Obedience Class III – Down Stay
Today’s obedience session was on Squids biggest distraction in her down stay – the sound of an agility tunnel.
Obedience Class III – Sit Stay
We came back home yesterday. It had started to snow when we came to Sweden on Monday, but we still managed to get home before the chaos started. It’s been snowing a lot today and traffic is just crazy in many places. Yo want to stay home if you can. I don’t look forward to a 5 hour (under normal conditions) drive south on Friday, but hopefully the worst is over by then.
Today, I’m starting a series of posts with videos of training all the exercises in Swedish obedience class III. Why? Because Squid and I need to get more obedience training done. It’s a year and a half since she competed in class II, so it’s about time we get started on class III…
First exercise is the sit stay in a group. This is what our rules say about it:
The handlers sit their dogs next to each other with 5 meters in between and leave walking 20 meters, where they stay visible to and facing the dog. The dogs shall sit for 1 minute without moving. Before the handler leaves the dog he is allowed to use the command “stay”. The handlers return to their dogs at the same time, on the ring stewards command.
Squid and I haven’t really trained the sit stay for this exercise, but I think that she’s got a good understanding of that “sit” means don’t move you’re feet until I tell you to. My first test today was to see how long she would sit for if I just left her and did nothing. Distractions can be challenging, but the biggest distraction is often to do nothing and just wait. I thought that Squid would lie down after a whole, and I decided to use a timer and note how long she would sit for. I expected her to fail, but I also decided that I would reward if she didn’t move her feet in two minutes (it was really cold, so not the time for marathon sit stays). She sat very nicely for two minutes, so I got to reward. Nice to see that her understanding of “sit” is strong.
Next session was on distractions. We did get Squid to fail once here. I don’t think there are many appetizing distractions that would get her out of her sit (dogs running through tunnels close to her not included, that might take us a few more years to master), but she can decide to lie down if she feels uneasy. My training should therefore focus more on getting her to feel safe and happy around some pressure (like dogs very close to her, someone using a harsh voice near her etc.) rather than using thrown toys and food lures.
I did get a question about the criteria for the sit stay. I’m satisfied as long as she doesn’t move her feet at all. She is allowed to move her head to look at a distraction (but I often find that she likes to stare at me when someone tries to distract her, she’s probably found it to be helpful). At the level that I plan to compete with Squid, I don’t think anyone would mind if she looked around as long as it isn’t much. If I feel like it, I don’t think it will be a problem to add criteria for her head later on.
Directed Retrieve
Squid and I do train some obedience. We’re working on small details and I try to do some obedience before we go to agility. We’re also playing around with obedience while waiting for our turn at agility trials. Sit, down and stand from heel, heeling and distant control are things that you can see us play with while we’re waiting to go in the ring. She is really good at it, even when she is very aroused at an agility trial.
Most of the time, I’m very happy with the precision in her work, and I hope that we’ll be ready to start class III some time. Since we’re putting a lot of energy into agility, there is no rush. I think it’s nice to just enjoy working on the details without having the pressure of getting done quickly. It’s nice, and I really like what we do, but it takes time when you don’t train that much.
I tried to teach Squid the directions for the directed retrieve for the first time earlier this week. She’s never done anything like that before, but she knows how to run around posts. She got the idea very quickly and in the next session, I will probably be able to add a third post in the middle (as a distraction, the dog never goes to the middle dumbbell in FCI obedience). If that works well, I’ll move the posts out to full distance. It’s a lot of fun to teach new exercises when good foundation makes it so easy!
Fall is here
It feels weird to say, but I’m glad that fall is here. We’ve had a very intense summer, and it’s nice to go back to a bit more normal life. It might not seem like it happens much in the blog (but I’ll try to change that, now that we have some more time at home), but we’re having a lot of fun with the online obedience class that we’re running. Awesome people and great dogs working on some advanced obedience skills.
I went to a local agility trial this weekend and was very happy with both the arrangement and some of my runs. Shejpa won the agility class on Sunday by almost a second, Squid got a certificate in jumpers on Saturday, and Epic won class 1 jumpers on Saturday and class 2 jumpers on Sunday. He turned two a month ago and it feels like we’re getting more and more consistent. I used to call him my intern at agility trials, but now that he is two years old and is running in class two, it’s time to take his intern badge off 🙂 He still has a lot to learn though, and I’m working to improve his jumping skills, his turns off the dogwalk and his weaving. I hope that he will make it to class 3 during the fall, but I’m not in a hurry. Here is Epics winning class 2-run from Sunday:
Scent Discrimination – Day 4
We have had a few days break from the training, so this is the next session after the previous blog
post (I’m behind with blogging, so this happened a couple of weeks ago). I had someone helping me giving Squid treats today, to be sure that she did not search for the smell of meatballs. It worked out fine; she did not seem bothered that the article did not smell like food and marked on my scent. The session in total lasted for under 3 minutes, but she still seemed a little tired at the end. I should probably keep the sessions even shorter. Maybe four repetitions per session and do it twice a day. In the end she froze briefly at the wrong articles, even though it is still very clearly when she finds the right one. I am not happy with that, but I will see if shorter sessions make her better next time. I think I will also place the articles on the grass, as I am pretty sure she can search at the row without using the wall to define it.
Scent Discrimination and Retrieve – Day 3
My plan seems to work pretty well! Placing the scented retrieve articles on the stone paves did increase the risk that Squid would use her eyes, but I trusted that she was set on using her nose, and that seems to
be right. I got a new idea and started the session with Squid picking up treats between the articles,
which seem to help her getting a defined search area.
To find the matchstick between the articles was very easy and with a nice flow this time. To find the
article with my scent on it was hard the first times (she moved the articles to mark the matchstick
lying under it), but in the last repetition you can clearly see her marking on the article even though
she’s moved it so the matchstick is visible. Yey!
But it doesn’t feel good that my hands smelled like meatballs. How can I be sure that she is searching
for my scent and not the scent of the treats? For the next session, I think I will ask someone else to
reward her so that my hands can stay clean.
Teaching Scent Discrimination and Retreive – Day 2
Today we continued Squids training on scent discrimination and retrieve. I have decided to move quickly forward, but always keeping track of the development so I can adjust the training if needed. Today we trained on grass, which demanded more nosework than the surface yesterday. I started adding scented retrieve articles without my scent on it. The short term goal is that she ignores them and just searches after my scent. Here is the main part of today’s session:
The training got a little messy as it was hard for her to find the small piece in the grass when she didn’t have the search area defined. I moved us quickly to the row of scented retrieve articles, thinking that it would define the area, but she still floated out a bit (I have removed some of it in the video). It also made Squid tired and I think that is the reason why she picked up one of the articles at the end. She doesn’t look that sharp in the clip. I also have to decide what to do when she grabs one of the articles. I wonder if I should do nothing at this stage of the training, just wait for her to put it down again and find the piece of matchstick. The same goes for when she might freeze her nose on the wrong article. I think I’ll start with that and see how it works. If it turns out to give a lot of false marks, I’ll have to change something in the training to avoid it.
For the next session, I’ll prioritize to shorten the time of the search. I like the idea of letting the row of articles define the search area, but I’ll have to find a way to explain it to Squid without her wasting a lot of time searching at other places. I wonder if I’ll try it on the stone paves again and see how it works. If it makes her search faster without using her eyes, it is definitely a good idea. If I also put the articles near a wall and I stay at the other side, it should define the search area more.
Teaching Scent Discrimination and Retrieve – Day 1
It is almost a year since Squid competed in obedience class II and won a first price. Since then, we have not been doing much obedience training at all. But it is a shame to not use all the nice things she can do, and the long term goal is for her to become an obedience champion. Squid has got all that’s required to become a good obedience dog. I am pleased with the basics she’s got, except from her heelwork where she might always be a bit too enthusiastic, and she has got great energy and focus.
The one exercise we are hanging behind on is scent discrimination and retrieve. I have started training it several times, but it has just ended up as a couple of sessions until I have forgotten it or started training something else. For example, it looked like this a year ago. Actually, I am not sure if we have trained this exercise at all since then.
To get us started this time, I decided to try out a new method. I also decided to film the training and blog about it to raise my motivation. The new method is basically the same as with the Post It-notes, but it is easier for people to understand and go through with. The point is that Squid uses her nose to find a piece of a matchstick with my scent on it, and marks it by freezing her nose on it. The important thing on this step is that she uses her nose and not her eyes to find the piece. This is our second session, I did one yesterday while I waited for the barbeque to get warm. Since Squid is already good at freezing her nose and understands to use her nose instead of her eyes, I think we can go a little bit further with our next session and add some distractions.
Epic 18 months agility
Epic and I spent the week in Bergen, Norway with friends that we see way too seldom. We’ve trained a lot of agility in the new indoor arena for dog training there. Here’s a video of some of the things we’ve done:
Epic learning a big lesson
Having three girls in heat in the house can be a challenge with three intact males. This is the first time that I have noticed that Epic really found girls interesting, and a new world seemed to open for him. Instead of trying to survive these days, we’re making the most out of this high value reward. Bitches in heat will be allowed in Swedish agility trials from this year, so it’s good to be prepared. I will let the video speak for it self:
