An evening of spontaneous training.

À la plan once, train twice, except this time it was plan none, train once. Either way, it was fun!

It all happened because I suddenly had an idea, which was to write the Steps to Success onto business-sized cards. And then I had L1, L2 & L3 Zen to work on, right there in my pocket!

So, after the humans had dinner, off we went.
TL1 Zen: Step 1 - Dog moves away from a treat in seated partner’s hand. Pass.
TL1 Zen: Step 2 - Oops, I overlooked this one.
TL1 Zen: Step 3 - Dog stays away from a treat in partner’s open hand for 5s. Pass.
TL1 Zen: Step 4: - Dog stays away from treat in dog dish in hand. Pass.
All of these without reaching for the treat first!

Then, on to Level 2 Zen.
TL2 Zen: Step 1 - Dog moves away from uncovered treat on floor. Pass.
TL2 Zen: Step 2 - Dog stays off a treat on the floor for 10s. Pass.
TL2 Zen: Step 3 - Dog stays off a treat on the floor for 30s. Fail. She began offering, Sit, then Down, then Chill & then she decided she could have the cookie. Haha!

Then, as I was fumbling with my cards, Luna looked at me, went over to her dog dish, PICKED IT UP and brought it to me! Hahahahahaha! That was hilarious! So, from there, I decided we’d just work on some Cue Discrimination, as that’s pretty poor as well. No to mention that we have no Stimulus Control whatsoever, demonstrated by all the behaviours she’s offered up to this point.

But, Cue Discrimination. She is DEFINITELY getting better at this! Dare I say she was 90% correct? I think she was. Let’s say 80%, for the sake of being truthful and not overestimating her ability. I asked for Sits (Park It), Downs, Stands (Sta), Touch, Chill, some Chin (Kin) and Nose (Snuit) once.

Then we did some more playing with retrieving the food bowl into my hand, & I added some Zen because as soon as she’d eaten the treats she’d pick the dish right up again. So I started asking for Leave It before asking her to Give it to me again. She did this very nicely! Once she got it, after 2 reps, she Sat & Stared when I said Leave It. Good girl!

Last but not least, I decided to try some more Zen-type stuff. I’d say Leave It as I dropped about 5-8 treats on the floor, she’d do that EVERY TIME and then I would ask for another behaviour (Touch, Park It, Down, Chill) before clicking & releasing her to eat the treats on the floor. When I asked for the Chill, she said ‘but there’s treats on the floor!’ So I asked for something else. The next time I dropped the treats to one side of her so she had enough room to do Chill without lying down amidst the kibble. She did it!

Then, I had er put her dog dish back where it belongs, cued another Leave It, dropped her remaining kibble in her bowl, waited for her to commit to Leaving It, and then I let her finish her meal.

This was definitely a VERY cool, VERY fun session!

The picture is Luna at 14 months, all curled up in Cedric’s (a West Highland White Terrier mix) dog bed! Isn’t she CUTE?!

Finishing up training inspiration ideas & no more pills for the lady!

 Wow, time flies when you’re having fun!

For the past two and a half days I’ve been working hard on modifying BZ Training’s plans to my situation, adding and removing things as I went. I think I’m about done now.

This morning was Luna’s last 1 & 1/4 anti-inflammation/painkiller pill. Nice, because they were pretty sticky! And one less thing to forget. ;-)

Again, since the first pill, she has not limped once. From today until next Thursday we’ll have another week of no activity other than calm, straight line walking, and then we can finally start doing FUN- um, ACTIVE FUN things again!

My agenda says that we’ll start Levels training on Friday the 15th, so far I think I will stick to that plan... ahum... give myself some time to get off my butt....

We ARE still going for a longer walk whenever we can, though yesterday was a no-go due to dreary, wet weather & a little, old white dog depending on me for his potty breaks. This morning however, we- I, gathered all my stuff (whistle around my neck, 3 slices of cooked sausage in the treat bag along with 100g of kibbles, phone, Kleenex, house keys-) and off we went!

A nice walk, sunny and dry, nice temperature. I planned to do three ‘practice’ RRR’s (Really Reliable Recall), meaning ‘there’s no emergency but we’re just practicing’ and I got to do only ONE where I felt I was actually calling her away from something. Both other times she seemed to just be a little ways away ‘because I said to ‘mind your own business’’, but mentally she was still with me. Either way she did nice recalls and couldn’t get the sausage out of my hands quick enough! :-)

A longer walk, great training inspiration & white socks!

Another great day with a longer walk!

I decided this time, because I’m not sure the harness is really comfortable & because I find it hard to walk with a dog on a tight leash, to allow Luna to be off-leash. As soon as I saw another dog though, I’d put her on leash and have her walk by my side or Sit. Why? Because I realized that the problem isn’t that Luna is rowdy when she’s off leash. The problem is playing with other dogs and me throwing stuff for her. If those things don’t happen, she’s a perfectly behaved, calmly trotting dog. Nothing gained there by putting her on leash. I was very glad I made that choice, and as such it was a much more comfortable walk!

Also, I found absolutely GREAT training stuff, ideas & inspiration on the training blog of a Training Levels follower. She’s ‘green_gargoyle’ on the TL List and she has 2 Golden Retriever boys, Zachary & baby Henry. I’m making my own plans modeled off of hers now! Yay! Thanks, Kathleen!

I went shopping today to get my new agenda for 2011 (fuchsia), and I also got 50 business cards, 100 index cards, a fuchsia 2-ring binder (all of which I plan to use for dog training), a really cute 2011 dog calendar AND I remembered, standing at the check-out desk and happening to see them, to buy WHITE SOCKS to put the dummy’s in for our Gundog training! Whoohoo!

About the picture: That's Luna last spring, having a HUGE blast digging for her ball in a big pile of sand. Two police officers on bikes came by, and one of them said, when he saw Luna digging around, "Easter's over, you know! No more digging for eggs!" Haha!

Another longer walk & ideas for Gundog Training.

 Whooo, 71 degrees again! Today we took the longer walk at 1.30 PM, as I also have our old dog Cedric to walk today. So this morning I took them out together for a 15-minute trip.

Her harness is still too small, I think. The belly band is right behind her elbows and ideally, I should be able to fit my flat hand between her elbow and the belly band. Hmm. Not sure what I’m gonna do about that yet. I could buy a new harness, one size up for the neck-part and then the same size as the belly band is now, or a different one altogether. Anyways...

I also had an aha! moment while drying the dishes; I don’t need to teach Luna about difficult retrieves, I need to teach her that she can TRUST me that when I say, there’s a bumper out there, it’s really there. I can do that by making sure she can ALWAYS SEE the bumper from where I send her to go get it. So I either work on totally flat land/concrete, or I put a white sock around the bumper.

This way, I CAN add distance, but I most importantly make sure that Luna learns she can really go out when I tell her to. She needs to BELIEVE that when I say Go, she’ll find a bumper.

Success criteria will be; as long as she finds the bumper without needing my help, that’s a pass. The faster the better, but if she doesn’t need me, that’s a pass. IF she AT ANY POINT FAILS to get the bumper ON THE FIRST SEND, that means she needs MORE practice with bumpers she CAN find immediately.

There. Yay me!

The picture is of last winter, during a Gundog Training Week on one of the Dutch islands, Ameland. It was freezing cold, but SO much fun! This was the first time Luna happily retrieved anything other than a ball. Look how proud she is! By the way, we're going again next January, only this time we'll be prepared!

A longer walk!

Last night was a no-go, it was raining quite heavily. This morning was beautiful though; clear blue skies and temperatures in the high fifty’s, low sixties. This afternoon around 3 PM it was 71 degrees!

So I took her flexi-lead and harness and off we went! She took about 10 minutes to get used to the harness & the weight of the flexi, but then she had it figured and used the 26 feet of line nicely. She stayed mostly within 20 feet.

Still makes me smile, to see her trying to keep the leash loose even on her harness. I encourage her to go by saying ‘go ahead, go pee’. Don’t think that makes much difference until she is comfortable with the setup.

All in all it was a nice, hot, somewhat muddy walk with a beautifully responsive dog!

The picture is Luna at 11 months, in season. That leash was  6,5 feet long and I threw it away! Not a very smart idea, but I’ve recently made a new one out of a 16 foot long line. I’m very happy with the new one!

More plans for a lasting recovery.

 I just thought of another Levels behaviour we can work on while Luna is recovering from her knee injury. Scenting!

So now, we have the following items to work on while Luna has to take it easy; Zen, Down & Down Stay, Sit & Sit Stay, Handling, Watch, & Scenting.

Also, I will be taking Luna for longer walks on her flexi-lead and harness as of - weather permitting - tonight. We’ll then be doing 45 minutes, which is about 2,4 miles. Hopefully this will help keep her muscles in good condition and rush along her weight loss a little faster than it is going right now.

I said...

 NO playing with other dogs...

Well, I let her anyway, this morning, with Senna the Bernese Mountain Dog whom I actually suspect of having CAUSED Luna’s injury in the first place! AND I let them play on leash. *Sigh*

Well, that’s not going to happen anymore.

There IS however, good news! I have not seen Luna limp since yesterday. Yay!

AND, according to the client desk, a DVD (Susan Garrett’s Crate Games) I’d ordered about a month ago is finally on its way here! Yay, again!

I took this picture on September 18, when all was well with her legs.