|
October, 2003, Week One October 3, 2003 Ah, beginnings! This is my favorite part, because this is when I get to do all sorts of planning and preparing. I'm good at that; I thrive on it. Although I'm equally interested in conformation, obedience, freestyle, and agility, on the advice of several people, I've decided to start with agility. Pax shows a ton of natural ability for the sport, and I think we'd both love it. I also have a plethora of excellent clicker agility resources in my area. Let me take a second to tell you my goals. My goals are to have fun and to qualify. I don't mind occasional NQs, and I don't have to be in the ribbons. I'm not going to get upset if I don't qualify, and I absolutely have no interest in being an elite competitor. At the same time, I'm fairly precise about my training, and I don't like to progress until the current criteria is reliable and strong. I think it's important for me to tell you this upfront, because it takes different levels of training, consistency, and dedication to produce an elite-level competitor than it does to produce a dog who Q's occasionally. (And there are infinite gradations between.) So if you're reading this diary in an attempt to find a roadmap for your own training, compare your goals to mine. If you have higher aspirations, you can probably learn some things, yes, but following what I do to the letter will likely not yield the result you want. The same thing is true in reverse. An elite competitor may have great tips but they may or may not be applicable or advised for the just-for-fun competitor. Anyway, I fully admit that I don't know the ins and outs of agility. I have tons to learn about the sport. At this point, though, I'm dividing my training challenges into five main areas:
The fourth part -- focusing/working in distractions -- is my biggest challenge. Pax has a lovely disposition and is quite confident. He's also very outwardly focused. He's easily distracted and fascinated by other dogs and animals. Really this is a good problem to have. I'd much rather have enthusiastic, creative, curious, outgoing behavior to channel into desired behavior than suppressed, hesitant, fearful, or reactive behavior to "fix." So I've made a rough plan for beginning my work in each of these areas:
Enough for today. I'll give you more details tomorrow. October 4, 2003 Not much today -- first day of a busy weekend. I got Suzanne's jumping book and the book on making agility equipment in the mail today. During my free time, I read both. It's going to take some time to make the jumps to start the jumping program, which, by the way, seems to be a sound progression. I've also got to figure out where to set it up. My backyard, unfortunately, isn't big enough. There's a park near my house, but I'm not sure I want Pax off-leash there. A friend who lives nearby has a large lot. It's not fenced either, but the road is less busy, and she has a couple of dogs to interest him. I guess I need to really work on my recall and on creating some powerful motivational toys while we're getting the jumps built!! Jay and I went to PetSmart yesterday and bought a slew of new toys, some of them specifically for the purpose of creating motivational toys. I gave Jay the agility equipment book. He's my builder. :-) We don't have a lot of extra cash, so we'll build obstacles as we need them. The jumping book calls for 10 pairs of jump standards, but we can get by with just five pairs for the first month, I believe. I also want a full set of weave poles right away. Only training I did today was a session with the partial weave poles. Originally, I clicked for correct entry and fed through the second opening. Today I increased my criteria and clicked for a correct entry and a turn toward the second opening. There were a couple of errors, but overall it was quite successful. I can't progress much (unless I switch to varying my position) until I get more weave poles. Upcoming tasks:
Tomorrow Jay and I are taking the dogs to Portland for a local dog group get-together. It's a training day, so I may have some fun things to report. October 6, 2003 Had a great time in Portland yesterday! Here are a couple of photos...
The photos were taken by a group member, Heather. She is a marvelous photographer, and had a super Web site. You can see more of the photos from yesterday and tons of her other great photos here. I noticed yesterday that although Pax and Rain very much want to be in the same space I'm in -- being on the other side of a fence able to see but not reach me is *not* good enough -- Pax isn't terribly motivated to work with me if there's something more interesting going on. Actually, if you'll forgive the anthropomorphizing, I would describe him as having a poor work ethic. This is decidedly my fault. I've given him everything he wants for "free" for so long that if something I want him to do is even remotely challenging, he just quits. (I've noticed this at home too, by the way. It was just more blatant at the get-together.) Fortunately, the problem is fixable. I just have to change my behavior. :-) So starting today, I'm not quite as much at his beck and call. When he asks for attention, I'm more than happy to give it... if he sits or downs first. His reaction has been quite interesting -- he turns and walks away. Hey, no skin off my nose. We'll see if he becomes more interested in working with me over the next couple of days. Of course, I've engaged him a few times as well. I started working on a new trick today -- Bark! -- and we've done some recall work. I made a new rule. If he doesn't want to work, I won't bribe him or otherwise beg him to work with me. He just loses the opportunity to get great treats! (And I've found Rain is more than happy to participate.) To be completely fair, I have to note that both dogs are pretty quiet and subdued today. Pax, who normally drives me INSANE all morning with his over-the-top energy, stuck his head out only once or twice before lunch. I expect they're still recovering from the trip to Portland. It will be interesting to see whether he'll be more interested in interacting with me. Today we did a couple of sessions on "Bark." Pax is very talky, but he's not much of a barker. I really had to work to elicit a true bark from him, and he didn't seem real comfortable with the behavior. More sessions and great reinforcement needed! We also did various short sessions with the recall. I even used a McDonald's hamburger at one point. We've got a long way to go on this behavior. A long way. I compiled a materials and tool list for the first pieces of agility equipment I want to make -- one set of six weave poles and five single jumps (2 with wings, 3 without). Jay says we can make them this weekend. Yay! I also started conditioning a motivational toy today. The boys went absolutely bonkers -- they're very toy driven. I'm going to condition several toys. I want a variety of reinforcers in my toolbox. I haven't made a complete list of starting behaviors yet. Maybe tomorrow! October 7, 2003 I organized my list of starting behaviors, and I made training plans for many of them. The list includes all of the behaviors in Helix's level one CyberAgility class even though we work on them in a staggered fashion over the next three months. It also includes some specific behaviors from each of my five main training areas. My complete list of behaviors:
Let's see, 18 things. Piece of cake, right! <grin> Obviously, I can't work on all those things every day. The first half, I mentioned, are behaviors for Helix's class and are on a specific (and staggered) schedule. I'll also mention that I took this class a year ago, so we have a head start on many of the behaviors. The rest of the list is a mishmash of new and old, simple and complex, hard and easy. Some I'll emphasize and work on daily, and others I'll do occasionally. We worked on a variety of things today. On our walk we did a variety of heeling behaviors, and every now and then I stopped to ask for familiar behaviors. He didn't want to really engage out there, though he did respond if I was patient. One of my goals is to get him to truly engage -- to be actively focused on me and actively working with me -- even when we're in new and distracting situations. This is why I will be taking him on the road as often as possible. It's a first step, building to attending classes and shows. I don't want to put him in an "in-person" class right now, because he would be too distracted to work, and I would get frustrated. We also played with the tunnel today. His favorite toy is his retrieving bumper, so I got a couple out, positioned the tunnel in a doorway so he couldn't go around it, and rewarded runs through with a toss. He had a blast. The behavior isn't on cue yet -- far from it -- but he's definitely not intimidated by running through the tunnel. (Neither is Rain!) I did a couple of "Bark" sessions as well. Not terribly successful. Now that he knows my knocking isn't "real," he doesn't bark. I *am* getting occasional growls though. Since we're just beginning, I can accept any noise. I'll gradually raise my criteria later. I kept up with the "nothing is free" program. Actually, even by yesterday evening (after he had recovered a bit from the previous day), he had responded quite well. He was dropping into quick sits and offering very polite behavior to get attention. The only problem we've had today is that he really doesn't distinguish well between sit and drop. That's my fault, because in the past I haven't been picky about which he did -- I just wanted him to exhibit some self-control. So now I am being picky, so he has to learn to differentiate the cues. The next major thing on my list is to go through Helix's behaviors and figure out our starting points. | Next page | Diary Home | List and Site Owner: Melissa Alexander, melissa @ clickersolutions.com |
