Good nutrition - happy and strong dogs

Nutrition is a very important part of competition dogs health. It is also important to me that my dogs food that keeps them in shape and is good for their digestion. I have tried many makes but Acana and Orijen has improved to be the best. I have liked a lot of their companies values and how they have developed the idea of biologically appropriate food. Here you can read more from the company's website - Champion Petfoods.

My competition dog Pixie has a sensitive stomach. In the competition season I need to be careful that she has a balanced food and it contains no grains ( these make muscle stiff and swollen as in humans). So she has used a long time Orijen or Acanas grain free options. At this moment we have used ACANA WILD PRAIRIE , This has been very tasty kibble. She can be train with it and has enough energy make her fly on dog sports. Here are some pics to see her liking of her food:

 Freya my youngest dog was raised with Orijen Puppy. Now she and my oldest dog eats Acana Adult Dog. This has only oats as a grain. This has been good basic food for active senior and growing young dog. Freya has been so far a dog that can eat almost anything. Nothing upsets her stomach. Freya is also so greedy that kibble can be used to training which helps to keep her in shape. At this point I have considered a more high energy food for her. She seems to have super energy burning age so we will see what I will get her next. Here are pics from Freya doing tricks Acana kibble:

Freya and high five trick!














Freya also has made her first run a unofficial competition. She was super good!! She waited in the start and did a nice clear round. She didn't get any prizes because she ran in medium height jumps. Freya hasn't jump a course higher than 50 cm so didn't want to make her do it in a new environment. She had enough new things to smell and watch. Here is a video of our first round:



That's all for now!!!

MLPF

Welfare in dog sports

There have been a nice blog post in Tiina's Blog about dogs welfare (in Finnish). We use dogs to different purposes in our lives. Some are for company, some for sports and some for protection. Do we provide the best care for our dogs? Are some breeds happy if they just lay on a sofa and get to go out two times a day? On the other hand are some breeds happy run and do sports all day round? These are things everyone should think when they take a dog. As breed dog person I have seen too many times that working dog breed is taken home as couch potato or a long back dog like corgi is make to do agility.

Training also is a big part of welfare. There are many ways to train. One is scientific proven way and lots other ways that uses force or correction. I was thought first force way - drive-sanction-drive (reward). This way is still used in working dog sport and obedience. My oldest dog has been trained with this way and she worked well but I have learn a lot from that. I have seen also the side effects that this kind of training does. First I was introduced to clicker training in our ob group. There was a doctor that had read about this kind of training in Swedish training books. First I didn't buy it but I wanted to learn more.

Years past on and read more and more about positive re-enforcement. More I read more I was sure this was the way to do it. More I saw what I had done to my older dog wrong. I started built Pixie as my first clicker dog. More I trained her more I was hooked to clicker training. I could see a major difference in my dog. Positive dog that had freedom to think. I can say that I didn't know answer to all the problems on my new training way. It was hard to find help that knew how to train in a positive way. Pixie wasn't built perfectly but I had had a revolution in training methods.

At this point I started to really ask in my mind some of the ways high level ob people trained their dogs. You could see they training methods in the competition field. Flat tails, tens bodies and so on. Still these people get high scores in competitions. In my mind obedience was a sport with different tricks that should be done in happy wagging tails. I know I'm not a perfect and I have done many mistakes with Pixie. But I have had a new revolution with Freya. I'm not sure that any force or even verbal correction in obedience is necessary if you are good enough trainer. I hope that we will have a
revolutions in this sport so that we will have wagging tails and not a " concentration" tails ( this is a funniest way shadowing a truth that the dogs super tense).

Welfare in agility is also something that should be address from the organizations level. One of the issues is EO ranking. You can collect points the whole year but many people including me needed to keep competing till the end of year to get enough points. This was really tiring and stupid!!! I would be happy to have just a few weekend during the competitions season where all the places would be enrolled. Enough of this year round competing. I can make choices for my dog but this kind of change would make it easier to keep real competition brake. As an idea.... Could winter be for lower class competitions and the hot season only for high class dogs???

Agility is also sport that many of us train during week days and also compete in weekends. Do our dogs get enough rest? Does everyone has a day that you do tricks and different runs to enhance your dogs physic? Or do we do it all during competition week? What is too much and what is the right kind stimulus to keep our competition partner in shape? When dogs is trained it doesn't really need too much of training to keep up its skilsl if the training is done from a good training plan. So if we need more training to become better handlers we should also make plan what we need to train to minimize the training time we need work with a dog. I can only say that I have never been a super handler and it has mean too many jumps from my dogs to train me to be better handler. Could there be a way to train handlers without dogs?

Third part of the training welfare is physical treatment of the dogs. They are super athletes so they should get the best treatment there is to keep them in shape. This shouldn't be way to take everything out of them. Physiotherapy should be way to check that the body recovers and if there's injury help it become better and get professional help to keep you dog in balance. Our pride should be that you dog get a relaxing massage in physiotherapist session if it's ok and doing sport with balanced exercise.

I'm not writer person when it comes to opinions. I better when I talk out loud. I have some ideas and I still a long way to become super trainer but I found my path. I also hope learn more and more about my dogs so that I will know what is what they want and need. I hope to also keep my goals in sight but still see what is happening around. It is easy get lost in training and forget to see partners feelings.

Listen to your dogs and be realistic what you training partner is ready for! Road will full on bumps but it will be a fun ride in the end if you decide to make it so.

That's for know!

MLPF

Finally a free weekend!

Don't shoot the dog!

I have under a project a book- Don't shoot the Dog. This is a book written by Karen Pryor. She is one the founders and firsts trainer to use operant condition in animal training. I have read a lot of her books and articles. These are really a eye opening text in animal training. Her multiple examples about positive training from animal and human world just makes you wonder how isn't this become every day thing all over the world? With her examples she has challenge me also think how I train and how to find the answers to my training problems. I can only recommend her books to anyone that owns an animal.

Training ob with Freya

This morning we did some training with laying down. Freya is so sharp minded dog that I have decided to make her keep her head down in long stays. This project has been started in living room and I'm now starting to take it different environments. She has starting to be pretty good at it. Now we just need to built duration.

I just read last night to the new rules in Ob that will be coming in August. So Freya and I made a training to learn the new jump. This was much much easier than the jump before. We train the jump set up that we will have in open and beginner class. Here are videos from both training's in ob:



Agility with both girls

We also trained little bit of lapturn with Freya. My first goal was to make her come to me to get a reward. Then we made to whole thing. After we did the whole thing I saw that she was jumping head high. Freya got her eye on me and not to the jump. At this point I put a toy behind the jump to make her focus more lower. This worked pretty well. Although we needed to do few tries to make concentrate to the task and not to toy. But in the end she did super! Watch to jump technique difference from the video.

Pixie did the same lap turn challenge. Her hardest part was to come to me for a treat. She just went and said I know what I need to do. :D This was a good training to make her listen to me again. After little jump turn training we did the wave challenge from Italy and other wave distraction. Now more writing here are our videos from today:




That's all for now!!!

MLPF

Reaction training continues and super healing... Related??

Freya is getting relaxed

I can't be any happier!! We have done now about 1 week of reactions training. This has been work of desensitizing and counter-conditioning. Freya has done super! She has become more relaxed. Our out coming from doors and car has been changed to situations that are in-control and in relaxed stage. Our work is not yet been done but I have really seen to power of positive reinforcement in changing behavior. Just love it!! I can only tell that if you have a problem in your dogs behavior research for a professional animal trainer that uses only positive reinforcement. Thank Kaisa again!!

Ob training

Freya and I went to train ob with Tiina and Jaime on Thursday. First I had an very wild puppy but in the end we got really nice tasks done. Freya did some speed work with a box and afterwards some position training in the box. We had had a long brake from box work so she had a little trouble of getting it again. Also we did some stop in healing. This has  been a bit of problem task. Freya doesn't stop fast enough. We worked to stop by me walking backwards and giving her cue. She improved a lot but we have to do more training to make her confident of doing a high speed stop. Last we training healing with distraction. Freya was really cool! She just changed all her focus to me when distractions started to happen. I wonder, do I have already help from our reactions training? Has that changed better focus to me?? It really doesn't matter I have done something right with this little ob puppy!!! :D :D :D

Agility with both girls

It was an eye opening training to see how different dogs I have. Pixie has been coming back from training brake and I had a plan to make course training with her. First of all she had lost her brakes - so lots of rewarding of collecting if asked to slow down. Second our old problem of knocking down pars was present and needed to be addressed. In the end we made clear and fast run but we have few issues to work with before Pixie will be going back to competition arenas.

Freya in the other hand showed her agility skills again. I raised the bars to 50 cm for the first time. She dropped first two bars and took it from the beginning again that made it the last bar that she dropped during the training session. We also worked on a lap turn. This went ok but I could see that she will need basic work with this handling maneuver. I haven't done the basic training well enough. Also we had a little issues of should she stay in 2on2off position after seesaw. It needed few tries and finally she got the idea that she needed to wait my release cue. All this was made a little bit more difficult because seesaw was against a wall. Yet again Freya got it perfectly in the end. This training session was a good reminder that when working with young dogs it's sometimes better go back to kinder garden to be able to go forward again.

That's all for now!! Happy training for everyone!!

MLPF

3 day training brake is over.

Reaction actions under control

Freya has been training with Kaisa's instructions to control her reactions. I have been rewarding on every target she starts to stare at. The goal is to make her scary or new targets good things and in the end to make her leave them. We have been taken walks to Piikkiö downtown get multiple repeats. We have seen other dog, people with different vehicle, children, different sounds, shopping carts etc. With easy target like people she already takes contact to my when see notices a new person in sight. With harder target like a dog, I need be ready rewards her longer time. It's now pretty easy to tell when she is ready to go closer or if we need to take some distance to keep control and right mood. This has been a easy task but the help to her re-activity is a huge. Also she has start to work for after seeing distraction. This really helps in sports like ob. Still some work to do but we on a right path.

Running dogwalk with Freya

This morning we went to take few repeats with the dog walk. Goal was to take forward cue in use and also to train turnings. Freya has just superb!! She got the forward cue right away and speed was amazing! I rewarded her after she took one jump straight ahead from the dog walk. Next was a turning cues. This training went really well. She still need some confidence to make the turn really well but she has the idea of them really well. In this training I also rewarded after a jump that was on the turning line. Overall Freya did really good job. Soon we have to start doing the dog walk in a course training. Time really flyes and my baby grows to be a young sport dog <3 <3

Pixie ends her 5 week rest period

It has been ages since Pixie has done agility. I wanted to keep her 5 week total brake from training. We have had a pretty intense competition season behind us. I was really tired and so was Pixie. Today we went to do agility after a long time. I can only say that I had really for got how fast she is. Pixie just flied and she was so happy and hot! We will need some course training before I will enter us to a competition. I need get back to her rhythm. This will be fun! I have missed to feeling of a little chaos in the agility course.

That's for now! Beautiful winter days to everyone!

MLPF

Our sponsor for this season 2015 Acana and Orijen

Our sponsor season 2015

I can't thank enough to able work with Acana and Orijen dog foods and SLN import. My dog will test and report in the coming year how these super foods will work with three totally different dog. Louise as senior dog, Pixie as active competition dog and Freya as young teenager. All of them will have a different demands in nutrition. Also they have different needs in different times during this season. This will be a very exciting year!


Pixie and Freya went to see Piira

We go regularly to osteopathy Leena Piira. Today both girls had some issues. Pixie and a little stiff in the hips and neck. Freya had stiffness on her rip cage and hips. So we will have three total rest days and then we will start a work with Freyas inner muscles by taking her to forest to do different pace work. Her body has grown but now we have job to make it even stronger. It will be a challenge because she just loves to run and run really fast. The walk part will be our biggest work.

Reactions to control

Freya and I also went to see Kaisa Hilska to get help to her responsiveness. Freya has a problem that she barks easy at a single new person or a dog that comes to her sight. I have done so far a counter-conditioning. This has worked ok but her state of mind has been still very stiff and high alert. Her wrong mental state has giving problems in the hardest situations. So I needed help to get her calm and relaxed. Kaisa gave me a lot homework but I could see a big difference in her work already when we did work at her farm. Our goal was to make Freya relax and look and observe a scary object in peace. I can tell when she sniffed a horse from its nose, I was just totally sold. We have a big work in head of us but I saw a light in the end of the tunnel to make her more relaxed. Thank you Kaisa!!!!!

That's all for now! We will have now three days of relaxation or at least for the dogs. I have still a goal that need sweaty sports. :D :D :D

Yours MLPF

Freya takes ob seriously

Head down

Last few day we have concentrated our work on obedience with Freya. I have finally taken on project of making her keep her head down while on staying task. This has been taught with shaping. I first rewarded a head down movement and then I started to wait for longer time that she kept her head down. During this training I ended up making to problems. First one was a movement that dived forward when she went to head down position. Second have been a smelling of the ground. This problem probably has come from my rewarding her down and sometimes dropping a treat in front of her.

All problems are solvable so now I have kept modifying her work and I have been able to also take distractions with the training. First I just moved little steps and then moved my body in different way. Then changed all this to my side because this is the position she need to be able to do this trick. At this point I can go around her and she will keep her position. At this point I have used a lure reward to keep her focus to the front of her. Freya has really gone miles forward in just a few days. I usually have made two training session per day - one in the evening and one in the morning.

Mark cone training

In Finland we will have new ob rules in 1.8.2015. This will bring a new breeze to this sport and gives nice new tricks to teach. One of the things that will have new meaning is mark cone. There will be many new things that a dog need to do near it. One of the cool thing is sit-down-stand positions after a mark cone. This will be part of a jump retrieve in the highest class. Also dog needs just go around a mark cone and come back. This means it has a little bit different role than in old rules where the dog only needed to know stop at the mark cone.

Yesterday I trained with Freya a marking of a mark cone and going around it. With marking I mean that dog need to look at the mark cone from my cue. This helps the dog concentrate to the up coming task. I reward the dog form looking at a mark cone so that I can give this task a cue. Then when its ready the dog just turns its look for few seconds to find the cone if give the cue. Freya picked up this cue in few takes. I also use this cue to mark the right cone for the dog. This part I make stronger by making a cone circle where I turn to a new cone after every try. Freya did this gone circle training superb. She didn't even remember the last cone. Pixie had a problems of giving up the cone that she got reward from last time. This is just one of training ways to making the dog understand better the meaning of the mark cone.

Retrieve

Freya has retrieve ready as whole task but I have now started to make each part of it better. She has already really fast running speed to a dumbbell but her return speed is a little slower so we have work on it with speed retrieves. This means that as soon as she takes the dumbbell I ask her run to a toy. This has helped a bit. I got a tip from Tarja that she might have too much thought into the dumbbell so my next goal is make her run with the dumbbell. I have planned to make her run with in a agility tunnel, around mark cone etc. I hope this will give her more confident with it so that she can run faster with it. Freya need also repeats with the return. I have to decide will she come to straight to my left side or around me. Both ways ok. Now I just have make it decision which is better for us.

That a little bit about our obedience training lot to go but I hope to enter her to trial this spring under the old rules. I want her to get experiences in different trial places.. We will see how far we will go with ob.

Yours MLPF