We finally got confirmed that both of my girls got place in a dog dancing competition. Pixie will dance in a open class level freestyle and Freya will make first try at beginner level HTM (heelwork to music). Pixie will do old routine with Jari Sillanpää’s song Bum Bum Bum. I hope our routine will be complex enough get us through the open class. We have been working on a new more difficult routine but I hope I this will be shown in the highest class in the end of the year. Freya’s music will be Maniac from Flashdance. It was just so her song. We did a pretty simple routine to it and we had a lot of help from Sanna Lipponen a member of the Finland National team of dog dancing. I hope this will be a nice entering routine for her and we will have lots of fun.
I think the best part of dog dancing is the training. I can use shaping with very creatively and even the dogs become more and more creative. Pixie has developed many new tricks during our shaping processes. It has been so much fun and also sometimes challenging to find away make the dog do certain things you have in mind. One evening few weeks ago I was training with Pixie with a paw target and doing 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 2 – 3 lifts in variable schedule. We had done this already many session and I started feel that this wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. Then on our third mini session I just adjusting my treats and target, Pixie started to do Spanish walk in continuous space. JACKPOT TIME!!! Pixie had super light bulb moment with our Spanish walk work. I was so trilled. These are the moments why dog dancing is just great. New things to learn and train all the time. It was sad I didn’t get this moment to a video but I try remember film our next session.
Jumping technique training and smooth runs
I have started a jumping technique trainer class with Vappu Alatalo. To this class we need first have project dog and later on own group that we train. I have started to do more of the basic training with my dogs and filmed the trainings. This has been already a very interesting project and I have learned more about dogs. Freya has been very good and adjusting her jumping to different exercises. Pixie in the other hand has shown a little decline in her jumping skills. So it has been interesting work with both girls and make confidence in jumping even better. Here are some of the training we have done so far:
Pixie has had a little problems with her body and we had to discontinue our competition in Lohja. After that we had Piira’s osteopathic treatment which showed that Pixie had multiple locks on her spine. 1,5 weeks of rest and some physical training to her right leg. Little brake and treatment worked well and we did 5 clean runs from 7 at Easter competition. This meant that Pixie had all the needed results team try outs and Finnish Championship competition. Best was that Pixie didn’t drop a single bar during two days of competition. This was a very relieving feeling. And of course when we had good flow in competition, I don’t have a single run on film. Freya had also her moments but I have still few things we need train on and one is slalom distraction. We had few spots that were little too hard for her. So more training to do but Freya found a totally new gear in speed. Super girls!! This is good point to continue. That's all for now!! MPF
I have trained Freya for the winner class in obedience. It has lot of new tasks and some that are more challenging version of open class tasks. It has been fun to see her progress and also to see how learning curve goes up and down. When you teach a new behavior chain it usually works pretty well at first. Then follows a testing time where dogs test can they get away with different kind of behaviors. This a normal learning curve period which tests the handlers’ patience and skills to overcome the testing phase. Today Freya had her test period with controlled retrieve. She had her stocking mode on and stopped to a U-shape position to watch the dumbbell. This was the first time she anticipated the retrieve part. It actually looked really funny. So I rewarded her from healing nicely to the dumbbells and next reward point was doing nice straight stop. This is just one example of the testing of the behavior chain in ob.
Scent discrimination
Freya have had problem of being in too high drive while doing a scent discrimination. When she is in a hurry she takes the next wooden object to the right one or she runs so that half of objects are behind her and when she doesn’t find the right one she just brings the nearest. I have tried in many ways to correct her working energy but I haven’t got the results that I wanted. I wanted to find something knew to change the way she worked. I got my answer from video library in Karen Pryor Academy.
I watched a lecture of Hannah Branigan from Clicker Expo 2015 library. She had a very interesting idea how to train scent discrimination. Hanna used a cover of a plastic containers to teach scent discrimination. You start with one cover to teach a strong nose touch, then introduce second cover that has touch only from the edge. You click every time the dog touches the right cover that has touched between hands (a hot target). At first the dog doesn’t know what it’s doing but it doesn’t take too long and the dog hits always the hot target. As soon as you have more than one cover you should change the order all the time. Later on you just add one cover at the time to make this search more complex. If you dog makes mistake, you just wait it to find the right one. With these cover you can easily stop dog from lifting the wrong one and you just click for the right one. Gradually you can also introduce distraction between the cover. Also you can start using retrievable object that you make as the hot object to bring the retrieve part to the task.
With this exercise I could make Freya find out hot object even though it was behind her. With plastic covers she couldn’t retrieve closed object as panic choice if didn’t find the real hot object. I could just wait her to look for the cover that she had left behind her. All together this way of training has made her scent work calmer and I have had change reward her more during one session. I think this plastic cover technique would we super to start to whole scent discrimination work even though I only used it to improve Freya work. Here is a video of scent discrimination work right now, not the best:
Winner Class
Today we had our winner class competition. Freya was in low drive mood but she did the task pretty well. We could have got even 1st prize but I didn't wait her to correct her position in the box. My biggest win today was scent discrimination!!! She got 9,5 points and it was just wonderful. Really liked her work. Few homework for next time but she did really well today. I hope that we get her competition confidence as good she has in training. She could be my best ob dog so far. Love her to pieces. Here is our whole winner class:
