Whoo-hoo! We have a Whistle Sit!

Today on our morning walk, I asked for a lot of whistle Sits. They would go like this; Whistle Sit cue, Luna'd turn and start towards me (intending to Sit in Front), I'd immediately follow with the Hand Signal Sit, and she'd stop and Sit where she was. I consistently repeated this when she was a good way out in front of me.

At about 3/4 of our walk, I saw that she was beginning to anticipate the Hand Signal after the Whistle. So, I took a chance; 'Can you Sit where you are on the Whistle alone?' YES, she could! Whoo-hoo! Big party!

I repeated that two more times, for a total of 3 Sits in place on the Whistle cue alone, and each one got better and faster! C/T for me remembering to stop after the 3rd successful trial. ;-)

Obviously we'll be practicing this a lot more, and when she's nice and solid on the Whistle Sit, I'll start mixing it up with the Whistle Recall, so that she learns to really listen and discriminate between the two sounds. I'm confident she'll nail it, and then we're all set for the Gundog training week in January!

I use the same whistle, an Acme 211,5 for both cues; Sit is 'Piew!' and Come is 'Fuuut-Fuuut!'

Luna, you rock!

Training Log for Dec 18

 

Been a while! But we’re back now. I realized yesterday that it is only three weeks before our trip to Ameland, and there were some things I wanted to practice with Luna before that time. Today, we got started.

First I explained to her the ‘Sit’ whistle, or rather a ‘Place’ whistle because I’ll accept a Down too. So long as at least her butt’s on the ground, that’s good. And I know, if she’s really into it, she’ll Down. So, fine! Installing the whistle up close was a breeze, now we’re just working on getting her to respond immediately at a distance without coming toward me or needing a hand signal as a back-up. Besides that though, she did a good job!

Next, we moved on to retrieves. I decided to try some double retrieves, with two dummies relatively close to each other so that she would have to go back to the same spot to get the 2nd dummy. This was hard. She needed me to walk with her toward the general location, and I had to toss the 2nd dummy again twice. I don’t think her motivation was the issue though, which is a good sign, but rather the fact that the dummies got swallowed by 7 inches of snow. And sniffing them out seems to be quite a task. So, although we LOVE the snow, I do hope it’ll melt before our due date, or we won’t be able to practice retrieves! Oh well... At least by then we will have a Come- and a Sit whistle! Yay!

Other than that, we had a blast running through the snow, playing with a ball - see above image - and enjoying the outdoors.

On the food front; she’s been on the pre-ground raw mix now for two weeks and she’s doing great on it! Also, I bought a little less than 2 pounds of cheese as treats, and the thing isn’t even half used yet, so that means it actually lasts way longer than I thought it would. Nice!

I haven’t weighed her since, but I will do that in the next few days.

What else? Um.... well, we’ve been playing ball on the days I don’t have to walk our old Westie as well, and she’s very happy about that. I no longer have her Stay until the ball lays still, but I will not throw the ball until she stops and looks at me to see where it will go. This way, she doesn’t make weird moves trying to catch the ball in mid-flight, she slows down nicely before picking it up off the ground. Good girl!

I’ve also been letting her carry the ball when we encounter other dogs, as this has, in the past, helped very well in keeping her calm rather than throwing a fit at the other dog. When holding the ball, she’ll just high-step trot right past the dog and stop on the other side; ‘Will you kick my ball mom?’ I’ve noticed that I do have to insist she hold on to it, because if she lays down and releases the ball, the next step is that she’ll run up to the other dog, screams in its face and then runs back to get her ball and move on. It’s funny, in a way, but not good.

And I’ve decided to do some Bar Open - Bar Closed with other dogs as well; continuous feeding when we see another approaching dog, and then the feeding stops when the other dog is far enough away. That’s gonna cost me more cheese, but all the better if that means eventually she can Sit and be calm as a default, when other dogs show up. I’d like to get her to the point where she doesn’t need a ball in her mouth - which is really just management - but just go; ‘oh, a dog, look ma, I’m Sitting and looking at you!’ That would be nice.

Anyone has other ideas?

Training Log for Dec 3

Last night, on our last walk of the day, we had a fun training session. We worked on Heeling, Fronts, Finishes, and Down, Sit and Stand in motion, in that order. Her heeling - short stretches, 20-30 paces, some right about turns - was beautiful; tail wagging, looking up at me, her shoulder nicely lined up with my leg, and smiling happily. What a wonderful little lady.

Her Finishes often included a jump into position and a ‘Look at me go!’ face.

We did a Down in motion twice, then a Sit in motion twice - the first with an extra hand signal to remind her that Sit goes up, not down, she Downed anyway, I stopped and waited. ‘Oh, Sit!’ C/T! - and then I decided to see what she would do if I asked for a Stand in motion. Heeling, heeling, ‘Stand!’ and she Downed. I stopped a couple of paces away from her, intending to let her figure it out. Down didn’t get her the click. Sit didn’t get her the click. Down with her chin on the ground did not get her the click. Down on her side did not get her the click. Then, she said, ‘I don’t know!’ and she came to me and Sat. OK, let me help you! Heeling, heeling, heeling, ‘Stand!’ and my index finger lightly under her belly. She stood and remained standing as I walked on, Click & chase the ball! Repeated that another time, and then without reminding her of her back end. Heeling, heeling, ‘Stand!’ and I kept walking. She took 5 more steps & there was the Stand. YAY! Good girly! Get your ball!

Again. Heeling, heeling, heeling, ‘Stand!’ and I kept walking. She took 3 more steps and Stood. Whoohoo!

Again. Heeling, heeling, ‘Stand!’ and I kept walking. She took 1, maybe 2 more steps before standing. Eeh haw! Luna is the best dog in the world!

Wow. I was amazed. And SO proud. She was smiling and happy the whole time, even when I let her figure out the Stand on her own that first time. Such a difference from the sulking, hunched, insecure dog she was four years ago, in our traditional obedience classes. We ended the session with a little more ball play, and then I let her keep the ball as we continued on home.

I am super duper happy right now. What a fantastically smart dog!

Oh, by the way, the picture shows Luna at 4 years old, with the same happy face she had going all through last night’s session. I call it her ‘Wheehee!’ face. ;-)

Training Log for Nov 27

This morning we worked on Sit, Stand, Down at a distance, and Front on the street in front of the house.

This afternoon we took the dummybag to the driest field we have close by, as mud and consequently a very hard to clean black dog is not my idea of fun. We live on clay here, and wet clay sucks. ;-)

On the way to the field, about a 15-minute walk, we worked on Sits and Downs at a distance while Luna was trotting and running ahead of me. She did great! And the coolest thing I’ve discovered is that I can now say ‘Sit’ and she’ll sit without any sign of avoidance or discomfort. ‘Sit’ is our traditionally trained word for the Sit, and before, when I would use it, she’d sink into a sit, yawn and look away. Or worse, she’d lay down. Now, she gets the ‘yay, she asks me to do something!’-face and she does a perky Sit with no more yawning or looking away. Whoohoo! Took about a year to get to this point, but now I can clearly see that Sit=Fun hugely outweighs the Sit=Bad association. Classical Conditioning at its best!

Now, she will occasionaly still lay down instead of Sit, but that’s clearly an ‘I’m SURE you want me to Down’ rather than a sign of avoidance or feeling intimidated. In other words, it’s because she’s not listening to the cue.

On the field, we first did dummy retrieves. The first was simply the dog sitting at heel, tossing a dummy out ahead of us, and asking her to retrieve it. Repeated that another time. Then, I asked her to Sit, walked about 15 feet away, then tossed a dummy to the right. Asked her to come to me, turned to face the dummy and sent her to retrieve it from a Sit at heel. Repeated the same exercise with a dummy thrown to the left.

Then, I again placed her in a Sit, walked 15 feet away, tossed a dummy to the left and one to the right. Called her to me, lined her up and sent her to retrieve the 1st thrown dummy. She remembered it and went out in a nice straight line at good speed. Once she brought in the first dummy, I lined her up with the 2nd dummy and asked her to get that one. Again, success!

The last exercise I put her in a Sit, walked 15 feet away, tossed one dummy behind me and one to the right. First, I asked her to retrieve the one on the right, and then I turned with her toward the dummy behind me, and asked her to get it. She did it! Whoohoo! And, another thing worth mentioning, she delivered every retrieve right into my hand. Good girly!

With that, we quit the dummy retrieves and I tossed her ball a few times. Then, we spent some time playing with the ball, doing Leave It’s as I tossed it, throwing it as a reward for Sits, Downs and Stands, and I tried to get her to ‘speak’ by feigning to kick the ball a few times and saying ‘Whatdaya say?’ This gets her all revved up and every time she barked once, I kicked the ball. Great fun!

Then, I put the ball about 30 feet away and laid a track of kibble every two feet toward the ball while Luna held a Down Stay. Then I asked her to come and use her nose. She wanted to go straight for the ball, but then she caught scent of the kibble and put her nose to the grass. Yay! By the time she got to the ball she was so engrossed in finding the kibble that I had to tell her to get the ball, haha!

To finish, I laid a second track on pavement while Luna held a Sit Stay, about 40 feet with kibble every two feet. She did this one nicely again, overshot some of the kibble but then went back to collect it. She was a bit scattered throughout, so next time I’ll lay the track as Steve White does, which in the beginning is just a line of non-stop treats. He also uses water, which we might do too.

Then, on the way back home, we ran into a friend with a German Shepherd and we ended up going along on her walk, so all in all we had two hours of activity! Nice!

The picture shows Luna on her 2nd birthday, my little wolf! ;-)

Still overfeeding.

Oh! Aha!

I just weighed Luna again, and once again the scale said 70,5 pounds. Huh?!

So, today I did another calculation of how much food she's supposed to get, and I come up with 246 grams. In other words, she's still getting too much food (I was giving her 300 grams). Also, I'm thinking maybe this food is too rich for her. I don't want to feed her a tiny bit of food just so she won't gain weight.

Also, to give myself more room for treats other than her 'boring' - for which she works way too well - kibble, I think that when this bag of food runs out (I'm guessing another week or so) I'll put her back on the pre-ground raw meat mix I had her on before the kibble. Then I can use cheese, ground beef and chicken as treats (the raw mix is way too gross and stinky to use as treats, takes all day to get the stench off my hands!). AND she can eat a larger volume of food. AND she did fine on the pre-ground mix (that's what she was on in April).

Why did I change to kibble? Because I couldn't figure out how to have handy treats AND feed her the raw mix, without overfeeding. Now I've figured it out! So, in about two weeks she'll be back on the 'good-old' raw mix, and I'm really curious to see how she'll do!

Thanks for reading my food rambles. ;-)

Wordless Thursday

For comparison with the picture in my previous post which shows Luna at her ideal weight (61 pounds);

This is Luna last July, at 70,5 pounds. I'll put her on the scale again tomorrow, but she already looks better now than she did in this shot!

Training Log for Nov 23

Worked on Heel, Sit, Stand, Down, Front, Finish. Used a Fantastic Foam ball as a reward. Dropped the ball from under my arm for a good Heel, Finish or Stand at my side, dropped it from the middle of my chest for a good Front, tossed it to her for positions at a distance.

Stand at a distance & Stand by my side were things we haven’t done before. She got the Stand at a distance in 2 trials, and the Stand by my side with use of a nose touch in about 4 trials. By then, she’d stand, touch my hand and then look at me; ‘I KNOW it is the Stand you want, NOT the nose touch!’ From there I began sticking my hand out as a reminder, and she wouldn’t even bother with touching anymore; ‘ah, look, I get it!’ So next time we’ll see if she can do it without a hint!

We worked on the street in front of our house, and her favorite neighborhood cat was also sitting outside in full view. Cars came by, but those never bother her at all. So, the distraction was definitely the cat, and I think she did great! I heeled her past the cat once, got great eye contact throughout, dropped the ball for her and she came right with me instead of saying hi to the cat. Another time before that, I had put the ball on the sidewalk, parallel to the cat on the other side of the street. We heeled away from the ball, turned back toward the ball, Finish, and I sent her off to go get the ball. She looked at the cat as she took off, but then went straight to her ball and brought it back to me. Yay!

We had fun!

The picture shows Luna last April, with a Zogoflex Huck ball, at her ideal weight of ± 61 pounds. Tomorrow I’ll know how close she is to reaching that weight!