Stay because (a) he needs to proof it anyway; and (b) when I don't actually tell him to stay out of it, Pongu cannot resist running over to yell at the other two and bite them both repeatedly in the face. He ruined all my previous attempts at getting a clip of the other two playing until I finally told him to lie down and stay there.)
That's pretty much it for now. Dori seems to have relaxed enough to potty almost as often as the other dogs. Previously she would hold it for a whole day at a time (once she went over 30 hours without pottying, even though I took her out all the time), but as she relaxes, she's moving toward a more normal schedule.
Her Sit is great and has become a strong default behavior. She's doing well with the Shell Game, too -- she's on Stage 3, which means she's almost finished, and just needs to quit making so many wrong guesses out of impatience before landing on the right one. Dori's fallen into the pretty common trap of thinking that it's easier and faster to just hit all the pots instead of trying to figure out which one is the actual correct pot (although I know she can tell, because occasionally I catch her doing it), so we just need to get the paw touch under better stimulus control and then she'll be done.
Will it happen by Friday? Who knows! But either way, that is the day she's going home.
On Saturday I dragged my ultra hungover ass to Chester for the 2013 WUSV world championships. This is an international competition among the best of the best in IPO/Schutzhund, although only German Shepherds may compete in this event. (Belgians, the other major category of IPO dogs, have their own breed championship, and then there's a third major international tournament that is open to all breeds.)
I got to watch a few rounds of the protection and obedience phases. Tracking was at a different field that you had to take a bus to reach, so I missed that one.
It was pretty pretty spiffy. SUPER impressive teams, awesome helpers, tough judges. It was incredible to watch teams trialing at that level -- inspiring and intimidating all at once.
The next morning I went out to do an obedience practice match with Pongu. We did two Novice runs; the ring steward was a little puzzled when I asked to do CDSP instead of AKC, but she improvised quickly and we did our runs with only the minor adjustment of needing to use a high jump instead of a bar for the Recall Over Jump exercise.
Pongu refused the high jump his first time, but (to my considerable surprise) jumped it cleanly on his next two tries, so if it had been a real match we would have earned one imaginary Q and one NQ. His performance on the other exercises was pretty good -- not awesome, but for our first stab at a new sport with crazypants dog, I'll take it. I will be thrilled (and, again, considerably surprised) if he does as well at the actual trial, especially since we're going to be attempting this at a new venue.
After we got back from the practice match, I took the other two dingbats out to the Sunday farmers' market at Headhouse Square.
For the most part, they did quite well. I tethered them to a post across the street from the actual market while I was shopping, because it's not practical for me to try wrangling two dogs while also attempting to purchase assorted sacks of apples and grapes.
To my surprise, though, Dori (as Florence has been renamed, after Hodori, the mascot from the 1988 Seoul Olympics) snarked at a couple of passing dogs while she was tethered to the post. It wasn't anything serious, just a little posturing, but it still came as a bit of a shock to hear a growl from a dog who's otherwise been super sweet and almost completely silent except for "he he he" eagerness panting when she wants cuddles.
As soon as I untied her, she quit behaving that way. I don't know whether it was a territorial thing where she wanted to guard her space, or whether her intent was to frighten off the other dogs while she felt vulnerable being tied to the pole, or whether it was frustration that she couldn't greet them properly... but either way, it was a peculiar, if non-serious, incident.
Once I got her loose, she was fine again, and reacted with her normal sociable interest and pulling toward other dogs with no sign of snarking. Just like before, she was very easy to redirect with "Watch" and hustle-walking past the other dogs, with lots of treats and praise for coming with me. Dori has great focus, and it's been a joy watching how quickly her attention span develops. (Major advantage of starting with a grown dog -- no puppy would have that much concentration in less than a week's work!)
Later that night she also did some alarm barking and growling when my husband came home late and walked in through the downstairs lobby door as I was exiting with the dogs. As soon as she recognized who it was, she melted back into her loose happy tail-wagging self, but it seems that Dori's got a teensy bit of a protective streak when it comes to strangers after dark. And I'm fine with that; I think a lot of people would prefer a dog who barks and growls a little when someone unfamiliar comes into their homes. Better than one that tries to hide under the couch, anyhow! And if it's an undesirable behavior in her final home, it should be one that's pretty easy to fix, at least, since Dori was quick to calm down from her initial state of wariness.
On Monday morning, Dori had her spay stitches pulled. She was fine at the vet. Reasonably calm in the waiting room, tolerant (if unhappy) about being rolled over on her back on the cold tile floor and having her wire sutures pulled out. She weighed in at 42 pounds and is probably still a couple of pounds light, so I'm guessing her healthy weight is around 45.
Once she had her stitches out, Dori was able to play (a little, supervised) with Dog Mob... by which I mean, of course, "Crookytail," since Pongu still wants nothing to do with her.
(Pongu is not just ignoring them in that clip. I put him on a Down-Stay because (a) he needs to proof it anyway; and (b) when I don't actually tell him to stay out of it, Pongu cannot resist running over to yell at the other two and bite them both repeatedly in the face. He ruined all my previous attempts at getting a clip of the other two playing until I finally told him to lie down and stay there.)
That's pretty much it for now. Dori seems to have relaxed enough to potty almost as often as the other dogs. Previously she would hold it for a whole day at a time (once she went over 30 hours without pottying, even though I took her out all the time), but as she relaxes, she's moving toward a more normal schedule.
Her Sit is great and has become a strong default behavior. She's doing well with the Shell Game, too -- she's on Stage 3, which means she's almost finished, and just needs to quit making so many wrong guesses out of impatience before landing on the right one. Dori's fallen into the pretty common trap of thinking that it's easier and faster to just hit all the pots instead of trying to figure out which one is the actual correct pot (although I know she can tell, because occasionally I catch her doing it), so we just need to get the paw touch under better stimulus control and then she'll be done.
Will it happen by Friday? Who knows! But either way, that is the day she's going home.
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